German Chancellor Angela Merkel just got an unlikely defender in her domestic battles over migration: Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

In an interview with POLITICO, Kurz distanced himself from his ideological ally, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who has sparked a political crisis in Berlin by calling for Germany to turn back migrants at the country’s border who have previously applied for asylum.

That, in many cases, would mean pushing them back to Austria. But Kurz said that would not be in line with the EU's so-called Dublin Regulation on asylum.

“The Dublin rules require people who have been registered to be returned to the country in which they were first registered — and certainly not to just any other European country,” Kurz said Thursday, on his way to an EU summit in Brussels.

His landlocked country, the chancellor pointed out, is an unlikely port of entry for irregular migrants. “Anyone who knows the geographical situation of Austria knows that people would have had to parachute in,” he said.

Kurz also rejected speculation that he would like to see Merkel ousted — a prospect raised by her dispute with Seehofer, leader of Bavaria's Christian Social Union, which has placed severe strains on the coalition in Berlin.

“What would be my interest in that? I am the head of government in Austria. I therefore have an interest in a stable German government with which we can work together,” Kurz said, adding that he hoped Merkel and Seehofer and their parties would soon find a way to resolve their differences.

“I hope that the German government will pull in the same direction, because that is good for Germany, for neighboring countries such as Austria and also for the European Union," he said.

Rift in alliance

Kurz’s position on the EU's internal borders exposes a deep rift in what has been seen as an emerging alliance between the Austrian chancellor, Germany’s Seehofer and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

All three men agree on limiting the number of migrants in the EU and strengthening the bloc’s external borders. Kurz and Seehofer have called for “an axis of the willing” between the three countries to tackle illegal migration. But when it comes to managing migration from one EU country to another, their interests quickly diverge.

What would Austria do if Germany introduced systematic controls at its borders?

“We would then have to do everything in our power to avoid Austria being overwhelmed and to protect our country in the best possible way,” Kurz said. “That means we would — at least — take the same measures at our borders. Which would lead to a certain domino effect.”

“This would lead to a certain dynamism along Europe's borders — but with all the negative consequences, such as traffic jams and the closure of internal borders in the European Union,” he added.

Far from joining Seehofer in his battle against Merkel, Kurz directed most of his fire toward Italy and other countries on the external borders of the EU, which he said were not taking enough responsibility for the migrants who entered the bloc through their territory.

“The big issue is that many countries in which migrants have entered European territory for the first time are still not registering them — partly not unintentionally, for sure,” Kurz said.

The Austrian leader said he was open to Merkel’s proposal of striking bilateral agreements on internal migration at the margins of the EU summit in Brussels Thursday and Friday. “Our goal is a European solution,” he said. “That is, I believe, the right way. But I fully share the assessment that the administrative processes can be improved bilaterally as well.”

Kurz acknowledged that it was “important to make progress” on migration within the EU. "For years I have said: the practice of waving people through to the center of Europe must stop,” he said. But he insisted that the focus should be on “proper external border protection.”

Kurz has been on the forefront of a push within the EU for stricter asylum and migration policies. As foreign minister, he called for refugees to be sent to Africa rather than brought to Europe. So it is unsurprising that he celebrated a proposal by the Italian government for the EU to set up “disembarkation centers” outside Europe.

“For years I have been fighting for us to try to resolve the migration issue at the external border, so that we do not take people who set off with smugglers to Europe to Europe, but return them to countries of origin, of transit or to protection zones,” he said. “If this decision is taken today, it will be a huge step in the right direction. [It will be] a turning point on the migration issue.”

He proposed that migrants who leave Africa by boat be returned to the country from which they set off. He added that if it were up to him, those in the camps would not be allowed to request asylum in Europe: "I believe it would be better if we were to welcome people with resettlement programs directly from the war zones in Syria or Iraq, rather than to create pull factors, which make it all the more attractive to leave for these protected zones, or landing centers, whatever you want to call them."