Austria confirms it is maintaining its policy on migration and not accepting any more asylum seekers, although some 150 NGOs have pressured the country to accept Middle Eastern migrants stuck in Greece during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It remains a no,” said Claudia Türtscher, the spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), according to Kronen Zeitung.

She referred back to Chancellor Kurz’s earlier warning against the EU transferring any migrants from Greece and attempting to redistribute them across the member states.

“Millions of people could embark on their journey to Europe if the Turkish-Greek border falls or if they get the impression that they will be able to pass,” Kurz said last month, calling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s moves an attack on the European Union.

Moreover, late last week, Minister for Europe Karoline Edtstadler said that Austria refuses to repeat the situation of the years 2015 and 2016 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and subsequently the EU as a whole, forced all member states to redistribute migrants based on a quota system. The country is against any new attempts at a similar common asylum policy.

“It is clear that the mandatory distribution of asylum seekers in the EU has failed,” Edtstadler said.