Austria, Germany open borders to refugees

Austria and Germany threw open their borders to thousands of exhausted migrants yesterday, bussed to the Hungarian border by a right-wing government that had tried to stop them but was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers reaching Europe's frontiers.

Left to walk the last yards into Austria, rain-soaked migrants, many of them refugees from Syria's civil war, were whisked by train and shuttle bus to Vienna, where many said they were resolved to continue on to Germany.

German police later said the first 450 of up to 10,000 migrants expected yesterday had arrived on a special train in Munich from Austria. Austrian police said over 6,000 had entered the country with more expected, highlighting the continent's worst refugee crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

Germany can cope with a record influx of refugees this year without raising taxes and without jeopardising its balanced budget, Merkel said yesterday.

In light of the influx, the government plans to introduce a supplementary budget to free up funds for the refugees and to help towns already struggling to fund accommodation and medical care for the new arrivals.

"We cannot just say 'Because we have a difficult task now, the balanced budget or the issue of debt are no longer important'," Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.

In an interview with local newspapers, Merkel promised that Berlin would not raise taxes because of the refugee crisis.

"It was just such a horrible situation in Hungary," said Omar, arriving in Vienna with his family and hundreds of other migrants who poured out onto a fenced-off platform and were handed food, drinks and other supplies.

In Budapest, almost emptied of migrants by nightfall on Friday, the main railway station was again filling up with newly arrived migrants but trains to Western Europe remained cancelled. So hundreds set off by foot, saying they would walk to the Austrian border like others had tried on Friday.

After days of confrontation and chaos, Hungary's government deployed over 100 buses overnight to take thousands of migrants to the Austrian border. Austria said it had agreed with Germany that it would allow the migrants access, waiving asylum rules that require them to register in the first EU state they reach.

Wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags against the rain, long lines of weary migrants, many carrying small, sleeping children, climbed off buses on the Hungarian side of the border and walked into Austria, receiving fruit and water from aid workers. Waiting Austrians held signs that read, "Refugees welcome".

"We're happy. We'll go to Germany," said a Syrian man who gave his name as Mohammed. Another, who declined to be named, said: "Hungary should be fired from the European Union. Such bad treatment."

Hungary insisted the bus rides were a one-off, even as hundreds more migrants assembled in Budapest, part of a seemingly relentless surge northwards from Turkey and Greece.

By contrast, the Austrian state railway company OeBB said it had added 4,600 seats for migrants by extending trains and laying on special, non-scheduled services.

HUNGARY FORCED

Hungary, the main entry point into Europe's borderless Schengen zone for migrants, has taken a hard line, vowing to seal its southern frontier with a new, high fence by September 15.

Hungarian officials have painted the crisis as a defence of Europe's prosperity, identity and "Christian values" against an influx of mainly Muslim migrants.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said yesterday Hungary would deploy police forces along its border with Serbia after Sept 15 and the army too if parliament approves a government proposal.

"It's not 150,000 (migrants coming) that some (in the EU) want to divide according to quotas, it's not 500,000, a figure that I heard in Brussels, it's millions, then tens of millions, because the supply of immigrants is endless," he said.

For days, several thousand camped outside Budapest's main railway station, where trains to western Europe were cancelled as the government insisted all those entering Hungary be registered and their asylum applications processed in the country as per EU rules.

But on Friday, in separate rapid-fire developments, hundreds broke out of a teeming camp on Hungary's frontier with Serbia, escaped a stranded train, and took to the highway by foot chanting "Germany, Germany!"

The government appeared to throw in the towel, ordering over 100 buses to take them to the border. Arriving at a Vienna railway station, migrants were met by announcements for Germany-bound trains in Arabic as well as German.

The scenes were emblematic of a crisis -- about 350,000 refugees and migrants  reached the border of the European Union this year -- that has left the 28-nation EU groping for solutions amid squabbling over burden-sharing.

"Given the challenges facing our German friends as well, all of Europe needs to wake up. (The time for) reverie is over," Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said.

"Now the continent of Europe is challenged. In this great challenge the entire continent has to give a unified answer. Whoever still thinks that withdrawal from the EU or a barbed wire fence around Austria will solve the problem is wrong."

BOY'S BODY PRICKS EU'S CONSCIENCE

Pressure to take effective action rose sharply this week after pictures flashed around the world of the body of a 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy washed up on a Turkish resort beach, personalising the collective tragedy of the refugees. Aylan Kurdi had drowned along with his mother and brother while trying to cross by boat on a tiny rubber dinghy to a Greek island.

Hungary has lashed out at Germany, which expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year, for declaring it would accept Syrian requests regardless of where they enter the EU.

Budapest says this has swelled the influx, and like some others in ex-Communist east European states -- unused to taking in notable numbers of foreigners -- it is resisting calls by some western EU leaders for each of the bloc's 28 members to accept a quota of refugees. The discord continued on Saturday.

"What happened is the consequence of the failed migration policy of the European Union and the irresponsible statements made by European politician," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on arrival at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg to discuss the migration crisis.

Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz reiterated yesterday that Warsaw was ready to accept 2,000 migrants. "We are committed to solidarity but it has to be a responsible solidarity."