According to Minister of State Levente Magyar from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann is again venting the anger caused by his own ability to act on the Hungarian Government and the Prime Minister.

The Minister of State for Economic Diplomacy was reacting to an interview with the Austrian Chancellor published in the Sunday edition of Austrian tabloid Österreich, portions of which appeared on the oe24.at portal on Saturday.

Amongst others, Werner Faymann spoke about the fact that the crucial issue was whether Austria was willing to open its borders before the persecuted or would keep them closed. “However, Austria does not leave the persecuted by the wayside. And it was equally important that we do this jointly with Germany”, Faymann said. (…) “Orbán told Merkel and I that there would be no more than four thousand, but I never believed that for a moment. The pictures say more than I can”, the Austrian Chancellor said with relation to the number of refugees. He also stated that anyone who seriously believes that “they can solve the refugee crisis with a wire fence” and causes chaos as a result is disqualifying themselves politically.

Mr. Magyar firmly requested that Werner Faymann refrain from making similar statements in future. In his opinion, in public the Austrian Chancellor wishes to appear as being the saviour of the refugees, while behind the scenes he is in fact placing pressure on other states to do everything in their power to detain those who are heading for Austria.

The Minister of State for Economic Diplomacy highlighted the fact that Werner Faymann had discredited both himself and his criticism of the Hungarian Government when he admitted he has no idea how to solve the most serious European crisis in decades.

This is the latest in a long list of Austrian statements that portray Hungary in a negative light and which do no good for relations between the two countries, Mr. Magyar said, adding that he thought it was cynical of the Austrian Chancellor to have called Hungary to account with regard to the large numbers of migrants travelling to Austria, when moments before he had called into question the credibility of the Hungarian cabinet and Prime Minister on the issue.

Furthermore, he said it was unacceptable that Austria had closed one of Europe’s busiest motorways at the Hegyeshalom border crossing station for half a day because of a few thousand migrants. Hungary is handling the arrival of such immigrant numbers every single day without any disruption to traffic, Mr. Levente said, noting that the Hungarian Government and the people of Hungary are facing the problem of illegal immigration with dignity.

(MTI)