Already two Green health ministers stand for an unsettling clause in the strict Corona regulation on entering Austria: According to § 1 paragraph 2, asylum seekers are still allowed to enter Austria (actually illegally) unvaccinated or untested.
Quite a few readers of the news platform eXXpress were already wondering about the continuing strong influx of migrants across Austria’s external borders towards Traiskirchen and Vienna: “Don’t the asylum seekers also have to be vaccinated or at least tested so that they can continue their journey if they are caught by the police or the federal army after crossing the border illegally?”
After all, it was argued, strict rules would also apply to Austrians or tourists, who would be closely checked at the airport when entering the country. Quote: “Why is the Austrian returning from Spain or Italy ‘dangerous’, but not the Afghan who has perhaps been living in mass accommodation for months?”
The legal basis why asylum seekers are still allowed to enter our home country untested and unvaccinated, even in lockdown times and in the greatest Corona panic, is found in the Covid 19 Ordinance on Entry into Austria of 2021, which was enacted under the Green Minister of Health Rudi Anschober – and has not been changed by his successor Wolfgang Mückstein: In § 1 paragraph (2) the legal advisers of the Green members of the government added a sentence that exempts all asylum seekers from all Corona rules on entering the country.Thus, it is clear that the scope of application of the Corona Security Rules may not apply to asylum seekers (see international law provisions). This sentence also prevents the executive from turning away at the border all those migrants who cannot show a negative PCR test or a vaccination certificate or from deporting them back to the country of origin after being apprehended in Austria.
An employee of the Ministry of Social Affairs, who brought this passage in the Corona Entry Ordinance to the attention of eXXpress, is angry: “A healthy but unvaccinated Austrian is currently no longer allowed to buy a new pair of pants in the shopping city or in a boutique, even vaccinated Austrians are no longer even allowed to sit in a coffee house in Vienna – but migrants are still allowed to enter our country unvaccinated and untested.”
Quote from the ordinance: “Persons may enter the federal territory if this is required by constitutional law or directly applicable Union law or by regulations under international law.”
https://exxpress.at/corona-gesetz-asylwerber-duerfen-weiter-ungetestet-und-ungeimpft-einreisen/