Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said Wednesday he expected Germany to follow his tougher migrant stance and clamp down on the number of asylum seekers allowed into the country.
Vienna announced Tuesday it would step up controls at existing checkpoints along its southern borders with Italy, Slovenia and Hungary to slow down the influx of migrants and refugees trekking up along the Balkans.
Last month, Austria warned it would limit this year’s number of asylum seekers to 37,500 — sharply down from the 90,000 it accepted in 2015.
The ruling centrist coalition also plans to impose this week a daily migrant limit at its main border crossing with Slovenia.
“A government must take decisions based on reality,” Faymann said in an interview published by the Kurier newspaper Wednesday.
“We have done this and I believe we have set an example that Germany will also set shortly,” he added.
In 2015, over one million people reached Europe’s shores — nearly half of them Syrians fleeing a civil war that has claimed more than 260,000 lives.