Austria won’t sign UN migration pact

By Ayhan Simsek

BERLIN

Austria’s right-wing coalition government said on Wednesday that it won’t sign the UN’s landmark agreement on migration.

“We are very critical about certain points of the migration pact,” Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told a news conference in Vienna, and argued that the pact did not make clear distinction between legal and illegal migration.

Kurz also said his government was concerned that the pact could undermine Austria’s sovereignty.

“In this way, we make sure that Austria will decide, also in the future, who can immigrate to our country,” he stressed.

After two-year long discussions, member states reached an agreement in July on the UN Global Compact for Migration.

The legally non-binding agreement, which aims at making the migration more orderly and safer around the world, will be formally adopted in December at an international conference in Morocco.