Protest renewed at EU over Austria’s blocked family reunification
VIENNA: A coalition of Austrian NGOs, including Asylkoordination Österreich and Diakonie, has renewed its appeal to the European Commission over Vienna’s new rules on family reunification for refugees. The groups argue that managing family migration for recognised refugees through annual quotas under the Settlement Regulation breaches EU law, a concern they say is heightened by the fact that the quotas themselves have not yet been fixed, according to Austrian Press Agency.
In a joint statement, the organisations are urging the Commission to open infringement proceedings against Austria. They contend that the entire new regime stands in “blatant contradiction” to the EU Family Reunification Directive, which grants asylum beneficiaries an individual right to be joined by close family members once specific conditions are met. That right, they warn, cannot lawfully be eroded by numerical caps or by the potentially indefinite waiting times such limits create.
This marks the second formal complaint. In April, the same NGO alliance challenged the earlier “stop” on family reunification, which the federal government had defended by invoking an emergency clause. The Commission has yet to respond in substance to the core legal issue.
Under the previous regime, close relatives were admitted only in particularly compelling cases, even though applications could still be filed. Most were left pending. By the end of July, only around 60 family members had been allowed to enter Austria this year, while 1,763 applications remained unresolved as of 1 August.
The NGOs say the government has now replaced one restriction with another without addressing what they call a “blatant breach of EU law”. “After the unlawful stop comes a quota that clearly contradicts the Family Reunification Directive,” said Lukas Gahleitner‑Gertz of Asylkoordination Österreich. Diakonie expert Christoph Riedl added that keeping families apart indefinitely was “humanly irresponsible and short sighted in terms of integration policy.”
The quota system took effect only in early August, after a period in which there was effectively no legal basis for family reunification. The interior ministry must still agree with the provinces on the quota’s size, a process complicated in regions where the FPÖ holds office. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner has hinted at a very low figure for the first year, without ruling out that it could be zero.
