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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Slovenia Authorises the Army to Tackle Border Refugee Flow

The Slovenian parliament issued a new bill on Monday that authorises the army to deploy military personnel on the border to help the police manage the flow of migrants crossing the country’s checkpoints, DW News announced on Tuesday. The new legislation, which was approved by 69 votes against 5 in the 90-seat parliament, gives the army the right to control the migrant flow on Slovenia-Croatia border for three months. The approved law also permits militants to temporarily detain migrants and hand them over to police authorities. According to Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar, the army is authorised to use force only in case of an emergency to “ensure citizens' safety." “It doesn’t authorize the army to take military action, but it is to provide assistance to the police in border-guarding tasks,” Cerar, as cited by DW, told journalists ahead of the vote on Monday. Following the launch of a migrant cap by Austrian authorities, in early February Slovenia's government decided to tighten controls on the 670-kilometer Schengen external border the country shares with Croatia. After the decision of Hungarian authorities in October, 2015 to stop the migrant influx by closing the Hungary-Croatia border, Slovenia became a key transit country for migrants travelling from Greece in an attempt to reach Austria and Germany. Since November 2015, more than 470,000 migrants have entered Slovenia, while almost half of the 1.1 million migrants who reached Europe in 2015 passed through Austria on their way to Germany and Sweden.


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