German minister slams Austrian move to cap numbers of asylum seekers

Germany's interior minister on Thursday criticised Austria's unilateral move to cap the number of people it will allow to claim asylum and to tighten border controls, saying the migrant crisis needed wider solutions.

"The Austrian decision was an Austrian one," Thomas de Maiziere said in Berlin. "We are focussing on a European solution."

"We are counting on common, European solutions that are agreed upon mutually and we want to avoid national decisions, especially those which have consequences for others, as long as is possible," he added.

Austria wants to restrict the number of asylum claims to no more than 1.5% of it 8.5 million population, spread over the next four years. Roughly 90,000 people, more than 1%, applied for asylum last year.

The measure runs counter to German efforts to negotiate a European-wide solution with the support of Turkey, the gateway to Europe for most migrants. De Maiziere said it was still not clear how the Austrian move would work in practise and that he was surprised the Austrians had announced it without waiting for the results of an expert report into the issue.