Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's conservatives, in government with the far right, won last year's parliamentary election with a hard line on immigration, pledging not to allow a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis in which Austria took in one of the biggest shares of asylum seekers in Europe. In March the Constitutional Court struck down a local model for the government's planned benefit reform, which required anyone claiming the main minimum benefit to have lived in Austria for five of the last six years. Following that ruling, the cabinet unveiled its modified plan on Monday, which would cap single refugees' main benefit payment at 563 euros (US$656) a month, rising to the 863 euros available to Austrians if the refugees pass a German test. "The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit," Mr Kurz told a news conference on Monday. That means that whoever has insufficient language skills will not be able to claim the full minimum benefit,” Chancellor Kurz told a press conference. That sets Austria on a collision course with Brussels and other EU member states, where EU rules on freedom of establishment are widely believed to require that all member states' citizens be treated equally. The parties' election campaigns were dominated by Europe's migration crisis, something the anti-immigration Freedom Party has long campaigned on. Freedom of establishment is not the freedom to seek out the best social benefits system and in that sense this waiting period is in my opinion a step in the right direction,” Kurz said, referring to the government’s previous benefit reform, stipulating that anyone claiming the main minimum benefit must have lived in Austria for five of the last six years, which was blocked by the Constitutional Court in March.
Austria's coalition government unveils plans to cut benefit payments for immigrants, including refugees, in a move aimed at deterring new arrivals.