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New EU Council President with Austria’s Interior Minister on New Year’s Day

by AI | 02.Jan 2026 | Europe in brief AI

The new chairman of the EU Council of Interior Ministers, Nicholas Ioannides, was in Vienna on New Year’s Day. He spoke with his counterparts Gerhard Karner from Austria and Mari Rantanen from Finland about the recent tightening of the asylum pact in the EU.

Mari Rantanen, Nicholas Ioannides and Gerhard Karner at their meeting in Vienna. Photo: APA/BMI/Makowecz

The new chairman of the EU Council of Interior Ministers, Nicholas Ioannides, is spending his first working day in Vienna. Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner received the Cypriot Migration Minister Nicholas Ioannides in Vienna for talks ahead of the New Year’s Concert on Thursday, as well as his Finnish counterpart Mari Rantanen, according to the Interior Ministry. Shortly before the turn of the year, there was a telephone conversation between Karner and the Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab.

The focus of the meeting with Ioannides and Rantanen was the rapid implementation of the recently adopted tightening of the asylum pact at EU level. “Finland and Cyprus are strong partners in what is now a broad alliance for a European migration turnaround. Asylum procedures and return centers in countries outside Europe are important cornerstones,” Karner said, according to the press release.

Karner: “Further deportations to Syria”

As part of the telephone conference with Khattab, the implementation of further deportations to Syria was discussed, according to the Interior Ministry. Since July 2025, Austria has been able, as the first European country, to deport convicted criminals from Syria directly to their home country, according to a press release taking stock. Karner had already been in Syria in April 2025, as the first European interior minister since the fall of the Assad regime, together with the then German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser for a working meeting.

To further optimize the “process flow”, a meeting of experts from both countries is to take place in Syria, it was also said. The implementation of a cooperation for the training of Syrian police leadership personnel by the Interior Ministry is also being examined, as well as the possibility of participating – together with Jordanian police authorities in Jordan – in the training of Syrian police officers. “The deportation of convicted Syrian criminals to their home country will be consistently continued. This is necessary for the safety of the population in Austria,” said Karner. (2.1.2025)