Austria plans to cut payments to Ukrainians

Austrian authorities have voiced concern about the growing number of large families from Ukraine's Transcarpathia, a region not affected by active hostilities. According to local officials, there are reasons to believe that some of the displaced people may abuse the social assistance system. This is reported by the publication Kosmo.

It is noted that about 90% of applications for asylum in the region currently come from this group of people.

The Austrian city of Salzburg says that many of these asylum seekers often speak neither Ukrainian nor Russian and lack basic educational skills, which "complicates their integration and work for social workers".

The influx of such asylum seekers creates organisational difficulties, especially for schools, kindergartens and municipal services. Austria faces a tangible financial impact due to its state child assistance programme, which ranges from 180 to 250 euros depending on the age of the child and also includes additional payments for childcare," the statement said.

The Austrian government notes that Ukrainian refugees receive significant state support, which includes not only basic assistance, but also housing subsidies and family allowances. The authorities believe that this situation favours "refugee tourism". Further, the authorities intend to strengthen refugee vetting and revise the conditions of refugee benefits. In particular, under the new policy, the period of family assistance and childcare allowances is planned to be reduced from 1 year to 6 months.

The new control measures are aimed at detecting possible fraud and preventing unjustified expenditure from the budget," the report says.

Currently, about 90,000 Ukrainian refugees live in Austria.