"Krone" guest commentary

Only a zero-tolerance strategy can protect us

Christian Baha is a stock market expert and founded Austria's first stock exchange terminal in 1993, which supplies data in real time. In 1996, he established the world's first hedge fund for private investors. Baha has always pursued the vision of making funds for wealthy individuals accessible to smaller investors.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com)

The attack in Magdeburg has shown us how unsafe the world has become on our doorstep. A refugee who has been living in Germany for 18 years crashes into a Christmas market and causes carnage: Five people, including a small child, are killed and 200 injured. This act of madness reminds us Austrians of the terrorist attack in Vienna on November 2, 2020, when an IS sympathizer indiscriminately opened fire on passers-by. Four people lost their lives and 23 were injured.

In fact, only a zero-tolerance strategy can permanently protect us from those who hate our way of life and want to extinguish lives. In other words, we need to tighten controls on who we let into the country. Austria's economy has no need for too many economic migrants, some of whom may become opponents of the system. There also needs to be less generosity and a clear time limit when it comes to asylum: anyone who does not have a residence permit should be deported immediately, as has long been the practice in the USA. And also those who refuse to learn our language and do not want to integrate.

Austria must become the safest country, Vienna the safest city again. Seamless camera surveillance of public spaces, of which - as in Monaco, for example - everyone (!) is aware, can nip crime in the bud. With too much misunderstanding, there will certainly be no security.