Austria's defence minister has said the country is "not a waiting room for Germany" in his latest attack against Angela Merkel's 'open door' refugee policy.

Hans Peter Doskizil claims the chancellor's "welcoming" stance on refugees fleeing war torn parts of the Middle East is encouraging migrants from other countries who just want to relocate to Europe.

He said Merkel's famous “we can do it” approach to the refugee crisis is “irresponsible” and is leading to his country seeing a huge influx of migrants.

Doskizil has accused EU superpowers of “burying their head in the sand” over the issue and has called for a "summit on deportation" to negotiate how to send the migrants back to their home countries.

More than one million refugees flocked to Germany last year, with many people welcoming them with open arms as residents held up "Refugees Welcome" banners for their arrival to the country.

But attitudes have taken a sharp turn since reports of the mass sex attacks in Cologne on New Year's Eve and a Syrian migrant blowing himself up at a music festival near Ansbach.

Doskizil said: "It is a mystery to me, why the right lessons have not been drawn from the events in 2015.

“The ‘we can do it’ policy is irresponsible and counterproductive as it harms Europe as a whole, including Austria.

There have been more than 100,000 arrivals registered in Austria since the beginning of the year, according to the country's Defense Ministry experts.

"It is not a policy, if Europe stays here in agony and sticks its head in the sand."

Doskozil - who was the head of Burgenland police when the region became an epicentre of the refugee crisis last year - was speaking almost a year to the day that 71 refugees were found dead in the back of a truck in Austria.

The disaster shocked Europe and led countries to open their borders to a massive influx of people fleeing war and poverty, mainly from the Middle East.

But now the shutters go down again, leading to a sharp drop in arrivals.

The European Union has since struck a controversial deal with Turkey to keep migrants from reaching Greece - the main entry point into the bloc, along with Italy.

The defence minister dismissed the plan, which would see the country take back immigrants in exchange for £2.5bn in aid, visa-free European travel for Turks and accelerated talks over EU membership.

But referring to the recent bungled military coup to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Doskozil said: "The Turkish government is no longer to be taken seriously by the recent events, events and interventions yet.

"From a visa liberalization with Turkey we are far away, because Turkey is far from European standards."

(Mirror)