Austria plans to erect a fence along parts of its border with Slovenia to bring order into the flow of people entering the country in search of a better life.
Slovenia, the main migrant entry point into Austria, also said it was ready to build a fence, threatening to set off a chain reaction from other countries along the land route used by those seeking to enter the EU.
Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told parliament that the construction of "technical barriers" would begin after about 10 days of planning.
In separate comments to state broadcaster ORF, she spoke of the need for a "fence" to maintain public order.
Defence Minister Gerald Klug said containers or railings could be set up to "be able to control the refugees in an orderly way".
Ms Mikl-Leitner insisted that there were no plans "to build a fence around Austria".
However, the project is likely to lead to criticism for the signal it sends to other nations struggling to cope with the migrant influx, and because of associations with the razor-wire fence Hungary has built to keep migrants out - a move Austria strongly criticised.
Since the Hungarians sealed their borders a few weeks ago, thousands of migrants using the western Balkans route into Austria and beyond have been flowing into Croatia and then Slovenia on a daily basis.
Slovenian officials suggested even before Austria's announcement that they too are considering a fence, in their case on the border with Croatia.
Slovenian prime minister Miro Cerar said on Wednesday that "if necessary, we are ready to put up the fence immediately", in case a plan by EU and Balkan leaders fails to stem the migrant surge.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article