Austria is to present a paper to the EU demanding all asylum applications to be made outside the union before migrants can set foot on the continent.

The plan, masterminded by the country’s defence minister Hans-Peter Doskozil and interior minister Wolfgang Sobotka, also calls for limits on refugees in all member states.

And they want to extend border controls with Germany indefinitely, despite pressure from Brussels mandarins that this goes against the grain of the passport-free Schengen Zone agreement.