Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner met his Bulgarian counterpart Ivan Demerdzhiev and Kazakhstan’s interior minister Yerzhan Sadenov in Vienna on 19 October 2026 to step up cooperation on cross-border crime. The talks centered on joint work to protect the external borders, and on combating the smuggling mafia, according to Austria’s Interior Ministry. Karner, Demerdzhiev and Sadenov used the meeting to coordinate how their services can work together on border security and on efforts aimed at the criminal networks running people and goods through illegal routes.