Berlin: German authorities have announced that they have stretched their capacity to welcome refugees, as Europe hustled to hold emergency talks on the unprecedented crisis. Approximately 13,015 refugees have already arrived in Munich and at least 1,400 are expected next week to reach southern German city.
Germany re-imposed border controls after it acknowledged that it could barely cope with thousands of asylum seekers arriving every day. Berlin had announced that the temporary measure would be first taken with Austria, where immigrant arrivals rose after Chancellor Angela Merkel effectively opened German borders to refugees. The en masse flocking has however, gotten local authorities buckling. “Given the numbers, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity,” said a Munich police spokesman. Alexander Dobrindt also weighed in, saying “effective measures are necessary now to stop the influx. That includes help for countries from where refugees are fleeing and also includes an effective control of our own borders which also no longer works given the EU's complete failure to protect its external borders,” he said. Dobrindt was essentially referring to the border between Turkey and Greece, where many migrants have crossed.
Merkel herself had called on Athens, while facing its own deep economic crisis, to make more effort to protect the EU's external borders. EU home affairs ministers will hold emergency talks as “the situation of migration phenomena outside and inside the EU has recently taken unprecedented proportions,” the Luxembourg presidency said.
