German government boosts funding to states for refugees

The German government has agreed to give its 16 states a total of around 4 billion euros next year to help them deal with the increased number of migrants and refugees who have entered the country.

Between January and the end of July, 256,938 people applied for asylum in Germany, which expects between 800,000 and one million asylum seekers this year, including 55,587 people from Syria, where civil war has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Nearly a third of asylum seekers arriving in Germany who claim to be Syrian are not, according to officials. While some are accommodative and welcoming towards the scores of people fleeing from war-torn Middle East and North Africa, others are still apprehensive about how they can be integrated.

Mr Tusk spoke on Polish state TV, hours after an European Union summit decided to toughen border controls and offer more money to refugees in the Middle East as ways of coping with the migration crisis in Europe.

As well as feeding and housing the newcomers, Germany is also weighing up their impact on Europe’s largest economy.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that despite the mounting pressure, he is still trying to focus on maintaining a balanced budget for next year. Some lawmakers have questioned whether that will be possible given the rising costs associated with the migrant crisis. “We have a clear commitment to get by without taking on new debt and tax increases”, he told ARD German television.

Business leaders and the government say that migration can help to counter the effects of an aging population and prevent longer-term shortages in the German labor markets.