MUNICH // Germany reinstated temporary border controls and halted train services from Austria on Sunday as the country struggled with a record influx of refugees.
“The aim of this measure is to return to an orderly process,” interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said.
He added that Germany would no longer allow refugees to pick what European countries should host them. Under EU rules, the first country of entry is required to deal with the asylum seeker’s request for protection but Germany had waived the rule for Syrian refugees.
Germany halted its train services with Austria for 12 hours on Sunday after the announcement.
Also on Saturday, migrant and refugee arrivals to Hungary hit a new one-day record, with 4,330 people entering the country in the space of 24 hours. Almost all were heading towards Germany via Austria. Austrian police said about 6,700 people had crossed the Austria-Hungarian border at Nickelsdorf before heading north toward Germany. They predicted similar numbers for Sunday.
Germany has become the destination of choice for many refugees – particularly for Syrians – after chancellor Angela Merkel decided to relax asylum rules for citizens of the war-torn country.
However, with some 450,000 people already having arrived in Germany this year, local authorities are buckling under the new surge.
“Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity,” said a Munich police spokesman on Sunday.
Federal transport minister Alexander Dobrindt also weighed in.
“Effective measures are necessary now to stop the influx,” he said.
“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.
Munich mayor Dieter Reiter vowed he would not give up in the face of the daunting challenge but made a plea on Sunday for the rest of Germany to give his city a chance to catch its breath.
“The night was long,” he said. “We managed but we need a regulated, sustainable system to distribute the arriving refugees across Germany.”
In a sign that the city is running out of options, regular passenger trains will be cleared out to transport refugees; until now special services had been used for this purpose.
The aim is to rapidly send refugees onwards to other German cities to free up space for new arrivals.
European Union home affairs ministers are scheduled to hold emergency talks on Monday to discuss the situation.
* Agence France-Presse
