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Germany to reinstate border checks with Austria

Other News Materials 13 September 2015 22:30 (UTC +04:00)
Germany is to reintroduce border controls and will exit temporarily from the Schengen system, the interior minister has said, after the country’s regions said they could no longer cope with the overwhelming number of refugees arriving from Austria
Germany to reinstate border checks with Austria

Germany is to reintroduce border controls and will exit temporarily from the Schengen system, the interior minister has said, after the country's regions said they could no longer cope with the overwhelming number of refugees arriving from Austria, Guardian reported.

Thomas de Maizière announced the measures after German officials said that record numbers of refugees, most of them from Syria, had stretched the system to breaking point.

Germany has also stopped all trains entering the country across its southern border with Austria, the principal conduit through which some 450,000 of refugees have arrived in Germany this year.

The emergency measures are designed to give some respite to Germany's federal states who are responsible for looking after refugees. There is also discussion inside the government about sending troops to the border with Austria, to reinforce security, Der Spiegel reports.

The move comes amid extraordinary scenes at Munich's main train station over the weekend and a growing backlash inside Germany over the decision last week by the chancellor, Angela Merkel, to allow unregistered refugees to enter the country.

On Saturday, 13,015 refugees arrived at the station on trains from Austria. Another 1,400 came on Sunday morning. The city's mayor, Dieter Reiter, said Munich was "full", with its capacities completely exhausted. Some refugees slept on the station concourse on Saturday night.

Germany's surprise move comes amid bitter division inside the EU over how to deal with the tens of thousands of refugees arriving in Europe, in the continent's worst refugee crisis for 70 years. On Sunday, east European countries again insisted they would not accept a plan for mandatory refugee quotas.

Interior ministers from the EU's 28 states are meeting in Brussels on Monday. They will discuss a plan set out last week by Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission chief, to redistribute 160,000 asylum seekers across the bloc. The refugees would be allocated to each country on the basis of its size and wealth.

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