Germany puts 4,000 troops on refugee standby

Von der Leyen said on Friday that the troops would be ready to help out with the unprecedented influx of refugees, if necessary.

"For this weekend alone we have put 4,000 soldiers on standby," von der Leyen told the German weekly news magazine "Der Spiegel." She added that the soldiers should be able "to help out in an emergency."

"We still have room to scale this up," she said, adding that the country could count on the support of the Bundeswehr.

German towns and cities are struggling to deal with a record influx of refugees, most of whom arrived by train via Austria. Thousands of people arriving on a daily basis, with the migrants being housed in old schools, office blocks and army barracks. The army said on Thursday it was now housing 14,500 refugees in 41 locations.

Numbers on the rise

More migrants have arrived at Munich's train station in the past 10 days than in the whole of 2014. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said some 40,000 refugees were expected to arrive in Germany this weekend.

Germany has said it expects to take 800,000 asylum seekers this year, with Chancellor Angela Merkel stressing that they should be integrated and helped with finding work as quickly as possible.

According to the International Office for Migration (IOM), a record of 433,000 refugees have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, many arriving in Italy and Greece and traveling north to Germany.

Von der Leyen said more refugees would be housed in military facilities kept separate from soldiers' barracks by security fences.

At a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in the Czech capital, Prague, on Friday, representatives from Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic maintained their stance toward plans announced by the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, earlier this week. The proposals were that 120,000 asylum seekers should be relocated from Greece, Italy and Hungary, with numbers decided by Brussels on a mandatory basis.

Special summit on the cards

The four eastern European countries refused to accept the plans on Friday, arguing that the numbers of refugees should be controlled by each individual EU member state.

EU President Donald Tusk said he would call a special summit of EU national leaders if, at emergency talks on Monday, the bloc's interior ministers do not display "solidarity and unity" on the migrant crisis.

"From that meeting, we will need a concrete, positive sign of solidarity and unity," Tusk said on Friday, during a visit to Cyprus. Tusk added that, based on recent contacts with EU states, he was hopeful of a solution based on consensus and solidarity.

The next scheduled summit of EU leaders is October 15-16 in Brussels, but Tusk said it might be necessary to hold talks sooner, if no solutions were found on Monday.

rc/kms (AFP, Reuters)