Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) The number of refugees and migrants who entered Germany this year has exceeded one million and is set to reach 1.2 million by the end of the year.
More than one million Ukrainian refugees reached Germany since February this year, with authorities expecting additional 200,000 asylum seekers by the turn of the year, according to DW reporting on Sunday.
In 2015, approximately 890,000 migrants and refugees entered Germany, with this year’s figure set to exceed the 2015 spike by about 35%.
Besides Ukrainians, more than 180,000 migrants largely from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Turkey applied for asylum in Germany by the end of October this year.
Armin Schuster, State Minister of Internal Affairs of Saxony, warned that the region is struggling to process a large number of arrivals.
“We are approaching 200,000 asylum seekers this year… in the last legislature, this number was defined as the upper limit,” he noted in an interview with Welt am Sonntag weekly.
Schuster stressed that Saxony continues to “stand up for Ukraine, no ifs or buts,” but reiterated that the state’s capacity to process new arrivals will soon be exhausted.
Possible winter wave
According to some analysts, the number of Ukrainians fleeing the country could increase significantly in the winter months as Russian forces are targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, among others.
German MEP Manfred Weber warned, “Germany is currently sleepwalking into a new migration crisis” and pointed out that Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands are under similar pressure.
The EU Agency for Asylum warned in November that the number of asylum applications has exceeded 2015 levels.
Schuster pointed out that many German states cannot take in more migrants and refugees without federal support, stressing that migration policy needs more than just “warm words.”
He called for “a noticeable braking effect on asylum access via the East Mediterranean route” and expansion of the EU-Turkey migration agreement.
Under the agreement closed in 2016, the EU paid Turkey 6 billion euros to hold asylum seekers looking to get into the bloc in an effort to curb immigration.
Last week, the lower house of the German parliament passed a bill to grant residency to migrants who have lived in Germany for five years, whose asylum applications were not approved, and who have not committed a criminal offense.
