Berlin (dpa) – The southern German state of Bavaria pleaded for aid
from the rest of the country Tuesday as it became the latest
beachhead in the epic arrival of African and Middle Eastern migrants
in Europe.

Trains full of migrants who have made it to Greece and then through
Eastern Europe on the so-called Balkan Route have begun arriving in
Germany – the country many of them wanted to reach in the first
place.

Even though the arrivals had been expected and Germany has committed
itself to taking in 800,000 migrants this year, the arrival has still
come as something of a shock.

“Bavaria cannot handle this all by itself,” said the state‘s social
affairs minister, Emilia Mueller, on Tuesday. “The numbers of
arrivals of asylum seekers is exploding.”

She said the state had grown used to about 2,000 arrivals a day of
late. Now the city of Munich by itself was seeing about 1,500
arrivals a day. Efforts have already begun to distribute those who
have made it across Bavaria, to spread the costs.

One state, Baden-Wuerttemberg, has already pledged aid. Talks are
also ongoing with railway officials to see what options there are for
allowing migrants to initially travel on to other parts of Germany.

German Labour Minister Andrea Nahles said Tuesday that the flood is
creating the need for more funding for social spending and programmes
to integrate migrants into the workplace as she requested an
additional 1.8 billion to 3.3 billion euros (2 billion to 3.7 billion
dollars) for such spending.

She said such needs would probably require 7 billion euros in
expenditures by 2019.

Based on Nahles‘ projections, there will be between an additional
240,000 and 460,000 people in Germany in need of benefits in 2016.
That number could rise to 1 million by 2019. Of the 2016 figure, up
to 335,000 might not be able to find work or to work at all.

“We will benefit from this,” said Nahles. “The people who are coming
to us as refugees should quickly be turned into neighbours and
colleagues.

“By no means are all hirable refugees trained members of the work
force,” she added. “But they are full of motivation and the need to
work. We are going to do something with this drive and this desire to
perform.”

Officials are bracing for even more migrants in the coming days.
Officials in Salzburg, Austria, reported up to 2,000 migrants
reportedly on their way to Germany after spending a night in the
train station there, a police spokeswoman told the APA news agency.

In Budapest, officials shut one of the city‘s main train stations
amid the press of migrants, leaving about 5,000 migrants with nowhere
to go.

In the Czech Republic, about 200 migrants were pulled off trains as
they sought to make their way to Germany, according to police. Many
of them were Syrians and were taken to temporary shelter in the
cities of Breclav and Hodonin.

The new prompted former Czech president and regular EU critic Vaclav
Klaus to argue that it was time for Europe to stand up and argue that
there is no human right to immigration.

“If Europe wants to engage in suicide by letting countless numbers of
refugees in, then it should do so, but not with our support,” he told
the newspaper MF.

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the crisis is
showing the need for a concerted European response.

“When it comes to the question of immigration into Europe, if we
don‘t manage to show the ability to be a little more able to
negotiate across the country, then we are going to once again see
even more resistance among the population,” he said during a
German-Spanish economics forum in Berlin.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy joined Chancellor Angela Merkel
in stepping up calls for a common European response, with the German
leader demanding that Italy and Greece follow EU protocols and
register asylum seekers who first arrive on their territory.

“The criteria have to be discussed,” said Merkel, who stressed the
need for registration centres in Italy and Greece to deal with new
arrivals.

She said this would help to establish a common classification of safe
countries as well assisting with developing the procedures for the
possible return of refugees to their home countries and creating a
fair distribution of the asylum seekers among the EU states.

“The EU needs solidarity,” said Rajoy at the joint press conference
with Merkel. “We have to develop asylum and immigration laws. We have
to find an answer,” he said, echoing comments by the chancellor.