Germany To Spend €16bn On Migrants

KABUL: (Middle East Press) The German government is willing to spend some €10 billion ($11 billion) by the end of the current year for taking care of migrants in the country.

According to a Sunday report by the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAS), the cost could reach anywhere between €9 and €10.5 billion based on the cost estimates obtained from all administrative levels – federal, regional and local- across the country.

Germany’s Federal Statistics Office has said that €2.4 billion were spent on looking after some 203,000 new asylum seekers who entered the country last year.

Meanwhile, the ruling coalition said on Monday, that the German government will spend an extra €6 billion to cope with this year’s record influx of refugees.

State and local governments will receive €3bn to help them house the 800,000 refugees heading for Germany while the central government is planning to free up another €3bn to fund its own expenses, such as paying benefits for asylum seekers.

In July, a refugee summit held by the German Parliament budgeted €5.6 billion for an expected 450,000 asylum applications while the recent influx of refugees from the Middle East and Africa exceeded largely the initial estimate and some 800,000 refugees are expected to enter the country by the end of December.

But despite the financial challenges and criticisms on a decision to allow more refugees to enter the country, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday she was still aiming to balance the country’s budget.

“As a difficult task faces us, we cannot be satisfied with saying: ‘Balancing the budget and the question of debt is no longer important,” Merkel said in her weekly video address.

According to UN estimates, so far this year 300,000 people have left the Middle East and Africa for a better life in Europe, particularly Germany.