MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Figures published in the German newspaper Die Welt showed that state authorities have been forced to pay hundreds of euros per person – the cost of a stay at a luxury hotel.
Bavaria reportedly paid around 2.5 million euros ($2.7mln) as of early December 2015, up from 1.2 million in 2014, sending three times as many migrants on their way home last year as in the previous one.
Repatriations from North Rhine-Westphalia, an affluent western state, paid 4.4 million euros in the first 11 months of 2015, up from 2.6 million the year before. Additionally, it has set aside 4 billion euros in its budget to sustain refugees this year.
Die Welt reported in late December that 15 of 16 German states have budgeted almost 17 billion euros to sustain refugees in 2016. The federal government will reimburse only a quarter of those expenses.
Germany has been the main destination for thousands of refugees and immigrants coming to Europe since the start of 2015. The number of arrivals topped one million last month.
