MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the German Rheinische Post newspaper, Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told migration chief Frank-Juergen Weise to get ready to accept 500,000 refugees. The report on the issue is expected to be published on Tuesday.
Europe, and particularly Germany, have been trying to cope with a large-scale refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa to escape violence and poverty.
EU border agency Frontex recorded over 1.83 million illegal border crossings into the European Union in 2015. About 1.1 million refugees arrived in Germany in 2015.