Refugee influx to cost Germany 10 bn euros: Report

BERLIN – Agence Frence-Presse

REUTERS photo

The cost of Germany taking in a record number of asylum seekers could hit 10 billion euros ($11 billion), four times what Berlin spend looking after refugees last year, a German newspaper said onr Sept. 5.  

But despite the 800,000 refugees expected to pour into Europe’s biggest economy this year, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sept. 5 that she was still aiming to balance the country’s budget.

The German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calculated the revised costs in line with what was spent on 203,000 asylum seekers in 2014.

Before Berlin raised its estimate of the overall number of people expected to file an asylum claim, it had set aside a budget of 5.6 billion euros to accommodate some 450,000 people, the paper said.  

With the increase of arrivals on German soil, the figure of 10 billion euros would be “consistent” with the cost estimates at all administrative levels - federal, regional and local - the paper said.