Germany expects up to 300,000 migrants to arrive this year
Germany is preparing for a possible 300,000 migrants to enter the country this year – but the nation's leaders are convinced they can manage the influx of people.
Speaking to German newspaper Bild, Frank-Juergen Weise, the head of the country's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, said: "We can do it. Despite problems we have had as a country and as a society, we can cope with this task.
"Much of what we found difficult at the beginning, we can now do pretty well."
He estimated between 250,000 and 300,000 refugees would arrive in Germany this year, adding that the country would be able to handle up to 300,000 arrivals.
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"But if more people come in, we will be under pressure," Weise said. "We would enter crisis mode, as it were."
"But I think this year fewer than 300,000 people will come."
The number of migrants coming into Germany over the Austrian border peaked in October last year, when 190,383 people arrived seeking asylum. In July this year, 3,399 migrants crossed the Austria-Germany border. Integrating refugees into German society would "take a long time and cost a lot", Weise said.
In the UK, net migration was 327,000 in the year to March, according to the Office of National Statistics, putting pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May to scrap her target to cut migration.