Struggling to cope with record numbers of asylum seekers, Germany told its European partners on September 7 they too must take in more refugees, as police in Hungary used pepper spray on desperate migrants who broke out of a reception center at the border.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking after a weekend in which 20,000 migrants entered Germany from Hungary by train, bus and on foot, described the influx as "breathtaking" and tried to reassure German citizens that the crisis was manageable.
"I am happy that Germany has become a country that many people outside of Germany now associate with hope," she said at a news conference in Berlin.
But she and her vice chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, coupled their message of optimism with a warning to European Union partners who have resisted a push from Berlin, Paris and Brussels to agree quotas for refugees flowing in mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Gabriel said that if countries in eastern Europe and elsewhere continued to resist accepting their fair share of refugees, the bloc's open border regime, known as Schengen, would be at risk.
At Roszke, on Hungary's border with Serbia, around 300 migrants broke through a cordon around a reception camp and set off down the wrong side of the motorway towards the capital Budapest, Reuters witnesses said.
Police were unable to prevent their escape despite using pepper spray as migrants scuffled with officers.
Only months after Europe narrowly averted a Greek exit from the euro zone, the refugee crisis has emerged as the bloc's biggest challenge.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is due to unveil new proposals on September 9 on how to distribute refugees among member states.
