Migrant crisis could be 'biggest challenge' in EU history: Germany

(PRAGUE) - The unprecedented influx of refugees and migrants flooding into the European Union could be the bloc's greatest-ever challenge, Germany's foreign minister said Friday, adding Berlin expects 40,000 new migrants to arrive this weekend.

Europe's largest refugee crisis since the end of World War II could be "the biggest challenge for the EU in its history," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, calling for solidarity at Prague crisis talks with eastern EU members who have ruled out binding migrant quotas proposed by the European commission.

"If we are united in describing the situation as such, we should be united that such a challenge is not manageable for a single country," he said, adding "we need European solidarity."

"Germany expects 40,000 new migrants from the south at the weekend, despite the willingness of German people our possibilities are smaller and smaller," Steinmeier told counterparts from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.

Record numbers of people, many of them fleeing war and conflict in Syria and Iraq, continued to pour into Europe, with around 7,600 entering Macedonia in the last 12 hours.