
Europe's migrant crisis escalated last night as border controls were reintroduced and Germany admitted it could no longer cope with the influx.

Berlin had sought to criticise others – including Britain – for not taking in enough refugees after it announced it would no longer deport those coming from Syria.

But the EU’s passport-free travel zone was on the brink of collapse after Germany was forced to ask Italy to tighten border controls.

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Biblical: Thousands of migrants emerge from the hold of a ferry onto the streets of Greece's capital, Athens

Setting up camp: Hundreds gather in a transit zone below Keleti station in Budapest city centre

Numbers: Thousands of migrants sit in front of the Keleti railway station in Budapest yesterday. Hungarian authorities face mounting anger from thousands of migrants who they are preventing from boarding trains bound for western European countries

As tensions between European leaders unable to agree on how to handle the crisis simmered, Slovakia’s foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak said the Schengen Agreement removing border checks between 26 European countries has fallen apart.

Last night, as the numbers crossing into Germany reached nearly 150 per hour, it asked Italy to impose identification checks at Brennero, on the border with Austria, to ease the flow. An unprecedented surge of migrants has been trying to get to the country after Berlin last week began accepting asylum claims from Syrian refugees regardless of where they entered the EU.

It has caused chaos across eastern Europe as authorities have struggled to cope with the vast numbers who, as undocumented migrants, are theoretically barred from travelling across the EU. Figures released yesterday showed a record 104,460 asylum seekers arrived in Germany last month.

German officials last night insisted that its request to tighten border controls was a ‘temporary measure’. But Mr Lajcak said the Schengen Agreement had ‘de facto fallen apart’. ‘There are tens of thousands of people walking around here without anyone checking them,’ he said. ‘So, do we have Schengen, or don’t we?’

Breaking through: Migrants storm through a police cordon and cross the border from Greece to Macedonia

Chilling echo: In scenes reminiscent of Nazi Germany, Czech police use marker pens to number mainly Syrian refugees, including dozens of children, before arresting them

Stephan Mayer, a senior MP in German leader Angela Merkel’s party, said: ‘I do not think Schengen is over… But I certainly see the danger that if it is not possible in the long run to apply European asylum rules, that this directly erodes and endangers Schengen.’

In the Czech Republic, around 200 migrants trying to head to Germany from Hungary were hauled off trains in the southern region of Moravia. Police officers used permanent marker pens to number the refugees, who included dozens of children, before arresting them.

An estimated 3,000 people – mostly wanting to get to Germany – were camped at Keleti station in Budapest as officials said that under EU migration rules they were not allowed to travel. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban will today meet EU chiefs to discuss the crisis.

Migrants crowd the bridge of the Norwegian Siem Pilot ship, which is travelling to the Italian Port of Cagliari. Germany has asked Italy to impose identification checks at Brennero, on the border with Austria

In Austria, 24 Afghan refugees were rescued from an abandoned lorry. They had been locked in and left to suffocate.

In Greece, ferries arrived in Athens carrying more than 4,000 migrants from the holiday island of Kos. Refugees broke through a police cordon in new clashes on the Greek border with Macedonia.

A lorry from the Netherlands carrying 20 migrants, including two children, was intercepted by UK Border Force officers at Port of Tyne in North Shields. The migrants, from Albania and Syria, were detained and a 32-year-old Polish man was arrested.

The truth about German claims and the real numbers Britain takes: JAMES SLACK'S analysis of the migrant crisis

Analysis by James Slack

In Whitehall, there is deep irritation at the attempt by Germany to present Britain as a country which does not take its fair share of asylum seekers.

In the 2000s, Britain consistently processed more claims than Germany – including 103,081 in 2002 alone.

Indeed, there were so many applications that the system run by the last Labour Government almost collapsed under the strain.

Syrian migrants climb down a steep embankment to a railroad track that will lead them to a crossing on the Greek-Macedonian border

A boy balances along the tracks at the Greek-Macedonian border in Idomeni, Greece, where thousands are expected to arrive tomorrow

Between 2006 and 2010, despite numbers in the UK beginning to fall, we still accepted almost 10,000 more claimants over the five-year period than the German authorities.

It’s also a fact that numbers in the UK are again beginning to rise. Some 32,344 adults and their dependants applied in 2014, the highest annual number since 2004.

In the first quarter of 2015, the figure was 7,435.

HOW CALAIS MOB TARGET EUROSTARS The migrants who stormed a Eurostar train in Calais on Tuesday night are now targeting other trains in hopes of forcing their way on board. The potentially deadly tactic, which left passengers trapped inside a sweltering pitch-black carriage for hours while police searched for trespassers, has seen migrants getting on the tracks to force operators to stop the trains. Fellow migrants then try to jump aboard the 186mph trains heading for Britain before they reach the heavily-guarded entrance to the Channel Tunnel. The dramatic scenes, as reported in yesterday’s Daily Mail, were the latest in a miserable summer for Britons travelling through Calais, as tightened security at the port sees migrants look further afield in their quest to reach the UK. On Tuesday they targeted five Eurostar trains close to Calais-Frethun station, five miles from the coast. John Keefe, of Eurotunnel, said: ‘They’re stopping trains by blocking the tracks, then trying to get through the tunnel, but we won’t accept trains with migrants on. We can’t accept trains with people hanging off the outside, it’s not safe.’ Advertisement

There is also some scepticism inside Whitehall over Germany’s claim that it will take 800,000 asylum seekers this year.

In the first three months, it received 83,130 applications and, even with the scale of the current crisis, the numbers arriving would need to increase dramatically.

Officials also point out that, while Germany seeks to focus attention on Syrian refugees, they have been making up only around a fifth of claims.

Historically, Germany has received more asylum seekers from Kosovo, Albania and Serbia.

Much of the criticism of the Home Office centres on the so-called ‘vulnerable persons relocation scheme’, which critics point out has given refugee status to only 187 people.

But officials point out this is a specific route to the UK that prioritises victims of sexual violence and torture, the elderly and disabled and allows them to apply from overseas.

Syrians continue to be able to claim asylum in the normal way after reaching the UK and, since 2011, around 5,000 claims have been approved, including 1,000 last year.

Very few genuine Syrians (people from other countries increasingly claim to be from Syria to boost their chances of success, having destroyed their papers), are turned down.

Nobody disputes that, currently, Germany is accepting larger numbers of applications. But, crucially, the political situation in the two countries could hardly be more different.

As Migrationwatch chairman Lord Green of Deddington argues, based on last year’s rate of 330,000 net migration, our total population would grow by three million every five years.

To ask the public to accept tens of thousands of refugees on top of this – at a time when concern about immigration has never been higher – would be a very difficult ‘sell’ indeed for David Cameron.

In Germany, by contrast, the low birth rate means that its population would fall by 25 per cent by mid-century if it had no net migration.

England is also nearly twice as crowded as Germany and has more migrants per population.