Germany's finance minister is floating the idea of a European tax on petrol to help finance the continent's efforts to manage the migrant crisis.

The European Union has struggled to find common ground amid the huge influx of people seeking safety and a better life.

Germany and Sweden have allowed in large numbers of refugees but many other countries are reluctant to share the burden.

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Wolfgang Schaeuble said 'if the funds in national budgets and the European budget aren't enough [to cope with the migrant crisis], then let's agree, for example, to raise a levy on every liter of gasoline at a certain level'

Kurdish children play as they get out of the volunteer school in the makeshift migrant camp in Grande-Synthe

Volunteers distribute clothes to migrants in Grande-Synthe. Schaeuble warned that unless the migrant problem is dealt with, the crisis will balloon

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday that 'if the funds in national budgets and the European budget aren't enough, then let's agree, for example, to raise a levy on every liter of gasoline at a certain level.'

Schaeuble said the New Year's Eve mass sexual assaults in Cologne on women that have been blamed on Arab and North African men only 'step up the pressure' to find 'a solution to the problem of controlling the European Union's external borders'.

He said: 'The problem must be solved at a European level, otherwise, it won't just be Germany that suffers the consequences, as some seem to think, but our neighbours will be massively affected too, as will the Balkans, and all the way down to Greece. Things are moving too slowly in Europe.'

He added that he fully backed Chancellor Angela Merkel's efforts to solve the challenges posed by the migrant crisis.

'I support, with the full force of my convictions, what the chancellor says: we need to solve the problem starting from Europe's external borders,' he said. '[Otherwise] Europe will find itself in an even bigger crisis.'

A young Kurdish girl walks along a muddy road clutching a pink umbrella, against a backdrop of tents

A five-year-old Kurdish girl, named Sevar, plays in her parents' shack in the makeshift migrant camp

Migrants walk along the shacks and tents of the makeshift migrant camp in Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk. The refugee camp in Grande-Synthe counts an estimated 3,000 residents mostly composed of Kurds from Iraq

Iraqi Kurdish migrants Saad shaves his friend Mani next to their tent in the Grande-Synthe camp on Saturday

Schaeuble said the New Year's Eve mass sexual assaults in Cologne on women that have been blamed on Arab and North African men only 'step up the pressure' to find 'a solution to the problem of controlling the European Union's external borders'. Kurdish migrants are pictured here at Grande-Synthe

Schaeuble is a prominent member of Merkel's conservative party. But a deputy party leader, Julia Kloeckner, swiftly rejected his proposal - pointing to healthy tax revenues in Germany that produced a government budget surplus last year.

'I'm strictly against any tax increase in light of the good budgetary situation,' said Kloeckner, who wants to win a regional election in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate in March.

Germany achieved a larger-than-expected budget surplus of 12.1billion euros in 2015 and will use the windfall to pay for accommodating and integrating refugees.

'We Social Democrats want to hold society together instead of dividing it with a new refugee toll a la Schaeuble,' SPD deputy Ralf Stegner told Reuters.

Kurdish children play as they get out of the volunteer school in the makeshift camp in Grande-Synthe

A Kurdish family around their makeshift home in the migrant camp in Grande-Synthe, near Dunkirk

A Kurdish family walks on a bridge made of pallets laid over the muddy pools in the camp near Dunkirk

French police control volunteers and migrants as they enter the makeshift migrant camp in Grande-Synthe

Earlier on Saturday, Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer threatened to take Merkel's government to court over its 'open doors' refugee policy as political pressure grows for the chancellor to reduce the number of new arrivals.

Schaeuble's proposal came as five people, most likely migrants, were found dead off the eastern Greek island of Samos.

The Greek coast guard has recovered the bodies of two men and three women, and are trying to recover a sixth in rough seas, a coast guard spokeswoman told The Associated Press.

Refugees and migrants aboard an inflatable dinghy about to be rescued by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi on Saturday

No vessel has been recovered yet. The rescue operation continues, said the spokeswoman, who was not authorized to be identified because of the continuing operation.

Winds of up to 70kmh (45mph) were hitting the area.

Samos, which lies very close to the Turkish coast, is one of the eastern Greek islands that have been main points of entry for hundreds of thousands of people, mostly refugees from Syria and Iraq. About 850,000 people entered Greece last year, nearly all by sea.

People from Syria hold placards reading 'We respect the values of German society' and 'No to sexism, no to racism' during a rally outside the main railway station in Cologne

A Syrian refugee holds a placard reading 'Syrians against sexism'

Syrian women hold placards with the #SyriansAgainstSexism during protest in Cologne

Hundreds block St Pancras Eurostar terminal in protest at planned bulldozing of the 'Jungle' in Calais

Hundreds of protesters staged a 'die-in' at London's Eurostar terminal to express anger at the planned demolition of parts of the 'jungle' camp in Calais and to send a message to migrants that they're welcome in Britain.

Dozens of campaigners from the London2Calais Convoy group laid down and blocked parts of the St Pancras terminal in an effort to show solidarity with the refugees.

A statement on the group's Facebook page, posted prior to the demonstration, said: 'The French state is preparing to bulldoze large sections of the so-called 'Jungle' refugee camp in Calais. Around 2000 people have been given three days' notice of the planned eviction, coerced into applying for asylum in France without providing a real alternative for them to live.

Dozens of campaigners from the London2Calais Convoy group laid down and blocked parts of the St Pancras terminal in an effort to show solidarity with the refugees

'As activists in Britain, we believe that while the 'Jungle' is a symptom of the crisis in Calais and Dunkerque, the root cause is British migration and foreign policy.

'The reason why refugees from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Iraq and Sudan have chosen to live right next to the British border, risking their lives atttempting to cross it, is the fact that Britain refused to take its fair share of migrants.

'We refuse to accept that there is money to bail out banks and bombing Syria but that there is no money left to help refugees.

'Join us for die-in and rally at St Pancras International station to demand the border be open and refugees be granted safe passage and asylum in the UK.'

London2Calais said: ''As activists in Britain, we believe that while the 'Jungle' is a symptom of the crisis in Calais and Dunkerque, the root cause is British migration and foreign policy'

Police officers keep watch over demonstrators angry at the handling of the refugee crisis

Police block the entrance to the Eurostar terminal as protesters stage a sit-in to show solidarity with the refugees

Desperate migrants have been carrying their wooden shacks to safety after being warned that bulldozers will be sent in to demolish parts of the so-called 'Jungle' camp.

The migrants were told earlier this week that they had just days to clear hundreds of huts made from wooden planks and tarpaulin from the edge of the road that borders the camp.

They had until Friday to leave the area and instead some will be housed in a new project in an attempt to improve living conditions.