Some 7,000 refugees from Syria arrived in Macedonia on Monday.

GENEVA (Sputnik) – A record 7,000 Syrian migrants arrived in the Balkan republic of Macedonia from Greece on Monday, a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokeswoman announced Tuesday.

"Discussions in Europe this week are taking on even greater urgency because it obviously cannot be a German solution to a European problem," Melissa Fleming told reporters.

The UNHCR spokeswoman added that nearly 30,000 people are currently on the Greek islands, 20,000 of whom are on the island of Lesbos and over 4,500 on neighboring Kos.

She added that the number of Syrian refugees in countries that border Syria exceeds four million, almost two million of whom are in Turkey, over 1.1 million in Lebanon and 630,000 in Jordan. A further quarter-million are thought to be in Iraq, 132,000 in Egypt and 24,055 in other North African nations.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres called on EU member states on Friday to resettle over 200,000 migrants currently in Greece, Hungary and Italy.

The threefold increase in refugees arriving to the European Union has been called the greatest migrant crisis since World War II by the European Commission.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to submit another quota system proposal on Wednesday, under which EU member states would accept 160,000 migrants, including the 40,000 announced this spring.