Thousands of Germans have attended a pro-immigration rally in the eastern city of Dresden, displaying banners with the slogan "refugees welcome".

Organisers said the protest, called by the Anti-Nazi Alliance, was attended by 5,000 people angry at the attacks on asylum seekers and police in Heidenau, near Dresden, last weekend.

That violence saw 31 police officers injured and migrant buses pelted with projectiles, and a brief ban on public assembly was imposed. At Saturday's counter-protest, marchers said they were acting to "prevent the pogroms of tomorrow".

Protesters demonstrate with a banner saying 'Refugees welcome' in Dresden, eastern Germany, on Saturday 29 August (AP)

"Refugees welcome" has become a powerful slogan as the EU migrant crisis has worsened. It has been displayed by singing sections of fans at football grounds in Germany at least since this time two years ago.

Football and immigration are strongly linked in many parts of Germany, where clubs offer mentorship and other programmes designed to encourage better integration. In Berlin, an organisation seeking to prevent refugees from being marginalised goes by the name "kein Abseits!" - "not offside".

It’s just one of the ways in which Germany is leading the EU on how to respond to the influx of unprecedented numbers of refugees, after the country scrapped a rule stating that all asylum-seekers must do so in the first “safe” nation they reach in Europe.

That 1990 protocol has led to what many European countries see as an unfair pressure on places like Italy, Greece or Hungary where migrants tend to arrive first.

On Friday, Angela Merkel said EU interior ministers meeting this weekend would be looking at “rapid changes to the asylum system”.

Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Show all 10 1 /10 Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis Migrants attempt to pass the Greek-Macedonian border guarded by Macedonian police near the town of Idomeni, northern Greece AFP/Getty Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonian Border Crisis A migrant reacts as he carries a child during clashes with Macedonian police at the Greek-Macedonian border Reuters Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis A Macedonian policeman armed in riot gear clashes with a migrant girl, police have reinforced control at the border with Greece in a bid to stop the influx of migrants, but a few hundred Syrians managed to cross the frontier overnight AFP/Getty Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis Macedonian special policemen guard the border as more than a thousand immigrants wait at the border line Reuters Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis Migrant men help a fellow migrant man holding a boy as they are stuck between Macedonian riot police officers and migrants during a clash near the border train station of Idomeni, AFP/Getty Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis A barbed wire fence lines the border of Macedonia and Greece near the Gevegelija Railway station, Macedonian special policemen are guarding the border as more than a thousand immigrants wait at the border line of Macedonia and Greece Reuters Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis Macedonian Police stand firm at the Greek-Macedonian border in a bid to stop the influx of migrants AFP/Getty Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis Government of Macedonia has declared the state of emergency in the region of country's southern and northern border and in accordance with the law to open a possibility for appropriate engagement of the army of Macedonia AFP/Getty Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis Macedonian police drove back crowds of migrants and refugees trying to enter from Greece on Friday after a night spent stranded in no-man's land by an emergency decree effectively sealing the Macedonian frontier. Reuters Macedonia/Greece Border Crisis Macedonia Border Crisis A migrants woman with childrens wait to pass the Greek-Macedonian border, guarded by Macedonian police near the town of Idomeni, northern Greece AFP/Getty

“There has to be a fair distribution of refugees and asylum seekers who are deemed eligible,” she said.

Germany expects to have processed some 800,000 migrants by the end of this year, and Denmark’s Prime Minister Loekke Rasmussen said the rest of Europe needed to follow its example.

Meanwhile, France criticised Hungary and other eastern European states over their responses to the migrant crisis, saying they were “not respecting Europe’s common values”.

Foreign minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday it was “scandalous” that some nations were refusing to accept “people who are politically chased out of their country”.