Germany seeks to slow migrant flow

Germany on Friday said that asylum seekers would only be able to enter the country at five points along its border with Austria to better control a mass influx.

Authorities in Bavaria have complained a lack of co-ordination with Austria is hampering efforts to aid new arrivals.

Many others continue to make their way via Greece, in freezing temperatures, hoping to get asylum in Germany.

A spokeswoman for Germany's interior ministry told AFP news agency that the new rules on entry points would go into effect immediately.

"We would like to have a more orderly procedure," she said.

A senior Bavarian politician said that under the agreement, 50 migrants an hour could cross into the state at the five agreed points.

Earlier this week, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere accused Austria of transporting refugees to the German frontier at night, leaving them there unannounced.

Federal police spokesman Heinrich Onstein has said everything was being done to prevent the migrants from having to sleep outdoors.

However an Austrian police spokesman dismissed such accusations as a "joke", given that Austria was receiving 11,000 people a day just at the Spielfeld crossing from Slovenia.

Germany expects at least 800,000 asylum seekers this year - some estimates put it as high as 1.5 million. That is at least four times the number who arrived last year.

Last Wednesday, more than 8,000 migrants arrived in Bavaria, German  police  said.

And last weekend authorities in Passau - a major transit hub for asylum seekers - said they had been overwhelmed by a new influx of some 15,000 people who arrived from Austria.