However, despite opposition from the residents and a number of German politicians, Merkel refused to close the country's borders and set a limit on the number of newcomers.
The German Chancellor emphasized that most migrants had received only temporary permission to stay in Germany.
"We need… to say to people that this is a temporary residential status and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once IS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained," she said, cited by Reuters.
Europe is currently struggling to cope with a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people leaving their crisis-torn countries of origin in North Africa and the Middle East for stable and wealthy EU member states.
Over a million refugees have arrived in Germany alone last year. The European Commission stated that the current immigration crisis is the biggest since the Second World War.
