German Refugee Facilities Worth Millions of Euros Remain Empty

Germany has been trying to cope with a heavy influx of migrants over the last couple of years. The country accepted over one million refugees in 2015, but, surprisingly, many refugee facilities still remain empty.

It turned out that many cities and municipalities of Lower Saxony, Germany have more refugee facilities actually needed. Many centers were built with the prospect that the influx of migrants would grow, however the calculations proved wrong.

Local authorities invested millions of euros in the construction of the refugee centers. However, in many regions, these "container settlements" remain empty.

German TV channel NDR conducted a survey among members of various German communities and found out that thousands of rooms had not been used. In its report, the media outlet highlighted a hostel inwhich the local authorities bought several new washing machines.

In an interview with Sputnik Germany, spokesman of the Union of Municipalities in Lower Saxony Thorsten Bullerdiek said that the construction of such facilities was the right thing to do, even if the costs proved higher than expected.

"Of course it is true. But on the other hand, if we wouldn't have done anything, the crisis could have grown to an even larger scale, and then people would have been forced to live outside and freeze. The question is: what is more important? I would prefer to make a book-keeper's heart bleed, but make sure that the refugees are taken care of, in a reasonable and humane way," Bullerdiek told Sputnik.

Taking into account the fact that local authorities have suffered serious losses and now have a lot of empty space, there are ideas to turn the facilities into social institutions, kindergartens or sports clubs.

However, according to Bullerdiek, there is also discontent among local residents who volunteered and participated in the construction of the shelters for free. Many of them are unhappy about the situation and wonder why they put so much effort into building the facilities which now stay empty, Bullerdiek explained.

The European Union has been struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis which escalated in 2015 with hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East and North Africa seeking asylum in EU member states.

On Wednesday, the EU border agency Frontex stated that the bloc is still experiencing high migration pressure, with about 382,000 illegal migrants arriving to European countries in 2016. At the same time, the agency also pointed out that some 176,000 non-EU citizens were returned last year to their country of origin.