(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
Vienna:The spiralling migrant crisis will cost EU member Austria one billion euros ($740 million) in 2016 the finance ministry announced Wednesday as the country expects 85000 new asylum-seekers by the end of this year.
Average spending per asylum-seeker is set to rise to 10724 euros next year up from 9593 euros in 2014 the latest available figures the ministry said in its annual budget report to the European Commission.
The total cost will represent 0.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) compared to 0.1 percent this year according to Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling.
Despite the extra burden Austria's public deficit would nevertheless stay well below the European Union's prescribed ceiling of 3.0 percent of GDP Schelling added.
The largest chunk -- around 565 million euros -- will go toward basic care measures like housing food and health insurance as well as work and integration programmes.
A further 345 million euros has been earmarked for individual Austrian states as they face unprecedented costs of handling the refugee influx.
Austria has seen more than 200000 migrants enter the country since the beginning of September most of whom travel onwards to Germany or Scandinavia.
But this year's surge in asylum requests has made the Alpine country of 8.5 million people one of the highest recipients of migrants in Europe on a per-capita basis.
The continent's biggest migration crisis since World War II has reignited a long-standing EU debate about the bloc's budget rules.
Last month Schelling made a plea for the European Commission to apply a special clause in the EU's Stability and Growth Pact allowing the deficit ceiling of 3.0 percent of output to be exceeded in exceptional circumstances.
But Germany -- which expects 800000 refugees this year -- rejected the calls saying the migrant crisis should be kept separate from the debate over national budgets.
AFP