Merkel agreed to set up special centers to quickly process migrants

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her coalition partners have agreed to set up special centers to quickly process migrants with little realistic chance of winning asylum.

Merkel said Thursday that three to five such centers will be set up, where people from countries deemed "safe", such as those in the Balkans, would have applications processed within two weeks.

The move is a compromise after the coalition of Germany's biggest parties argued for weeks over a call from Bavarian conservatives for "transit zones" at the border to weed out migrants with no realistic asylum claim. The center-left Social Democrats said that would effectively entail interning large numbers of new arrivals and would be impractical.