This year's record refugee influx will bring sweeping social, demographic and economic change to Germany, which was long uncomfortable about being known as a country of migrants, analysts say.

Europe's top economy is expecting to welcome 800,000 asylum seekers this year, almost double the previous high in 1992, when it took in 438,000 refugees from the war-torn former Yugoslavia.

Ukraine's army said on Wednesday that a new nine-day truce with pro-Russian insurgents was holdings despite small skirmishes that claimed the lives of two government soldiers this week.

"A relative calm on the front is holding," Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the EU to agree to a proportional distribution of refugees with no limits on actual numbers, going much further than plans unveiled by the European Commission Wednesday.

"We need a binding agreement on the binding distribution of refugees according to fair criteria between member states," she told parliament.

Germany will be able to take in 500,000 refugees a year for a few years, Chancellor Angela Merkel's deputy Sigmar Gabriel said amid an unprecedented influx.

"I believe we could surely deal with something in the order of half a million for several years," the vice chancellor said Monday evening on ZDF public television.

Brazil will welcome Syrian refugees with "open arms," President Dilma Rousseff said Monday, as various Latin American nations sought to help with the human tidal wave fleeing the war-torn country.

In a video message marking Brazil's Independence Day, Rousseff said she wanted to "reiterate the government's willingness to welcome those who, driven from their homeland, want to come live, work and contribute to the prosperity and peace of Brazil." 

Five people were injured when a fire erupted at a refugee shelter in Germany early Monday, one of two such blazes to hit migrant emergency accommodations overnight, police said.

Police were investigating the causes of the fires which came after a spate of arson attacks against refugee homes amid a record influx of people fleeing war and poverty.

Germany pledged billions in new funds for refugees Monday, as Chancellor Angela Merkel said the tens of thousands of people flowing into her country in Europe's biggest migrant crisis in decades would lead to profound change.

As European leaders stepped up efforts to tackle the historic crisis, France also said it would take 24,000 more asylum-seekers under a European plan to relocate 120,000 refugees from hard-hit frontline countries.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann called Sunday for an emergency EU summit to resolve the migrant crisis, saying his country's admittance of thousands of refugees crossing from Hungary was just a "temporary" measure.

Migrants have been streaming into Austria from Hungary since Friday, after Hungary laid on buses and trains to take them to the border following days of confrontations with migrants who were barred by police from continuing their journey westwards.

As thousands of refugees arrive every day in Germany, calls are growing louder from business leaders in Europe's biggest economy to offer them jobs.

"If we can integrate them quickly into the jobs market, we'll be helping the refugees, but also helping ourselves as well," the head of the powerful BDI industry federation, Ulrich Grillo, said this week.

Britain will take in thousands more Syrian refugees, Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday amid growing pressure at home and abroad to address the crisis.

"Given the scale of the crisis and the suffering of the people, today I can announce that we will do more, providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees," he told reporters on a visit to Lisbon.