Germany's vice chancellor on Sunday called for European action against human traffickers after a refugee boat shipwreck in the Mediterranean was feared to have claimed 700 lives.

"All European police and border authorities must make every possible effort to fight the criminal trafficking gangs who profit from human misery," said Sigmar Gabriel.

A Moroccan man who was denied political asylum in Germany suffered severe burns when he doused himself in petrol and set himself on fire in front of shocked passers-by, police said Sunday.

The 36-year-old man had announced his suicide attempt in a phone call to police, ahead of his scheduled deportation Monday by German authorities.

A former Nazi officer known as the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz" goes on trial in Germany next Tuesday, possibly the last SS member to face punishment after most escaped justice.

Oskar Groening, 93, will be tried on "accessory to murder" charges in 300,000 cases for his role in the deaths of mostly Hungarian Jews deported to the death camp in 1944.

Grieving relatives joined political and religious leaders Friday at a sombre German memorial service for the victims of last month's Germanwings crash in the French Alps, blamed on a depressed co-pilot.

Flags flew at half-mast nationwide for the 150 dead during the ecumenical service at Cologne's historic cathedral attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck along with ministers from France and Spain.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Wednesday that he does not expect Greece to leave the eurozone, even if markets have already priced that into their calculations.

But he also said no deal had been reached yet between Athens and European Union negotiators on another financial lifeline for the country, as fears mount that it will default on its massive debt.

The German government said Wednesday it will bring down overall public debt in the coming years as robust economic growth and record employment enables it to keep its finances in the black.

The German finance ministry announced that Europe's biggest economy aims to cut overall debt to 61.5 percent of economic output by 2019 from 74.7 percent last year.

Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas on Tuesday urged allies to send over more troops to the region, calling on Germany to take the lead in the effort amid security fears over Russia.

"Estonia sees that a more long-term stationing of European allies in Estonia and the Baltic region could be led by Germany," Roivas said after meeting with German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen in Tallinn.

Surging fighting around hotspots in separatist-held east Ukraine put fresh pressure on a shaky ceasefire under review at talks on Monday between the French, German, Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers.

The four meet in Berlin from 1745 GMT to assess progress in the truce deal agreed in February between the Ukraine government and pro-Russian rebels to end a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people over the past year.

The foreign ministers of France, Spain and Germany paid tribute on Monday to the victims of the Germanwings crash in the French Alps at Barcelona airport, where the flight took off last month.

French foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Spanish Foreign Minister Manuel Garcia-Margallo and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier laid a wreath at a memorial stone placed at the airport in honor of the victims.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called on Russia and Ukraine to set in motion the next phase of the shaky Minsk peace accords aimed at stopping the fighting in east Ukraine, ahead of talks about their implementation in Berlin on Monday.

"We expect both Moscow and Kiev to seize the central issue of the implementation of the next phase of Minsk," Steinmeier said in an interview in Monday's edition of Die Welt newspaper.