Hamburg has become the first German city to pass a law allowing the seizure of empty commercial properties in order to house migrants.

The influx of migrants has put pressure on the authorities of the northern city to find accommodation. Some migrants are sleeping rough outdoors.

Hamburg's law takes effect next week.

Hamburg's new law is described as a temporary, emergency measure. Owners of empty commercial properties will be compensated. The law does not include residential properties.

But the conservative opposition in the city, in the north of Germany, condemned the move.

The authorities in Bremen, a city just west of Hamburg, are considering passing a similar law.

Germany expects to host at least 800,000 asylum seekers this year - about four times the number it had last year.

Many are from war-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. But the thousands arriving also include asylum seekers from Kosovo, Albania and other Balkan countries, whose claims are usually rejected.

On Thursday more than 200 migrants fought each other in a mass brawl at a reception centre in Hamburg-Bergedorf. Police said Syrians and Afghans were involved in the latest clash.

Similar fights have erupted at some other migrant centres in Germany. A bigger brawl took place near Kassel, in central Germany, at the end of September.

In Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and elsewhere the authorities have erected tented camps for migrants - but with winter approaching they are deemed too basic as communal housing.

There is hardly any accommodation left in Hamburg for migrants, who are entering the city at a rate of about 500 daily, ARD television reports.

The Hamburg region's leftist government - a coalition of Greens, Social Democrats and Die Linke - says the new law will be in force until March 2017.

Confiscation will only take place if the property owner refuses to hand it over willingly in exchange for compensation.

In the Brandenburg region, in eastern Germany, the authorities have halted the demolition of old social housing blocks. Instead they will be refurbished to provide 4,000 flats for migrants, the daily Die Zeit reports.

Meanwhile Franconia, in north Bavaria, plans to build cheap modular units to house migrants for 10 years, after which they will be rented out as social housing for locals.

Over the past weeks, as this sudden glacier-like movement of peoples began to spread westwards from Turkey, Europe found itself divided between those like Hungary and other East European countries who were completely opposed to taking in migrants especially from Syria and those, exceptionally led by Germany, who were open to welcome the migrants running away from war.

The war in Syria, now further complicated by Russia’s entry into the fray, has displaced millions of Syrians who found themselves in the crossfire. Millions found refuge in ramshackle camps in nearby countries such as Jordan and Lebanon while others fled from the fighting and from Isis into Turkey and thence to Western Europe.

It is perhaps a moot point whether this stream of migrants would have been deterred had the German government decided to withstand the influx. Anyway, the whole world has understood that the German policy in this regard is one of openness and welcome. So practically all the migrants, even those on the road, declare they want to make Germany their target.

But such has been the influx that even the German efficient machine has broken down under the sheer weight of numbers. The centres where they were to be housed proved to be inadequate. Hence the decision by individual states, such as Hamburg, to take on commercial properties and convert them into accommodation.

Providing accommodation is only one of the first steps to be taken unless Europe and its peoples want to see the influx of migrants turn into something very sinister. The migrants need to be adequately documented, helped to learn the (difficult) language, integrate themselves in society, educate their children, get adequate healthcare, understand the customs of the German society, etc.

The welcoming country is as different from their country of origin as possible. The sooner the huge work of integration and assimilation starts, the less risks for the welcoming country.

One trusts the thorough processes of the German state prove to be far more efficient than the mainly laissez-faire attitude of other European countries such as France or the UK where years of inefficiency have seen breed the seeds of discontent and of terror.

If we compare what is being done in Germany to what is done in Malta, we may find we have much to learn from Germany as an alternative to letting the migrants fend for themselves and involve us as little as possible.