REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BERLIN -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday said the refugee crisis facing Europe is testing the core ideals of universal rights at the heart of the European Union.

"Universal civil rights have been closely linked with Europe and its history as a founding impetus of the European Union," she said.

"If Europe fails on the question of refugees, if this close link with universal civil rights is broken, then it won't be the Europe we wished for," she said, urging other EU members to accept their fair share of asylum seekers.

Speaking to foreign journalists in Berlin, Merkel said: "Europe as a whole needs to move. Member states must share responsibility for asylum-seeking refugees."

Germany, the union's most populous country and biggest economy, expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year, four times more than in 2014 and more than any other EU country.

"If we don't arrive at a fair distribution then the issue of Schengen will arise -- we do not want that," she said, referring to the visa-free zone covering much of the EU and several neighbouring countries.

Merkel expressed confidence that Europe would rise to the challenge, pointing to previous issues it had mastered, such as the 2008 banking crisis, and to problems Germany itself has overcome, from the 1990 reunification to its ongoing nuclear phase-out.

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