Germany’s Merkel faces party amid tension over migrants

Merkel was speaking at a congress of her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) in Karlsruhe, western Germany.

She said on Sunday she wanted to “drastically decrease” the number of refugees coming to Germany, signaling a compromise to critics of her open door policy from within her own conservative party on the eve of a party congress.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is the FT’s Person of the Year for 2015.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a congress of her conservative party on Monday amid tensions over her management of the migrant influx.

Ahead of the conference, CDU leaders made some rhetorical concessions to members anxious about Germany’s ability to absorb more newcomers – without pledging specific further action.

This included working with Turkey to fight traffickers; improving the situation at Syrian refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan; and strengthening control of the European Union’s outer borders.

Over 1,000 delegates from all over Germany are attending the meet of the centre-right party.

“We want to noticeably reduce the number of people who come to us, but not through unilateral national measures alone, but by looking at why refugees have to leave their homes in the first place”.

Merkel also defended her famous “We can do it” line on the refugee crisis. She faces calls to shift her stance from her party’s youth organization, a caucus representing Germany’s small and midsize companies and a lobby for local governments. Faced with the prospect of a party revolt, Merkel has adopted tougher language towards refugees. While public resistance to this year’s record number of arrivals has eroded poll ratings for Merkel and her party since the summer, support has stabilized in recent weeks and 76 percent of respondents in a ZDF television poll last week said 2015 was a “good year” for them.

“We have found a course that corresponds to what my approach is”, said Merkel in an interview with state broadcaster ARD on Sunday.

Germany has seen about a million migrants arrive this year.

But she has said Europe should think about agreeing on joint quotas for refugees. “People spoke of German angst, we were the sick man of Europe”.