Merkel vows to reduce refugee influx but rejects cap

Fortunately for Merkel, who has led the party for 15 years and Germany for a decade, she does not have to face a re-election vote this time as CDU chief.

“We want to, and we will, noticeably reduce the number of refugees”, she said to rapturous applause at the congress in Karlsruhe, in the south-western state of Baden-Wurttemberg, which will hold state elections in March.

After weeks of infighting over the expected arrival of around one million asylum seekers to Germany this year, Merkel united her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) behind a centrist line of generosity with clear limits.

Germany, Europe’s top economic power, is split roughly down the middle on the refugee question.

On Wednesday, the German leader was named Person of the Year by the U.S. magazine Time for “asking more of her country than most politicians would dare… and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply”, according to the magazine’s editor.

Merkel had come under fire from sections of the CDU for her welcome policy and her refusal to place an upper limit on the numbers of asylum seekers entering Germany.

The two-day party conference, opened in the southern German city of Karlsruhe, is regarded as an indicator of how much support Merkel has among her own base.

The CDU executive managed to hammer out a resolution on refugees on Sunday despite internal disputes over Merkel’s handling of the refugee crisis.

A curb in Germany’s refugee policy is “in Germany’s and Europe’s interest, and in the interest of refugees”, she added. It says the party is determined to “reduce the influx… appreciably through effective measures”.

She does not face a general election until 2017 and she has made sure that as yet there is no politician of sufficient stature within her party who is able to challenge her for the Chancellor’s job.

Mounting public dissatisfaction prompted the Christian Democrat youth wing to table a motion yesterday calling for the influx to be capped, which would have amounted to a severe political embarrassment for Ms Merkel. “It sends the right signal and shows that the CDU takes the concerns of local authorities seriously”, he said.

The 61-year-old has been Germany’s leader since 2005 and her party’s biggest electoral asset for years, with popularity ratings that remain solid even though they’ve slipped amid the refugee crisis.

She has made little headway in persuading other European countries to share the refugee burden but insisted that “Europe so far has always passed its tests” in the end.