Merkel heads to her party congress

At a gathering of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, Merkel said Germany would pursue a range of measures to stem the flow of asylum seekers, expected to number around one million this year.

She told her party, Christian Democratic Union, it was “a humanitarian imperative” to let in the refugees who had accumulated in Hungary in early September.

But she said that it was now necessary to “reduce the number of refugees appreciably” to avoid the country being “overwhelmed in the long run”.

Merkel – who still faces a huge battle with her European counterparts – to relocate hundreds of thousands of refugees all over Europe – said Germany had a history of helping refugees and owed it to them to do its utmost to give them a home in Europe. “For the time being, Germany is likely to remain a magnet for refugees”.

“We want to, and we will, noticeably reduce the number of refugees”, she said to applause at the congress in Karlsruhe, in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, which holds a state election next March.

Despite receiving worldwide praise for her pro-refugee policy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared on Monday that “multiculturalism is a sham”.

In her speech, Merkel defended once again her action.

Chancellor addresses migration crisis, pleasing all sides of her party in the process.

But she argued that everything from technological innovation to the Paris climate agreement to globalization and even the refugee crisis itself were part of a trend of accelerating change. But late on Sunday, the Chancellor and her team negotiated a compromise wording which said the party would do its best to “tangibly reduce” the number of refugees arriving, and would impose border controls only “if necessary”.

Merkel also has no clear challenger within her party, as even CDU critics acknowledge that she is by far their strongest asset as a candidate.

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.

Her insistence that Germany can handle the infrastructure demands of its newcomers – schools, housing, education – comes on the heels of her being named Time magazine’s “person of the year” for her role not just on the refugee crisis but in resolving Greece’s debt crisis and fighting the Islamic State. She stresses instead the importance of finding a diplomatic solution for the crisis with the rest of Europe and with Turkey, which is hosting as many as 2.2 million Syrian refugees. The refugees themselves, on the other hand, should also show the willingness to integrate in the German society.