Merkel Secures Party Support For Migration Policy Compromise

Facing an internal conflict within her own party ranks over her refugee policy, Angela Merkel tried to find a compromise between her own course and her critics’ positions at her center-right CDU party’s congress in Karlsruhe, which was attended by about 1,000 CDU delegates.

In a dramatic shift in policy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed that there was a need to drastically reduce the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the country.

Merkel has resisted calls to set a limit on the number of refugees Germany can take, instead stressing the importance of a diplomatic solution.

Germany has received a record one million refugees this year, mostly from Syria and Iraq, and the refugee influx mostly overstretched communities and municipalities across the country.

However, a policy statement on the refugee issue will still be put to vote after her keynote speech on Monday which observers have tagged as a “kind of referendum on her leadership”.

“It’s being said that if everything remains the way things are now, it will be too much for Germany”, Carsten Linnemann, head of the CDU’s conservative business wing, told reporters on Sunday night, before Monday’s speech.

Her strategy additionally consists of finding an answer to the migration crisis on the European Union level, where she is meeting resistance from member states against a quota system to distribute refugees.

Local media noted that the political stakes for Merkel and the party could be high.

“The refugee crisis is a historic test for Europe, and I want – hopefully, I can say that we all want – that Europe passes this test”, Merkel said, adding that she and her country “will do our bit to make sure this happens”.

Ahead of an European Union summit this week, Merkel said she was banking on a multi-pronged approach to cut refugee numbers, urging bolstered protection for the bloc’s external borders, support for Turkey to host refugees long-term, and a long-shot bid for a distribution scheme among European Union member states.

On Sunday, the leader of the CDU youth branch Paul Ziemiak said that not setting a cap on the number of refugees would be “careless” because “Germany’s possibilities are finite”.

“We insist on European solidarity”, she said.

The CDU is doubly nervous because the disaffection has given a boost to the right-wing populist AfD party, which has soared to 10% in some polls.

Merkel defended her catch phrase “wir schaffen das”, or “we can do this”, by saying the party must show its Christian roots, and she likened it to pledges made by former conservative chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl in troubled times.