Merkel wants to ‘drastically reduce’ refugee arrivals in Germany

At a pivotal party congress of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Merkel said Germany would pursue a range of measures to stanch the flow of asylum seekers, slated to number around one million people this year.

“Germany already fulfilling its part”: Merkel dismisses U.S. request for more anti-ISIS forces Germany has denied USA requests to provide additional support for the US-led mission against Islamic State in Syria, with the federal chancellor stressing that “at the moment” Berlin is already doing enough for its part in the combined anti-terror effort.

On Wednesday, the German leader was named Person of the Year by the United States 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.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a party convention of the Christian Democrats (CDU) in Karlsruhe, Germany, Monday, Dec. 14, 2015.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has signalled she will “drastically decrease” the number of refugees coming to Germany.

The motion says that the party is determined to “reduce the influx… appreciably through effective measures”.

Her strategy includes 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.

The conference, which opens on Monday in the southern German city of Karlsruhe, is expected to be dominated by the refugee issue and regarded as an indicator of how much support the party leader has among her own base.

“We must create the possibility to turn back people at our borders who are evidently not politically persecuted”, he said.

“But this is certainly the most complex question”, she said of 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. “But for me it is very important to say that we are going to live up to our humanitarian responsibility, and our responsibility to Europe”.

Merkel defended her catchphrase of “we can do this” during the refugee crisis 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.