Obama calls Germany’s Merkel to talk Syrian refugee crisis

But he said while Germany had a duty to welcome refugees, “solidarity is not infinite”.

The chancellor said she wanted to reduce the refugee arrivals “appreciably and sustainably”, but reiterated that in order to achieve the goal, people should start with combating the causes of flight and find a European solution for the crisis.

Merkel, however, warned that the decision of Austria would add difficulties to negotiations with Turkey concerning the refugee crisis.

“Because we want to provide as much protection [for refugees in Germany] as we can, at some point, even though it’s tragic… we will have to limit migration”, he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos. CSU leader Horst Seehofer has repeatedly called for a 200,000 upper limit on the number of migrants Germany should receive in 2016.

Merkel has expressed fear that shutting borders across Europe’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel would menace the very existence of the euro common currency and European Union single market.

CSU Secretary-General Andreas Scheuer believed that Germany should follow Austria to introduce a limit on the number of asylum seekers accepted.

“If refugee numbers keep rising…Germany will have to change its course”. France, where the anti-immigrant National Front is on the rise, has also been cool to refugee quotas.

Some 44 lawmakers in Merkel’s CDU/CSU coalition this week signed a letter urging her to resume implementation of the EU’s Dublin regulation, which would allow Germany to turn back asylum seekers to the country where they first arrived in Europe.

Merkel set out a timeline on Wednesday that includes talks with Turkish leaders in Berlin this week, an global conference on aid for Syrian refugees in London in early February and a summit of European Union leaders starting Feb. 18 where she said the refugee crisis and Britain’s future in the European Union “must play a central role”.

Merkel’s open-door refugee policy, and her insistence that Germany can cope with last year’s influx, has strained local infrastructures and divided her conservatives. She remains far more popular than her main rival, Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel, however, and her conservative bloc still leads in the polls.