Only One in Three Germans Believe Country Can Cope With Migrant Influx

Merkel, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain within the communist East, insisted she would keep the course and informed party members that “isolation already failed within the days of East Germany”.

Chancellor Angela Merkel resisted pressure from her own conservatives on Tuesday to tighten Germany’s border controls and turn away refugees arriving via Austria, participants at a meeting of lawmakers said.

It comes as serious splits emerged in Angela Merkel’s Government over how to divide economic migrants from genuine refugees fleeing war-torn countries.

Long valued by the electorate for her level-headed leadership amid the eurozone turmoil, Merkel has scared many with her welcoming stance amid a growing sentiment that the boat is full.

Sigmar Gabriel, vice chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partner in Merkel’s ruling coalition, criticised the idea of transit zones.

Merkel, speaking to the Bundestag Thursday morning before heading to Brussels, reiterated her conviction that the crisis could only be confronted through global cooperation in what she called a “historic test” for the EU.

The transit zones are seen as an attempt to convince an increasingly nervous German public that after weeks of apparent indecision, Ms Merkel’s government has come up with workable proposals to slow down a refugee influx predicted to exceed one million by the end of this year.

The YouGov survey found that 56 percent of people thought that there were too many refugees already in Germany for the country to be able to take on any more.

Bild even asserted Merkel was losing the support of her loyal veteran Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and mused whether he could replace her.

With three state elections in March, the report stated, “everybody within the party is aware of: Schaeuble is the one one who might substitute Merkel”.

Officials in Bavaria say 225,000 have arrived in the state in the last five weeks alone. The details of the bill included adding the west Balkan countries of Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo to the category of safe countries so that people from those lands can be turned back and replacing monetary payments with material goods with the aim of dissuading those suspected of coming for financial gain.