German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised at a congress of her conservative party on Monday to noticeably reduce the number of migrants entering the country.
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Merkel’s speech to the party conference was seen as a key test for the Chancellor after months of grumbling and open spats with the CDU’s Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU) over her refugee policy.
“We want to tangibly reduce the number of refugees arriving”, Merkel said.
At a pivotal party congress of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Dr 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.
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.
Merkel condemned rich countries for failing to properly fund the United Nations refugee agency and its World Food Programme, calling the lack of financing “unforgivable” and “unacceptable”.
“It belongs to the identity of our country to do the most that we can”, Merkel said Monday.
Merkel, while lauded internationally for her open-door policy, has yet to convince party critics that Germany can accommodate and integrate the refugees, many of whom are fleeing civil war in Syria.
Speaking to ARD broadcaster on Sunday, Merkel stressed that her strategy of reducing the refugee inflow to Germany had broad support among party members.
“I’m trying to celebrate”, McKinnon says while anxiously moving around in her chair.
Urging her party to believe in itself, she cited Germany’s transformation in the last decade – from sick man to European powerhouse – as proof of what was possible when people embraced change to cope with a huge challenge.
Nevertheless, the chancellor won a battle with CDU rebels calling for a cap on the number of asylum seekers Germany would take in – a proposal she denounced as immoral and unconstitutional.
The roughly nine-minute-long standing ovation was only interrupted after Merkel returned to the lectern and reminded delegates that “we have work to do”.
A curb in Germany’s refugee policy is “in Germany’s and Europe’s interest, and in the interest of refugees”, she added.
Recent polls conducted for German media show that 62% of Germans want Merkel to put a fixed limit on refugees, with 36% opposed.
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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.
