Ticking Clock as Merkel Summoned to Bavaria Amid Party Refugee Rift
SputnikNews.com
20.01.2016
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been summoned to the southern state of Bavaria for an emergency party meeting in yet another party rift after 34 of her own lawmakers signed a letter calling on her to drastically change her policy on refugees.
Merkel has already been under pressure for her original declaration that German’s doors were open to refugees from Syria, leading to 1.1 million refugees registering in 2015. The record number of arrivals — five times that of 2014 — included 428,468 Syrians, 154,046 Afghans, followed by 121,662 Iraqis. The number included just under 3,000 Moroccans and Algerians. The sheer volume had created a huge administrative backlog, the ministry admitted, which has reached over 470,000.
Merkel’s ‘open doors’ policy that precipitated one of the greatest mass exoduses in modern times has led to serious rift between her CDU party, its sister organization in, the CSU — led by Horst Seehofer, chairman of the CSU and Minister-President of Bavaria and their coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) led by Sigmar Gabriel.
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