As German Chancellor Angela Merkel racks up praise abroad for welcoming refugees, she’s headed for a reality check from her political base at home.

A convention of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union starting Monday will take up motions to restrict the biggest influx of asylum seekers since World War II, defying the chancellor’s open-door stance. That policy led Time magazine to name Merkel its Person of the Year and prompted a swell of well-wishers on Twitter, including President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

While polls suggest Merkel retains overwhelming support in her party, many in the CDU are urging a cap on the number of refugees allowed into Europe’s biggest economy. After months of record inflows, this year’s arrivals reached 1 million this week.

“We also have a responsibility to our country and our citizens, whose capacity to bear burdens isn’t unlimited,” the CDU’s youth organization says in a resolution to be debated at the two-day meeting in the city of Karlsruhe. The measure advocates a refugee cap, saying “warmheartedness” shouldn’t trump “a realistic assessment.”

David Fuller's view

I recommend the video at the top of this article which provides the most interesting developments.  In a national poll of German government officials taken this month, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who you may recall from his hard line in the bitter debate over Greece, has soared to an approval rating of 75%.  Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is second at 68% and Chancellor Angela Merkel has slid to 54%.   Worse still, her overall approval rating within the country has slid to 37%, questioning her re-election potential which was unquestioned up until a couple of months ago.

Angela Merkel’s open door welcome for what is now estimated at more than a million Islamic refugees and migrants in Europe, and predicted to keep on rising, has been lauded by international figures starting with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. 

However, as the numbers piling into Europe from the Middle East and North Africa climb, this has rapidly become a divisive NIMBY issue.  It is very difficult to see how this can be successfully reconciled by the EU, which is riven by this latest crisis.