(Bloomberg) -- A German father of four took Chancellor Angela Merkel to task over her refugee policy at a virtual town-hall style meeting. It's a bitter taste of what's to come as the longest-serving European Union leader prepares to stand for a fourth term.
Merkel spoke from Berlin on video chat to members of her Christian Democratic Union Party. A party member since last year, located just outside Frankfurt, told her on Thursday that for the first time in his life he was really afraid and that Merkel's open-door policy to migrants ran against what many Germans wanted.
Even with a million migrants entering Germany from the Middle East and Africa since the beginning of last year, Merkel has stuck to her guns amid signs supporters might desert her. At the virtual gathering she acknowledged that "not everybody supports this policy” while promising that the rapid influx of refugees would never be repeated.
Merkel, 62, ended months of speculation earlier this month by announcing that she would run for elections next year. In a series of regional conferences ahead of the party meeting, she is reaping both criticism and applause for her response to the country's worst refugee crisis since World War II. At a Monday meeting in Heidelberg, a tearful Afghan asylum seeker wanted to thank her while a CDU member demanded that she step down.
"Don't think on a personal level that I'm not taking your fear seriously, just so we don't misunderstand each other," Merkel rebutted Thursday to the party member. "I take note of your criticism. But I think that the consequences if we didn't take the action that we did would have produced other worries."
There is a leitmotif to Merkel's arguments: That Germany had a legal and moral obligation to take in asylum seekers fleeing war and oppression. She added that steps were taken, including the European Union's accord with Turkey, to reduce the influx.
"We need to live with this dissent, but the fact is that we've taken measures so that last year isn't repeated," Merkel said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-Jackson, Sarah McGregor
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