Overview

• At a sold-out event in Berlin’s Admiralspalast on September 24, Angela Merkel told roughly 1,700 attendees she would again choose not to block refugees in 2015.
• She cast the choice as a matter of national values, describing the options as treating people with dignity or using water cannons.
• Merkel reported that many who arrived in 2015 are employed, saying the employment rate among men from that group is now similar to the German average.
• While acknowledging the influx aided the AfD’s rise, she insisted democratic parties should not form majorities with AfD votes and restated her criticism of such attempts.
• She praised Friedrich Merz’s foreign-policy stance, backed NATO deterrence toward Russia, and argued border pushbacks of asylum seekers are wrong under European rules while emphasizing returns for those without the right to stay.