Overview

• At a live event hosted by the Augsburger Allgemeine, Angela Merkel said she can well imagine Germany electing its first female Federal President in 2027, while stressing she will not take part in the decision.
• Ten years after saying "Wir schaffen das," she maintained the 2015 choice was necessary and highlighted integration gains, including many refugees now in work.
• Merkel conceded she had underestimated how hard it would be to return people who are legally required to leave the country.
• She again rejected turning away asylum seekers at the border and called for tackling migration and its causes through coordinated European solutions.
• Merkel cautioned against the AfD claiming interpretive dominance and criticized rhetoric that pits social groups against one another, such as casting cargo-bike users against "hardworking farmers."