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 But a CDU congress in the southwestern city of Karlsruhe next week
is shaping up to be a very different affair. Under intense pressure
from conservative allies to reduce the flood of refugees into
Germany, the 61-year-old chancellor faces the biggest test of her
authority from within the party in years.
The influential youth wing of the party has openly defied her in the
run-up to the glitzy two-day event by demanding she agree to an
"Obergrenze", or cap on the number of asylum seekers Germany accepts
- a step she has repeatedly rejected on the grounds it would be
impossible to enforce.
Her Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), have been
pressing for a cap for months, and even some of Merkel's own
ministers are lobbying openly for a tougher stance from the
chancellor, who marked 10 years in office last month and must decide
by next autumn whether she will seek a fourth term in 2017.
 "Merkel has never endured such sharp criticism from within her own
ranks since becoming chancellor," read a front-page editorial in
conservative daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on
Monday. "Under no circumstances can she allow the congress to
approve a resolution on refugee policy that includes the word
'Obergrenze'."
Two recent developments are working in Merkel's favor ahead of the
meeting in Karlsruhe, a city which sits near the border between
Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, two of three German
states that will hold elections in March.
First, the number of migrants arriving in Germany has slowed
significantly since late November, largely because of colder weather
which has made it more difficult for refugees to travel from Turkey
to Greece and then up through the Balkans.
"It's too early to declare a change in the trend but it is
positive," Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Monday.
Also, a sharp months-long slide in support for Merkel and her
conservative bloc appears to have come to a halt.
An Emnid survey last weekend put the CDU/CSU on 37 percent, up from
36 percent a month ago, and still 12 points ahead of the rival
Social Democrats (SPD). A separate poll from Infratest dimap showed
Merkel's popularity rising 5 points to 54 percent.
"I see a lot of support in the party for Angela Merkel's course,"
CDU General Secretary Peter Tauber said at the weekend, dismissing
suggestions her authority was waning.
'CATASTROPHIC MOOD'
But some CDU members described the mood in the party as abysmal.
For the first time in years, off-the-record conversations with
lawmakers in Berlin are littered with criticisms of Merkel, echoing
the era before she became chancellor when a cabal of conservative
men worked behind the scenes to undermine the protestant pastor's
daughter from communist East Germany.
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Last week, former Saxony justice minister Steffen Heitmann became
the first prominent member of the CDU to announce he was leaving the
party. In a letter to Merkel which was leaked to the media, he said
he had never felt "so foreign in my own country".
The atmosphere could not be more different than it was back in 2012,
when at a CDU congress in Hanover, Merkel was re-elected party
leader by 98 percent of delegates, a score so high that German
reporters jokingly likened it to the sham elections of East German
leaders during Merkel's youth.
"The mood among conservative members of parliament is really
catastrophic right now," said one senior CDU lawmaker, declining to
be named. "Merkel is totally isolated."
"She needs to wake up," said another top ranking party member.
"Merkel's solution to this crisis depends on the goodwill of people
like (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and (Turkish President
Tayyip) Erdogan. It simply won't work."
A close aide to the chancellor, speaking on condition of anonymity,
played down the extent of the discontent, estimating that only a
third of party members were really in favor of a tougher course,
through caps, border closures or more radical measures.
Merkel has resisted such steps, arguing that the influx must be
tackled outside Germany, through negotiations to resolve the war in
Syria and by encouraging neighboring Turkey to improve conditions
for refugees there and convincing European partners to accept quotas
of asylum seekers.
"Merkel will not budge on this," the aide said. "If there really is
a majority at the congress for caps on refugees, this would point to
a problem at the top, but we don't expect this."
(Additional reporting by Paul Carrel; Writing by Noah Barkin;
Editing by Pravin Char)
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