01 September, 2017
Immigration is a hot-button issue in the elections, but AfD, a populist anti-immigrant party, has failed to make headway despite its talk of migrant terrorism.
She urged continued dialogue between all sides to that eventually there could be a solution that would lead to the lifting of the sanctions.
The chancellor has repeatedly said that another emergency situation shouldn't be allowed to happen again, but if it did, she wouldn't change any of the major decisions she made in 2015. Merkel said there could be no progress even in trade relations with Turkey if the rule of law was not guaranteed in the country. "The head of government has to act and I did".
More than a million migrants have arrived in Germany over the past two years since Mrs. Merkel suspended European Union border rules and said her nation would take "no upper limit" of new arrivals. Merkel also criticized the leading politician for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alexander Gauland's statement toward SPD deputy leader Aydan Özoğuz, calling it racist and that it should be strongly condemned.
The checks were first introduced in response to the worst refugee crisis since World War II, which saw a record number of refugees flood into Europe from Syria, as well as other Middle Eastern countries and Africa. "This has definitely generated some self-confidence", Merkel said.
Earlier this year, Merkel set aside at least €90 million (US$95.7 million; £76.7 million; RM425 million) of taxpayers money to pay for her own mistakes.
In Paris, meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron prepared to host a summit of Europe's "big four" continental powers including Germany, as well as three African nations to tackle Europe's migrant crisis.
As Merkel runs for a fourth term in Germany's September 24 election on a platform of defending European Union values, she joined French President Emmanuel Macron in criticizing Poland for a government push to encroach on the courts.
Overall, the party won 24.3 percent of the votes in the election a year ago, making it the second-largest group after Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the regional parliament of Saxony-Anhalt.
Merkel in 2015 chose to open the border to hundreds of thousands of refugees.
"Given what the situation is at the moment, I believe we need these border controls", she told reporters.
'We're a democracy and everyone can freely express themselves in public the way they want, ' she said. Estimates say some 280,000 refugees arrived in Germany past year.
He said the conservatives' campaign was simple: "We have Angela Merkel and that's enough for our future".
