Merkel aide optimistic conservatives will overcome migrant cap dispute
BERLIN, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's Chief of Staff said on Sunday he was confident Germany's sister conservative parties, embroiled in a row over migrant policy that threatens their unity a year before a federal election, would soon sort out their differences.
Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) - the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) - wants to cap the number of refugees coming here at 200,000 per year after around one million arrived in 2015. But Merkel is against such a measure despite her declining popularity.
Merkel and Seehofer spoke about their dispute on the refugee issue and the general political situation for around two hours on Sunday, German media said. But there were no signs of any breakthrough.
They later also met behind closed doors with Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the Social Democrats (SPD) - the junior partner in Merkel's coalition - but a coalition source said the refugee issue was not discussed at that meeting.
Peter Altmaier, who is close to Merkel and is responsible for overseeing the government's handling of refugee issues, told broadcaster ARD he was "very optimistic" the CDU and CSU would be able to put their differences aside in the coming weeks.
"At the moment the chances of that are good because since April, since the EU-Turkey deal came into force, the number of refugees has gone down so drastically that hardly anyone is coming to Germany anymore and that means this dispute about caps might resolve itself," he said.
Senior CDU member Jens Spahn told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung he did not understand why the conservative parties were arguing because the CDU had decided back in December that it was necessary to significantly reduce the number of new arrivals to avoid overstraining German society.
The CSU has long criticized Merkel's open-door refugee policy and on Saturday Seehofer said the two conservative parties face election defeats if they remain at odds over migration.
In a regional vote last Sunday Merkel's CDU came in third place, behind the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) -an embarrassing result that Merkel has admitted was a result of her party's pro-refugee stance.
An Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed support for the AfD rising by one point to 13 percent at the federal level while the conservative bloc - made up of the CDU and the CSU - lost one point to 33 percent.
AfD co-leader Frauke Petry told newspaper Welt am Sonntag she wanted to make the AfD the strongest party in opposition in the Bundestag lower house of parliament after next year's vote. It is represented in nine of Germany's 16 state assemblies but does not have any seats in the federal parliament. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; additional reporting by Holger Hansen; Editing by Stephen Powell)
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