This massive influx has dominated the political and social debate, and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) already lost 2 regional elections, including one in her hometown and one in Berlin. Merkel said the result in Berlin was a bitter one, that she accepted responsibility for her partys poor performance and that she needed to do more to explain her policies on migrants.
Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlins Free University, sounded a warning for Merkel. People will see this as the start of the Kanzlerdämmerung (twilight of the Chancellor), he said. If a lot of CDU members start seeing this defeat as Merkels fault, and members of parliament start seeing her as a danger for the party and their own jobs, the whole situation could escalate out of control.
Reality has set in, Chancellor Merkel is no longer vehemently defending her open-arms policy, and has apparently reversed course. Merkel, who is trailing in the polls in her bid for a fourth term, is said to be setting aside 90 million euros ($95.7 million) in taxpayers money for a fund which will pay migrants to withdraw their asylum applications and leave Germany voluntarily.
Furthermore, she proposes a financial incentive of 1200 Euros ($1268) to those who withdraw their applications for asylum and go home. Voluntary departure represents a better way than deportation, according to Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister.