Merkel's Party Plunging in Polls as Germany Overwhelmed by Refugees

A senior figure in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party has proposed setting up "border centres" along the frontier with Austria to speed up the repatriation of those asylum seekers deemed unqualified to stay.

Julia Kloeckner, leader of Merkel's Christian Democrats in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, said she thought the chancellor's push for a European solution to a large influx of asylum seekers into Europe was still the right decision, adding that her proposal was meant to "complement it".

"On the German-Austrian border, border centres will be set up," Kloeckner wrote in the paper, a copy of which Reuters obtained. It has been endorsed by the Christian Democrats' (CDU) secretary-general.

The proposal highlights the frustration in Merkel's party with the slow progress in achieving a European Union-wide solution to the refugee crisis, which is straining the infrastructure of many German municipalities.

Germany attracted 1.1 million asylum seekers last year, leading to calls from across the political spectrum for a change in its handling of the number of refugees coming to Europe to escape war and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

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