With her country's political landscape shifting significantly before her, Angela Merkel has now put her political hat on in order to survive politically in Germany.
As France 24 reports, Angela Merkel is urging European Leaders to protect the EU's external borders or risk a "return to nationalism." Merkel said the "freedom of movement" in Europe is at stake as it deals with the worst migration crisis since WWII.
The irony of course, is that it wasn't very long ago that Merkel was vehemently defending her open borders policy, saying:
"I am in favor of showing a friendly face of Germany. This is my open-arms policy"
The 180 degree turn on the issue is of course explained not by a change of heart, but by a change in sentiment within Germany.
As we reported earlier, Germany's AfD party is gaining significant popularity, and is on track to become the second most popular party in the country. The problem Merkel has is that the AfD party has a platform that is anti-immigrant, and anti-muslim, and the growing popularity of the party implies that these beliefs are starting to be held by the voters as well.
It won't be long now before the AfD surpasses SPD and becomes Merkel's newest headache to deal with. As she now sits on the complete opposite side of where the German people seem to be going on the issue of immigration, a dramatic policy change and increased rhetoric such as what was reported above can now be expected from Merkel.