BERLIN (Sputnik) — Earlier in December, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced that 965,000 people had received or applied for refugee status in Germany this year.
"We want to reduce, we want to noticeably decrease the number of arriving refugees," Merkel told the German ARD broadcaster in an interview on the sidelines of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party meeting late on Sunday.
The ruling CDU party has repeatedly asked Merkel to limit the number of arriving refugees but the chancellor has been uncompromising.
On Sunday, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Gunther Oettinger said Germany would be unable to cope with the reception of 1.1 million refugees in 2016.
