Merkel responds to concerns of migrant influx at party congress

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s challenger in the German election accused her in a television debate yesterday of crushing southern European countries with austerity, declaring her euro crisis strategy a failure.

The majority of Germans feel the eurozone would be better off if debt-crippled Greece left it, a poll published in prominent newspaper Bild am Sonntag showed yesterday.

GERMAN conservative challenger Angela Merkel’s opinion poll lead has shrunk since her TV debate with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and she may not achieve her goal of a centre-right coalition, surveys yesterday showed.