If you think this event is not the reason the policy changed soon afterwards, you would need to find a different explanation. I don’t think that inner-CDU party politics in that year would account for that.
It’s also German party politics, and my priors for what motivates German career politicians comes from private interactions in contexts where people have no reason to lie about motivations for political purposes.
I did a bit more research and it seems less clear than in my memory. In her book, Merkel does start the discussion of why the shift in policy happened with that episode, but then talks that the concrete episode was six weeks later when she felt she was forced to act “Wenn Europa es nicht zulassen wollte, dass es Tote auf der Autobahn geben würde, musste etwas geschehen. → If
Europe didn’t want to allow deaths on the highway,
something had to be done.”
Interestingly, Horst Seehofer from the CSU who was later one of the voices criticizing the decision simply stayed out of it by not being reachable by telephone.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/angela-merkel-comforts-teenage-palestinian-asylum-seeker-germany?utm_source=chatgpt.com is the event in question and it’s not exactly an event that showed her in her best light. It’s the kind of event where it makes sense that someone who’s not a psychopath would have sleep less nights over it.
If you think this event is not the reason the policy changed soon afterwards, you would need to find a different explanation. I don’t think that inner-CDU party politics in that year would account for that.
It’s also German party politics, and my priors for what motivates German career politicians comes from private interactions in contexts where people have no reason to lie about motivations for political purposes.
I found that event online, but not the claim that this was what motivated the shift in policy.
I did a bit more research and it seems less clear than in my memory. In her book, Merkel does start the discussion of why the shift in policy happened with that episode, but then talks that the concrete episode was six weeks later when she felt she was forced to act “Wenn
Europa es nicht zulassen wollte, dass es Tote auf der Autobahn
geben würde, musste etwas geschehen. → If Europe didn’t want to allow deaths on the highway, something had to be done.”
Interestingly, Horst Seehofer from the CSU who was later one of the voices criticizing the decision simply stayed out of it by not being reachable by telephone.