It should have been her Nobel lecture, but in practical terms, about 1,000 members of Germany's Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) were probably a better audience for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's speech on Monday. And Merkel is nothing if not practical.
Before she appeared at the annual party conference in Karlsruhe, there was the usual talk of rifts and internal tensions because of Merkel's stance on refugees. When she was done, she had to stop a nine-minute standing ovation by saying, "We still have work to do today." The weekly Der Spiegel called this the most important speech of her career. That may be an exaggeration, but Merkel, who is not eloquent by nature or even by training despite a political career that now includes 10 years as chancellor, handled it as if she had a lot to prove.
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