Well, I would say that the criticism and decreasing approval rates had a major impact on her recent decisions.
Yes?
Let's face it, Brexit took place mainly because EU was absolutely unwilling to compromise with Britain about border control, and David Cameron was sent packing with nothing to show for it after taking a gamble with the referendum in an attempt to force the EU to change its stance towards immigration and appease the British population.
No, let's not face that, because it's not true at all.
First of all; Britain is not even part of the Schengen agreement, so the British government has full authority over its own border control. So no idea how that myth ever got established.
As for the refugee crisis; the U.K have taken in a WHOPPING 5.500 refugees, with around 38k applicants total, and have pledged to grant 20k citizenship by 2020. Yes, what a dystopian nightmare for one of the richest economies in the world, and a total population of more than 60 mil.
The EU has no stance on immigration when it comes to non-EU citizens. Another myth. The EU enacted some refugee quotas to help out Greece and Italy, and that has been it. Also, there are some common asylum rules etc. enacted by the ratification of the ECHR, but that's really the extend of it. How the Brexit campaign managed to sell the myth of "breaking point" is also beyond me.
Why Brexit took place is a larger discussion. But as showcased here, misinformation played a big part.
This has soured Merkel on the current EU leadership, and made her realize that she could be steering her ship towards the same direction. The backlash was much stronger than expected. She is more pragmatic than the idealists that are in charge of EU, thus she's now doing what the people want her to do, to retain her leadership status. The EU leaders do not need to care because they aren't democratically elected anyway, thus approval ratings are of no concern to them.
But none of this could've truly happened if it wasn't for the people who continued to argue against immigration, even at the risk of being labelled a racist.
Who are these mythical EU leaders you talk about?
Aren't democratically elected? I guess you then mean the the president of the commission (who is voted in by the european parliament - who are democatically elected)? Yeah.. If there's one word to describe good ol' Juncker it would certainly be idealist, lol. If the word "technocrat" ever manifested into flesh, I'm pretty sure it would take the form of Juncker.
Or do you mean the head of the european council (you know, who is appointed by the democratically elected leaders of each member state)? I'm sad to tell you, that that man hold little to no power at all.
Yes, a big shout out to the bravery of the people on the right. They risked being called "racist", but even against this epic threat, they kept marching on. I'm sure the history books will be filled with legendary tales of this great bravery, that was maintaining the status quo, and avoiding helping people fleeing war and terror.