When it comes to the process of forming a ruling coalition in Germany's federal assembly, the Bundestag, the first step for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is reaching an agreement with its Bavarian sister-party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), on the issue of migration policy. On Oct. 9, Merkel announced in a press conference that the two groups had done exactly that. Though the CSU has been asking for years to set a limit to the number of asylum applications that Germany can process every year, the CDU has regularly rejected the proposal on the grounds that it's unconstitutional. After the CSU lost a considerable amount of votes to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), however, CSU leader Horst Seehofer blamed Merkel and her refugee policy, which he said was unpopular with many German citizens.