Berlin, Jumada I 08, 1437, February 17, 2016, SPA -- Angela Merkel is expected to defend her push for an international response to Europe's refugee crisis Wednesday when she appears before a German legislature that contains many critics of those very same policies, dpa reported. The chancellor's decision to keep German borders open in and work to solve the refugee crisis with EU partners has received strong criticism at home and within the ranks of her own conservative coalition. However, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker gave his firm backing to Merkel in an interview with mass circulation newspaper Bild on Wednesday, saying that she would "outlast all her critics in office." In her address, which comes ahead of an EU summit starting Thursday, Merkel is expected to reiterate her stance that the refugee crisis can only be solved through cooperation between member states. The two-day summit will centre on EU demands to fairly distribute migrants across members states and ways for Turkey and Greece to cooperate in efforts to stem the influx by securing the bloc's external borders. --SPA 17:05 LOCAL TIME 14:05 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w