Ahead of the EU elections next year, German far-right party AfD is firmly on an EU-sceptic path, with criticism of the European Union being among the only things the whole party can rally behind, researcher Uwe Jun told EURACTIV in an interview.
With the election of anti-EU hardliner Maximilian Krah as its lead candidate during a party congress last weekend, the AfD has set the tone for its European elections campaign.
While decisions on the substance of the party’s election programme are to be made during a second instalment of the congress starting on Friday (4 August), Krah’s nomination already shows that “more radical forces still come out on top in the AfD, and are even gaining ground within the party,” according to Jun, a professor at Trier University specialising in political parties.
“We can see that EU-sceptical tones – those who are sceptical or even reject the EU – in the AfD have also increased and form a clear majority inside the party,” he added.
This course could help the party gain voters, according to Jun.
“I think we can safely say that the voters they are currently trying to aim at are not very favourable towards the EU,” he said, adding that the party’s electorate sees more drawbacks than advantages in EU membership and focus, for instance, on Germany’s role as a net contributor to the EU budget.
Latest polls see the AfD in second place behind the biggest opposition party, the conservative CDU, and ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. The party is particularly strong in Eastern Germany, where more people say they have a negative view of the EU than have a positive one, according to the latest Eurobarometer data.
Anti-EU stance boosts party’s identity
The AfD was initially founded in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party in the wake of the euro crisis, and then gradually moved further to the right as the party’s focus shifted to issues like immigration.
However, according to Jun, Euroscepticism is still “part of the party’s DNA” and could act as a unifying force between squabbling factions within it. “This is what basically everybody in the party can still agree on, and it also somewhat serves for identity formation within the party,” he added.
While there are ongoing discussions in the AfD over whether the party should push for an outright exit of Germany from the EU – a so-called “Dexit” – Jun said it is unlikely that this “most radical” view will prevail at the party congress this weekend.
Instead, he said, the party leadership is taking a similar approach as other parties within the far-right EU party group Identity and Democracy (ID), such as France’s Rassemblement National (RN) or Italy’s Lega: “Undermining the EU from the inside, rather than pursuing an exit.”
During last weekend’s congress, the party made the decision to join the ID party. Up until now, AfD’s MEPs have been individual members of the ID parliamentary group – but not the party as a whole.
While their cooperation with the rest of the ID group in the European Parliament has so far been somewhat bumpy, the party will likely work together more smoothly with its European partners in the future, according to Jun.
German far-right led into European elections by anti-EU hardliner
German far-right party AfD has decided on a hardliner advocating for a “Europe of nation states” as their lead candidate for the upcoming EU elections. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether the party will push for Germany to exit the EU.
Alignment with Le Pen, Salvini
With its decision to join the ID party group, the AfD “has signalled that it feels at home there and wants a closer cooperation,” Jun said.
Additionally, the fact that moderating influences like the party’s former lead candidate Jörg Meuthen no longer has a role among the AfD MEPs means the party is free to align with other right-wing parties in the group, the researcher added.
Meuthen is currently still an MEP but left the AfD party group in February 2022 to protest the party’s “totalitarian tendencies”.
Meanwhile, there is still a difference between Germany and many other European countries when it comes to other parties’ cooperation with the far right, Jun said.
He pointed to Finland, Sweden, Italy and Spain as examples where conservative parties are already formally or informally cooperating with far-right ones on the national or regional level – something that is so far unheard of in Germany.
“Germany is more of an exception here, together maybe with France, where the Republicans also have scruples about cooperating with the far right,” he said.
As cooperation with the far right is becoming more normalised throughout much of Europe, this also has an impact on debates in Brussels, where the head of the centre-right EPP, German conservative Manfred Weber, has shown openness to such alliances.
“You can see that Weber is significantly less opposed to working with the far right than many in the CDU,” Jun said.
German centre-right blows off Weber-Meloni EU plans
*Updated with comments from the delegation of Fratelli d’Italia in the ECR group.
A potential alliance between the rightist European Conservatives and Reformists Group ECR and the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) is off the table for the German conservatives, a senior …
Source: euractiv.com
