German far-right threatens to leave EU if it’s not reformed

The German far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) wants to pull Germany out of the EU if the bloc proves to be unreformable within “reasonable time”, the party stated in its EU election programme that was adopted on Sunday (6 August).

The AfD is pushing to radically reform the European Union and to transform it into a loose confederation of “fatherlands”, according to the party’s programme, arguing that the European Parliament should be dissolved and the European Court of Justice stripped of most of its competencies.

“If our fundamental reform approaches cannot be realised in the existing system of the EU within a reasonable period of time, we consider a withdrawal of Germany or an orderly dissolution of the European Union and the establishment of a new European economic and interest community to be necessary,” the party programme reads.

The new party programme has, however, been somewhat toned down from AfD’s previous positions. A draft proposal of the election programme in June stated that the EU is already “unreformable” and called for its outright dissolution. During the German general elections in 2021, the party also advocated for Germany to leave the bloc.

However, in order to appeal to a broader voter base, the AfD party heads Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel pushed for a softer approach towards the EU. The final version is therefore a compromise with the more radical wing of the AfD that is still pushing for Germany to leave the bloc immediately.

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.

The AfD has recently also strengthened its collaboration with other far-right parties by formally joining the Identity and Democracy Party (ID). Currently, the party’s MEPs are members of ID’s parliamentary group, but the AfD as a whole is not part of the party family.

The far-right AfD is consistently polling at second place with over 20% in recent months – outperforming even the SPD of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and coming dangerously close to the leading conservative CDU/CSU.

The election programme of the AfD was met with fierce reactions, with Manfred Weber, who helms the European People’s Party (EPP), calling it a “declaration of war against the [European] Union”.

“It stands against all that previous generations have fought for,” Weber told German broadcaster ZDF.

While Weber emphasised that he would exclude any collaboration with the AfD on the European level, he also defended his rapprochement with the far-right party Brothers of Italy of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Unlike the AfD, Meloni’s party is not part of the ID group but belongs to the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR).

Weber emphasised that Meloni cannot be compared with the AfD and that the “firewall” against the far-right “must be clearly defined”.

Meanwhile, Vice-President of the European Parliament and former German justice minister Katarina Barley criticised Weber for not distancing himself enough from the far-right parties, especially Meloni.

“The firewall of the conservatives against the right-wing populists and the fascists no longer exists,” she told the newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.

“Especially in Germany, we are experiencing a tight right-wing course in the CDU and CSU.” Weber has “deliberately opened the flank to the right and makes no secret of it,” she added.

German far-right works for EU’s ‘controlled dissolution’

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is set to make the controlled dissolution of the EU one of its key targets for the upcoming European elections, with its leader Tino Chrupalla calling Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán one of his …

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]