The right-wing populist AfD—Germany’s second highest polling political party—launched its EU election campaign on Saturday, April 27th, by focusing largely on Brussels’ constant centralization efforts. It seems Brussels aims to eventually replace nation states with an EU “superstate.” In contrast, AfD proposes an alternative to Germans: de-centralization, a union of sovereign states with all the benefits of the EU internal market, and no undemocratic bureaucracy forcing European capitals into submission.
AfD has changed. It no longer advocates a “Dexit” (Deutschland Exit), but, like most members of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group—which also includes Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Salvini’s Lega—it would rather return to the “original idea of a European community.”
“We are not anti-European, … but we no longer want this EU,” co-chair Tino Chrupalla stated at the campaign launch event on Saturday.
The threat of an “EU superstate” is not a new idea in Brussels’ political discourse. Many MEPs in both conservative blocs (ECR and ID) have been warning about the EU mainstream’s reform proposals that would effectively reduce member states’ competencies to the level of a federal state, while massively increasing the power of the EU institutions. What is new is the increasing momentum within the European electorate behind opposition to such a state.
According to Marc Jongen, an AfD candidate for the European Parliament and a driving force behind the party’s ideology, instead of such an inherently undemocratic structure, “AfD wants to strengthen our national sovereignty and limit the power of the EU to what is necessary.”
According to the party’s official election manifesto Rethink Europe”
To preserve the national sovereignty and cultural identity of the member states, and to effectively reduce excessive bureaucracy, we are striving to establish a new European economic and interest community. In this “Union of European Nations” there would be as much national independence as possible and as much cooperation as necessary.
In short, keep the internal market but limit [non-voluntary] cooperation in every other area to only the most important strategic decisions, ones that benefit all European citizens. Instead of allowing the EU to overregulate every area of public life, let the member states decide for themselves.
In practice, however, this would require a thorough reshuffle of the EU institutions and their competencies. For instance, one of the medium-term goals of AfD is to “abolish the undemocratically elected EU Parliament.”
MEPs are the only directly elected members of the EU legislature (as opposed to commissioners, for instance). However, while they are only accountable to voters in their home countries, they have the power to influence the lives of hundreds of millions of Europeans without them having any say in that. The Parliament lacks the democratic legitimacy that is inherent at the national level.
Instead of MEPs, legislative power should be vested solely in the Council (of member states), “bound by the decisions of the national parliaments in their voting behavior.” Instead of the current proposals to abolish EU members’ veto power altogether, AfD advocates for a Council where every decision has to be backed by a unanimous vote to respect democratic principles.
Structural EU reforms are not the only focus of the AfD’s campaign, of course. Migration, energy, economy, and family policies also have center stage in the party’s manifesto, and AfD is offering alternatives in each to the current EU mainstream’s trajectory.
For instance, the party calls for a complete end to illegal migration from outside of the EU’s external borders (something that the new Asylum and Migration Pact does not address properly). It calls for an end to the Islamization of Europe and for the effective deportation of those who are abusing the asylum system. Immigration to Germany should follow the “point-based Japanese model,” letting in only people who are qualified and willing to integrate into German society.
In order to ensure Germany’s energy security, the program rejects the EU’s Green Deal with its forced shift to renewables and calls for reopening the country’s abandoned nuclear reactors, as well as repairing the Nord Stream pipeline as soon as possible.
Restoring Germany’s economic sovereignty and competitiveness would mean quitting the eurozone and reintroducing a national currency in order to break free from Brussels’ destructive debt policy spiral. “A new Deutsche Mark could regain its higher purchasing power compared to other countries,” the program reads.
AfD is currently polling at 18%, second only to the center-right CDU/CSU alliance and ahead of all three governing parties. A recent study also revealed that the national conservatives are the most popular among younger voters (18-30), suggesting that a gradual, generational shift is taking place in German political loyalties.
