The opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which prides itself on its business-oriented policy platform, is warning that Germany’s competitiveness is declining and there is a creeping deindustrialization.
Business leaders have been expressing concern over the rise of the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party over its anti-immigrant rhetoric.
The party, which is currently polling at around 18% to 22% nationwide in opinion surveys, has just ended the first session of its conference looking ahead to European Parliament elections in June 2024.
The central state of Thuringia’s notoriously extreme-right AfD leader Björn Höcke told public broadcaster Phoenix on the sidelines of the conference: “This EU must die, so the true Europe may live.”
This was seen to deliberately echo a headline from the Nazi-era newspaper Völkischer Beobachter, which said that German soldiers had died in the battle of Stalingrad during World War II “so that Germany may live.”
46-year-old MEP Maximilian Krah, who was again picked as the far-right party’s top candidate for the European Parliament elections, told public broadcaster DLF that the EU was currently focused “almost exclusively on the climate crisis, gender issues, immigration, and war. While the AfD speaks of prosperity, family, the people, and peace.”
AfD leaders do not advocate Germany unilaterally leaving the EU (a concept referred to as “Dexit”) but rather want the current EU to be dissolved completely to make way for a new economic union. Most in the AfD are critical of Germany’s relations with the United States and many propagate more openness towards Russia and China. |