By Miranda Murray
BERLIN, Nov 2 (Reuters) – The far-right Alternative for Germany, founded more than a decade ago in opposition to the EU’s handling of the euro crisis, is recalibrating its vision for Europe as it and its right-wing allies abroad gain influence.
After a historic victory in a regional election in Saxony-Anhalt in September, Germany’s most popular party in nationwide surveys now appears closer than ever to entering government at national level before the end of the decade.
The prospect is prompting debate over how to balance an anti-establishment identity with the need to appear as a credible partner to potential allies at home and abroad.
Founded in 2013 amid anger over bailouts for heavily indebted fellow members of the euro zone, the AfD began life as a movement opposed to the common currency.
While it later expanded its criticism to the European Union itself, it gained traction above all with its opposition to immigration – a line that opponents, and the domestic intelligence agency, say strays perilously close to the supremacism and xenophobia that scarred Germany’s recent past.
FAR-RIGHT IDEOLOGY GAINS GROUND ACROSS EUROPE
The AfD rejects allegations of extremism, and many members now argue that increasing acceptance of more radical right-wing views and the growing sway of like-minded parties elsewhere in Europe make reforming the bloc from within more productive than abandoning it altogether.
“Never since the end of the Second World War have the prospects for reforming the EU in line with our vision been better,” said AfD national lawmaker Sebastian Muenzenmaier.
But the aim of quitting the euro – dear to many of the AfD’s founders and early supporters – has proved harder to address.
Younger members such as Jean-Pascal Hohm, 29-year-old head of the party’s youth wing, Generation Deutschland, argue that hardline positions on Europe could complicate the AfD’s most realistic route to federal power: eventual cooperation with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), who currently rule out any alliance.
Last month, AfD co-leader Alice Weidel presented a strategy paper at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on a “New Deal for Europe” alongside allies in the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) grouping.
The paper shifts the emphasis away from quitting the euro zone and the EU, focusing instead on renegotiating treaties to establish a looser union.
It proposes an “opt-out” mechanism for members who reject common policies on defence spending or immigration, for example, as well as stricter enforcement of budget rules – leaving open the possibility of retaining the euro.
Should reform efforts fail, the paper suggests the issue of Germany’s future European direction would be decided by referendum.
AFD HOPES FOR ‘EUROPE OF FATHERLANDS’
Weidel told journalists that the AfD and ESN stood for “a European union, a Europe of fatherlands” but declined to say whether she still wanted Germany to leave the euro zone or the EU.
By setting aside its opposition, the AfD would be following a path already trodden by far-right parties that have had success elsewhere in the euro zone.
France’s National Rally long campaigned to abandon the euro but gradually dropped that demand under Marine Le Pen as it sought to broaden its appeal, and is now favourite to win next year’s presidential election.
In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy has reined in its eurosceptic rhetoric since taking office, opting to pursue its objectives from within the EU.
Closer to home, Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which has close ties to the AfD, renounced most of its anti-European positions on its way towards a share of power in national ruling coalitions.
“Austria serves as a blueprint for the AfD,” said Wolfgang Schroeder, a political science professor at Kassel University.
“In that sense, it’s probably just a matter of time before they drop these positions,” Schroeder said, adding that he did not think this would trigger significant resistance.
EXPORT-BASED GERMAN ECONOMY BENEFITS FROM EU MEMBERSHIP
In any case, Germany’s economy is so intertwined with the global market and driven by exports that leaving the EU or the euro would be a disaster, he said.
“An autarky movement such as the one Hitler developed in 1933 is virtually impossible under these conditions, unless one is willing to risk the collapse of the entire national economy.”
Hohm’s younger AfD colleagues make a similar argument, saying Europe’s changing political realities, as well as growing competition from China and a less reliable United States, make the case for more, not less, cooperation in the bloc.
“If we were to basically cancel the common currency and everyone goes their own way again, that is completely utopian and that would also do us massive damage,” Hohm said.
“Young Europeans, regardless of nationality, more often see themselves as Europeans and are less willing to continue fighting the conflicts of their grandparents.”
But in the party as a whole, the issue is far from settled.
Hohm submitted a resolution at a congress in August that read: “Generation Deutschland is committed to the European idea … Europe is more than an economic area, more than a monetary union and more than the European Union.”
Yet although the resolution was phrased to emphasise the EU’s role in reinforcing shared history and heritage, rather than economic cooperation, it was withdrawn after failing to gain sufficient support.
“The euro issue turned out to be more controversial than we had expected,” he said.
(Reporting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
