How the Far-Right AfD Is Causing Shock Waves in Germany
The euroskeptic, anti-immigration and anti-Islam Alternative for Germany party has upended the country’s normally staid politics, demonstrating that Europe’s biggest economy isn’t immune to the populism that has permeated its European Union neighbors.
The euroskeptic, anti-immigration and anti-Islam Alternative for Germany party has upended the country’s normally staid politics, demonstrating that Europe’s biggest economy isn’t immune to the populism that has permeated its European Union neighbors. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and Germany’s other mainstream parties swore off any cooperation with the AfD, even after it emerged as the third-strongest political force in the 2017 national election. But its pivotal role in the selection of a new leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, where leaders from Merkel’s party defied her ban, threatens anew to push her coalition government to the breaking point.
It was founded in 2013 by economists and former politicians who were against Merkel’s support for bailing out Greece in the wake of the global financial crisis. It urged “the dissolution of the euro in favor of national currencies or smaller currency alliances” and the “orderly sovereign insolvency” of highly indebted euro-area countries, with private creditors paying the cost. The party gained momentum amid widespread discontent with Merkel’s immigration policy, which opened the door to more than 1 million refugees arriving in Germany after 2015 during a crisis tied to Syria’s civil war.