28 March 2013

Business Insider: Bernd Lucke - Alternative für Deutschland's plan for Germany and the euro

Dr Bernd Lucke, a University of Hamburg economics professor, has formed a new, anti-euro political party in Germany, in an attempt to unseat Angela Merkel in this September's elections.

So, what exactly is Alternative's plan for Germany and the euro?

For Germany, it's severing the fiscal transfers to struggling peripheral eurozone countries in southern Europe that have fallen into recession.

"While it currently seems to be the case that we do benefit from the euro crisis, there are tremendous risks in the wings, and we would like to end these policies of disguising fiscal risk, and discharging banks of their risk to the detriment of taxpayers", says Lucke. "This heavy burden we just do not want to bear, and this is why we have formed our party to oppose it."

For the rest of Europe, in which Germany remains dominant, it's dissolving the euro altogether.

Lucke says the economic division the euro is creating between North and South "certainly is the cause for envious sentiment and angry sentiment in the southern European countries, so that the political tensions within the European Union actually rise". Alternative für Deutschland fears that these tensions could jeopardise the principles of a "common market" that make the EU so great for German trade. Lucke suggests, for example, that peripheral nations could perhaps impose customs duties if they can find no other way to become competitive.

"We use the completely wrong incentives for the crisis countries", says Lucke. "We do not help them solve their problems, but pile up more debt for them and force them into a recession, which makes the situation simply unsustainable."

Thus, it's about sacrificing the euro to save the European Project.

Business Insider also spoke to Lucke about AfD's chances in September's elections, what an AfD opposition would look like in the German Bundestag, his thoughts on the rise of Beppe Grillo and the anti-euro Five Star Movement in Italy, and the economics Germany's relationship with the euro.

Full article with full transcript

© Business Insider