08 September 2013

Election round-up: Germany's eurosceptic AfD party gains support

Reaching 4 per cent in the latest polls, support for the eurosceptic "Alternative für Deutschland" party is rising, with their result being the biggest unknown in the German elections. Meanwhile, Angela Merkel has ruled out a potential coalition of the AfD with her Christian Democrats.

Partly translated from the German

As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, an upstart political party founded just this year, staged a rally outside the ECB last Thursday, arguing the central bank's crisis fighting measures come at the expense of German taxpayers. To some eurosceptics, the ECB has ignored treaty agreements and the German constitution in its efforts to save the euro. The AfD's call for Southern Europe's financially troubled crisis states to exit the eurozone has added some spice to what was expected to be a staid national election in Germany.

The party is gaining momentum, with support reaching 4 per cent of the total vote - its highest level yet - according to a Forsa poll released Wednesday. The party, which had about 3 per cent support previously, would need at least 5 per cent to enter Germany's parliament. Even if it falls short, supporters of German Chancellor Angela Merkel worry that the party could upend the election by siphoning votes away from her junior coalition party, the Free Democrats. In doing so, it could have a "disproportionate influence" on the outcome of the election, argues Ulrike Guérot from the European Council on Foreign Relations, describing the AfD as the "newest unpredictable element" of the election.

In her new ECFR Policy Brief, "The German elections: What Europe expects and what Germany will not do", quoted in the Telegraph, she mentions that on the left of the political spectrum, some prominent political economists have recently argued that the social costs of the eurozone are too high, especially for its southern Member States, and that a return to national currencies might be a better option.

Die Welt reported that if the AfD should really enter the Bundestag, their party leader, Bernd Lucke, would be prepared for coalition talks with Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. In an interview with the Focus, Lucke said the AfD would only enter into coalition talks with parties "which are willing to turn away fundamentally from the current euro rescue policy", but added that party leaders had in the past "carried out quite a number of surprising policy reversals", which also applied to the CDU.

Lucke said he was confident that the AfD would enter into parliament on 22 September and maybe even get close to double digits. Hans-Peter Schöppner of TNS Emnid Institute also did not rule out that the AFD could make it into parliament, reports Die Welt. Some voters had the impulse to vote for the party "which could annoy the established parties the most". Hermann Binkert from the Insa Institute believes that the AfD could mobilise many non-voters "because two-thirds of this group want a euro-critical party in the Bundestag".

However, in an interview with the print version of Bild am Sonntag, Angela Merkel said that a coalition with the AfD "was out of the question".