Unprecedented rage in Germany; A referendum on leaving the EU announced?

Unprecedented rage in Germany; A referendum on leaving the EU announced?

Party leader Alice Weidel made this statement, hailing the United Kingdom's exit from the EU as a perfectly correct move.

"It is a model for Germany, an option to be able to make such a sovereign decision," said Alice Weidel in an interview with the Financial Times.

Alice Weidel has led the party since 2022 and says an AfD government will seek to reform the EU and remove its "democratic deficit", including limiting the powers of the European Commission, an "unelected executive".

"Let the people decide for themselves"

"If reform is not possible, if we fail to rebuild the sovereignty of the EU member states, we should let the people decide, just like the UK did. And we could have a referendum on Brexit, Germany's exit from the EU," Alice Weidel said.

The idea opens up a big taboo in Germany, where the mainstream parties are staunchly pro-European. Also, the German constitution places strict limits on national plebiscites, and even if they were to take place, polls show that the vast majority of Germans would vote to remain in the EU.

However, among AfD voters, support for the EU is the weakest.

Mass protests against the right

Protests against the AfD were held in numerous German cities, and politicians pointed out the danger the party poses to German democratic institutions. Alice Weidel did not participate in the meeting and quickly fired a close associate who was present. Still, she had trouble controlling her reaction. Lars Klingbeil, the leader of the Social Democrats, accused her of downplaying the deportation plan and instead lashing out at a "media smear campaign" against the AfD.

"You're a wolf in lamb's clothing. But I'm telling you that your facade is starting to crumble. People are finally seeing the real face of the AfD," Klingbeil told her during a debate in the Bundestag last week. In her interview, Alice Weidel blamed the investigative newspaper Corrective, which first reported on the meeting, denouncing the organization's methods as "scandalous."

"It was an attempt to criminalize the very idea of legally repatriating people who do not have permission to stay here or are subject to a deportation order. The AfD is a party that stands for enforcing the laws of this country," said Alice Weidel.

She admits that they will not come to power before 2029

Other parties have responded to AfD's threat by creating a "protective wall" that prevents any form of coalition or cooperation with the party. As a result, despite its strength in the polls, the AfD does not have a leading role in any of Germany's 16 state governments. Speaking from her office overlooking the Reichstag, with the noise of anti-government protests in the distance, Alice Weidel herself admitted that the AfD will not come to power in Berlin before 2029. But she insisted that the AfD's future role in government was inevitable, predicting that the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) would be the first to abandon the boycott. "The CDU will not be able to maintain its protective wall in the long term," she said of the party once led by Angela Merkel.

Last year's elections in the German state of Hesse, continued Alice Weidel, showed "that we can form a clear right-wing majority. And the CDU cannot refuse that in the long term, especially in the eastern regions." Asked what the AfD's priorities will be in the government, Alice Weidel said she would "impose effective border controls and immediately deport foreign criminals." It would reform the tax system, reduce state bureaucracy and stop Germany's transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

"France is planning 15 new nuclear power plants, and we rely on wind turbines and solar panels that we can't even produce ourselves," she said.