The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is holding a two-week congress to prepare for next year’s European elections with the 600 delegates so divided on the very existence of the European Union that the party leadership has decided to choose candidates first and leave for the next week -or the following- the discussion of the program.
Europe is the hot potato of a far-right formation that celebrates its tenth anniversary with 20% of voting intentions in the polls, only four points behind the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and well ahead of the three coalition parties of Government: Social Democrats (SPD) Greens and Liberals (FDP). The AFD wants to govern and the motto is ‘No scandals’. And the current European program is, even if its execution is impossible: abolition of the European Parliament, departure from the single currency in favor of the introduction of the German mark and outright rejection of the European institutions. The opposite, the most far-right sectors believe, would be betraying the voters and renouncing the founding bases that now make it the second political force in the demoscopy.
The AfD’s program for the 2021 Bundestag elections stated: “We consider it necessary for Germany to leave the European Union and establish a new European economic and interest community.” For some in the party, this is going too far, also because it makes it difficult to cooperate in the European Parliament with politicians from other European states who otherwise pursue similar goals to those of the AfD.
The AfD co-presidents, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, want a change in the European strategy, but on the first day of this marathon congress it became clear that there is strong opposition, hence the postponement of the debate. It will therefore be the candidate who joins the program and not the other way around. In theory, this principle of “candidates first, program second” could lead to candidates running who do not fully support the program with which the party enters the election campaign. But Weidel doesn’t care. “This is about the legal security of the list. For legal reasons, it should not be extended for too long. In addition, the candidates, if they are also delegates, have the opportunity to participate in the program debate,” she says.
The proposal for the executive’s European presentation copies the pragmatism of the anti-European parties with a presence in the European Parliament and which gave British nationalist Nigel Farage such success with Brexit. Farage has been one of the most repeated names in the interventions of the delegates.