575384

research-article2015

IPS0010.1177/0192512115575384International Political Science ReviewGrimm

Article

The rise of the German Eurosceptic

party Alternative fr Deutschland,
between ordoliberal critique and
popular anxiety

International Political Science Review

2015, Vol. 36(3) 264278
The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512115575384
ips.sagepub.com

Robert Grimm

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Abstract
Germany came relatively unscathed through the economic turbulence of recent years. For some observers,
Germany is the biggest beneficiary of the Eurozone and the winner of the crisis. This begs the question
of why, at the height of Germanys post-war European influence, have an increasing number of Germans
withdrawn their support from the European project? The Alternative fr Deutschland (Alternative for
Germany, AfD) is Germanys first Eurosceptic party to attract substantial electoral support in local, national
and European elections. The article firstly presents a brief summary of the AfDs European politics. It then
traces the partys ideological roots back to ordoliberal critiques of the Maastricht Treaty and argues that
there was a deep scepticism towards European integration among Germanys conservative elites well before
the introduction of the Euro. The sudden surge in German Euroscepticism has to be understood within
the context of broader cultural changes and a lack of political choice. An unprecedented moral panic about
European bailouts and the European Central Banks monetary policy created a sense of emergency that
paved the way for the AfDs success.

Keywords
Germany, Euroscepticism, Alternative for Germany, ordoliberal, European debt crisis, far right

Introduction
Germany came relatively unscathed through the economic turbulence of recent years. After a brief
contraction in 2008, the German economy continued to grow. While Spain and Greece experienced
youth unemployment of more than 50 per cent, in Germany it dropped to record lows (OECD,
2013a). Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain struggled to control spiralling sovereign debt and were
made to implement stringent fiscal policies. Germany, on the contrary, was able to borrow money

Corresponding author:
Robert Grimm, Department of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, 413 Geoffrey Manton Building,
Manchester M15 6BH, UK.
Email: r.grimm@mmu.ac.uk

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on international markets on favourable terms, saving up to 40 billion Euros in interest payments

between 2010 and 2014 (Spiegel Online International, 2013). The subdued Euro also underpins
Germanys export-driven economic model. For some observers, Germany is the biggest beneficiary of the Eurozone and winner of the sovereign debt crisis (Wolf, 2010; Young and Semmler,
2011). Despite this, strong gains of the Eurosceptic Alternative fr Deutschland (Alternative for
Germany, AfD) in recent elections suggest that German backing for European integration moved
from an era of permissive consensus (Inglehart, 1971) to a period of constraining dissensus
(Hooghe, 2007).
The AfD is Germanys first Eurosceptic party to have attracted substantial electoral support in
local, national and European elections. In the general elections in September 2013, the AfD gained
4.7 per cent of the vote with its critique of the single currency and bailout policies and nearly
entered the Bundestag. During the European Parliament elections in May 2014, the AfD achieved
7 per cent and has been able to send seven members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to
Strasburg. The party entered local parliaments in Saxony (9.7 per cent, 14 seats), Brandenburg
(12.2 per cent, 11 seats) and Thuringia (10.6 per cent, 11 seats) in autumn 2014 as well as in
Hamburg in February 2015 (6.1 per cent, 8 seats). Given that the AfD had its inaugural conference
only in April 2013, this is a considerable result.
Particularly in local chapters in eastern Germany, the AfD is increasingly adopting a xenophobic, nativist and law and order rhetoric, which puts the party into close proximity to the radical
right. This article is, however, primarily concerned with the rise of German Euroscepticism and the
AfDs ordoliberal critique of the European Monetary Union (EMU). Moreover, the article argues
that the sudden surge in German Euroscepticism has to be understood as part of a complex constellation of wider cultural changes, a lack of political choice and a moral panic about the impact of
European monetary policy on German stability culture.

The Alternative for Germany: Pro-European but anti-Euro

In 2013, the AfD mobilised voters with a Eurosceptic programme that sets it apart from the proEuropean position of Germanys centrist parties Christian Democratic Union of Germany
(CDU)/ Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) and Social Democratic Party of Germany
(SPD). The thrust of the AfDs European critique is directed at the fiscal and monetary regime
of the European Union (EU) and the failures of the Maastricht Treaty in establishing the EMU.
The AfD argues that the convergence criteria set out in the Maastricht Treaty are not adhered to:
fiscal discipline has been watered down (notably by France and Germany in 2005); the no bailout clause has been broken with the Fiscal Compact, the European Financial Stability Facility
(EFSM) and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and that the European Central Banks
(ECBs) bond-buying programme goes beyond its mandate. The Bank is financing government
spending by lowering the costs of borrowing; it surrendered to political pressures and cannot be
considered independent. According to the leader of the AfD, Bernd Lucke, uncontrolled inflation
rather than price stability will be the likely consequence of the ECBs loose monetary policy,
while German savers and pensioners will be faced with stealthy dilution of their wealth through
low interest rates (Lucke, 2013, 2014).
The AfD argues that the Euro has split Europe into donor and debtor countries. It has created
social and political tensions within and among member states and threatens to become a major risk
for peaceful European cooperation (Hau and Lucke, 2011). Despite imposing huge liabilities on
citizens and leading to further concentration of power in European institutions, the treaty establishing ESM has been rushed through national parliaments without adequate checks and democratic
consultation. The AfD thus calls for an end to the Euromantic (Henkel, 2014) ideological

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experiment and suggests the orderly dissolution of the Eurozone in either national currencies or
currency blocks and a return to sound economic reasoning, the rule of law, greater citizen participation and transparent democratic institutions (Lucke, 2013).
The AfDs critique rests on ordoliberal economic doctrine, which is rooted in Germanys catastrophic experiences during the first half of the 20th century and which underpinned its post-war
economic miracle.1 Ideologically ordoliberalism sits midway between Keynesian interventionism and neoliberalism (Bonefeld, 2012; Ptak, 2004). Since its inception, ordoliberals argued that
the EMU lacks a political framework and that participating countries do not constitute an optimal
currency area. Although predominantly academic, the debate also took place in the public forum of
the influential national newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Already in 1992, Ohr and
Schfer suggested in an open letter signed by over 60 fellow academics that there was no compelling economic argument to impose a currency union on a politically and socially divided Europe.
The authors argued that hastening a currency union would bring about economic tensions at huge
political costs. Ksters etal. (1998) launched a similar appeal, which found support among 155
economists from Germany and Austria. The authors lamented that the EMU will deny struggling
economies to use exchange rates for macro-economic adjustments and argued that policymakers
will thus revert to political pressure on the central bank levering out the banks independence. The
authors concluded that currency union should be postponed until the currency area meets basic
convergence criteria.
The lack of democratic underpinnings for the EU and the EMU was a source of concern from
when the Maastricht Treaty was first drafted. To delegate national competencies to the EU, ratification of the Treaty implied changes to German Basic Law, which were perceived by critics as disempowering German democratic institutions. The Treaty was challenged in the German
Constitutional Court as early as 1992. A series of legal cases followed: in 1998 against the introduction of the Euro (see and Hankel etal., 2001; Schachtschneider, 1998), in 2005 against the
Treaty of the European Constitution, in 2007 against the Lisbon Treaty, in 2010 against the Fiscal
Compact and in 2012 against the continuation of bailout politics.
Most plaintiffs come from the same conservative liberal milieu and are members of a generation
who helped to shape West Germanys economic miracle. Among them are academics like
Albrecht Schachtschneider, Joachim Starbatty, Wilhelm Hankel and Wilhelm Nlling, but also
high-ranking members of the Christian Social Union (CSU) like Peter Gauweiler. Schachtschneider,
an expert in public law, and Starbatty, a renowned economist, were co-founders of the Eurosceptic
splinter party Bund freier Brger (BfB) in 1992, which is the predecessor of the AfD (Husler,
2014). Both support the AfD, for which Starbatty functions as a member of the scientific advisory
board. Starbatty was also elected to the European Parliament in May 2014. He is currently chairing
the influential liberal Aktionsgemeinschaft Soziale Marktwirtschaft. Despite this widespread concern about European integration in the 1990s, liberal parties with anti-European rhetoric found
little support among German voters (Decker, 2000). The AfD is in many respects the continuation
of these early challenges to the Maastricht Treaty. In the following sections, this article will explore
why Euroscepticism has found greater support in Germany in recent years.

Lack of political choice

Alternative for Germany is a reference to German Chancellor Angela Merkels speech about the
importance of the ESM in stabilising the single currency in the Bundestag in September 2011.
Merkel described the European debt crisis as a historic challenge for Europe and Germany. Peace
and German prosperity are intrinsically linked with the advancement of the European idea.
Germany therefore has no alternative but to support the Euro.

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After centuries of wars, the European Union is the permanent driver for reconciliation and the guarantee
for a peaceful Europe since the end of the Second World War. History tells us that countries that share
the same currency were never at war with each other. That is why the Euro is much more than just a
currency. The Euro is a guarantee for the unity to Europe, or in other words, if the Euro fails, Europe fails.
Because a democratic and free Europe is our homeland, the Euro cannot fail and will not fail. (Merkel,
2011)

Until German unification, the catastrophic experience of National Socialism was the pivotal historiographical point for Germanys collective identity (Brunssen, 2005; Taberner and Finlay, 2002).
West Germanys denationalised post-war state identity was oriented towards its Western allies
(Westbindung) and inextricably bound to the creation of a supranational European community that
guaranteed peace and mutual cooperation rather than political isolation. Indeed, the historically
driven dictum since the end of the War has always been to make Germany more European
(Marcussen etal., 1999; Risse etal., 1999).
In the years from 2010 to 2013, there has been remarkable agreement in the Bundestag that it is
Germanys duty to underpin the Euro and to support struggling member states. The opposition did
not question bailout policies but criticised the ruling coalition of CDU/CSU and FDP for delaying
swift and effective action and for its lack of leadership (SPD, 2011). SPD leader, Sigmar Gabriel,
called for the introduction of Eurobonds and for far-reaching European reforms to effectively
tackle the instability of financial markets arising from the insolvency risk of individual states. The
Green Party took a similar position (Bndnis 90 die Grnen, 2013). Differences between parties
crisis resolutions were merely considerations of form and process. While the CDU/CSU and the
FDP linked rescue packages with calls for austerity and increased budget discipline to drive down
sovereign debt, the Social Democrats and the Green Party asked for growth-oriented spending
policies and debt relief rather than all-out austerity. Only die Linke voted against bailouts because
their top-down implementation lacked democratic legitimacy (Gysi, 2012).
There was (and is) equally broad agreement among centrist parties that currency union is
marred by structural and institutional deficiencies and that there is an urgent need for reform.
The persistent discourse, however, was more Europe is the answer (Foreign Minister Gido
Westerwelle, 2012a) and not populist re-nationalisation (Westerwelle, 2012b). The current coalition government between SPD and CDU/CSU carries on in the same tradition. The coalitions
contract confirms Germanys continued commitment to the single currency and states that progressing European integration is Germanys greatest responsibility (Koalitionsvertrag zwischen
CDU, CSU und SPD, 2013).
In short, there were and still are no political alternatives to the prevailing pro-European integration doctrine in the Bundestag. Moreover in the last three legislative periods, Germany was governed twice by grand coalitions between CDU/CSU and SPD. Before and during the European
debt crisis, the political programme of Germanys main parties became increasingly indistinguishable and consensus politics left little room for real political choice and meaningful political
opposition.
The AfD instrumentalised this perceived democratic deficit. In a vocal critique of the political
establishment, leader of the party Bernd Lucke (2013) argued that the European debt crisis was the
hour for political opposition, a moment for debate. He lamented that an effective opposition would
have unravelled the obvious mistakes of the German government and bemoans that there were
only yes-men in the Bundestag. For the leader of the AfD, the absence of political deliberation
was a clear indication of the degeneration of German democracy (Lucke, 2013).
AfD MEP Hans Olaf Henkel (2012) went a step further in the them and us debate and described
the imposition of political correctness through the discrediting and defamation of alternative voices

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as a strategy of silencing. According to Henkel, critique of the Euro is taboo in German politics.
Henkel referred to the case of Tilo Sarrazin. Sarrazin (2010), a member of the SPD, published a
best-selling analysis describing the failures of migrant communities to integrate into German society as being due to biological and cultural determinism. The arguments put forward in the followup publication Europe does not need the Euro (Sarrazin, 2012) overlap substantially with the
AfDs anti-Euro discourse. Sarrazins political positions were deemed to be irreconcilable with his
post at the Bundesbank and he was subsequently suspended from public office. Henkel (2012), in
a very strong condemnation, likened Sarrazins dismissal by the Merkel administration to political
persecution and the Nazi book burnings in May 1933. Henkel concluded that German democracy
is deprived of public debate and freedom of expression. He suggested that political class is without
morals and shows little interest in the truth.
Germanys National Socialist legacy created a political culture that stigmatised the radical right
(Bornschier, 2012), which is always in danger of being associated with Hitler. This historically
contaminated environment (Decker, 2012) made it difficult for Eurosceptic ideas to gather electoral support. Konrad Adam (2012), deputy speaker of the AfD, laments that nowhere is it more
difficult for conservatives than in Germany where, to silence political opponents, one only has to
associate conservatives with the right and the right with Fascism.
German reunification in 1990 presented a major structural shift and fundamentally altered
Germanys internal and external constraints. Germany regained its full sovereignty and became the
most powerful nation in the centre of Europe. Despite this, the political establishment and successive post-unification governments pressed on with European integration (Banchoff, 1999;
Marcussen etal., 1999). Nevertheless, the events of 1989/1990 also led to a positive revaluation of
the Federal Republics history since 1949 (Brunssen, 2005). European identity was a substitute for
patriotism during the Bonner Republic (Wittinger, 2010) but 25 years after unification, the perception of Germanness has regained a positive association. According to a representative survey of
the Identity Foundation (2009) Germans are no longer frozen by historic guilt. Nearly three quarters of respondents thought that it is possible to be proud to be German. National identity normalised, Germans can have a sense of patriotism yet again. Demographic changes are also responsible
for this shift in national self-perception. While current generations are no longer willing to carry
the mantle of shame, the majority of those whose biographies were shaped by the experience of the
Third Reich and post-war reconstruction withdraw increasingly from public life.
With its slogans courage for the truth and courage to stand up for Germany the AfD offers a
communitarian or patriotic counterweight to a corrupted and dishonest professional politicians
who remain caught in the countrys past. For Bernd Lucke (2013), the AfD epitomises civil society
revolting against the ruling elites similar to the Vormrz. Vormrz, symbolising popular uprising
and the struggle of progressive national-liberal forces to repel the conservatism following the
Congress of Vienna, is an important moment in German history that ultimately led to the formation
of the modern German nation. The AfDs close association with the disempowered people and its
differentiation from the political elite is a common communication strategy of populist movements
(Jagers and Walgrave, 2007). General dissatisfaction with the state of German democracy and a
renewed sense of popular patriotism made the AfD the preferred alternative of protest voters to
voice dissent in recent elections.

The accidental empire

Ulrich Beck argued in 2013 that Germany created, unintentionally and without military master
plan, an empire. This accidental empire is based on one hand on hard economic facts: Germany
is Europes strongest economy. On the other hand, Beck argues that political and economic

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divisions in Europe contributed to Germanys dominance. The European debt crisis fundamentally
altered the balance of power in Europe. Germanys ascension is also due to other countries choosing to opt out from further integration. Britains not being a member of the single currency, the
withdrawal of the British Conservatives from the centrist European Peoples Party group in the
European Parliament, and British Prime Minister Cameron not signing up to the fiscal compact,
weakened the UKs hand in Brussels (Teasdale, 2013). France, due to economic woes and dragging
structural reform (OECD, 2013b) has become increasingly less competitive than Germany. Some
observers suggested that this new sick man of Europe (Elliott, 2013) should copy the Germany
system (former German Chancellor Schrder, 2013). British withdrawal and French decline helped
Germany to assume greater political power in Europe.
Reform of Germanys welfare and pension system, export-oriented specialist manufacturing
and vocational education contributed to the countrys resilience and competitiveness. German
employees were forced to accept unprecedented declines in real net wages over several years
(Brenke, 2009). Germany itself is a transfer union with the stronger industrial states subsidising
weaker states, which is frequently a point of political contention. In addition, German unification
came at immense costs. For the period from 1991 to 1999, net transfer payments from West to East
Germany accumulated to 1.2 trillion German Marks, causing Germanys debt to double in the same
period (Grtemaker, 2009). Other observers put the costs of unification up to 2013 at two trillion
Euros (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2014).
When contemplating the success of the German economic model, the AfD overemphasises
internal choices, which are often discussed outside complex, interconnected global contexts that
underpinned German economic growth. Many Germans believe that the countrys recent prowess
is due to particularly German values a savings culture, hard work, technological innovation and
organisational efficiency. From a German perspective, the accidental empire has been built on
Weberian asceticism. Economic prudence, sustainability and social responsibility are virtues of the
AfDs ideology, so Lucke says (2013). The AfD put forward a simplistic moral argument condemning the problems of the European south as self-inflicted lack of discipline, low work ethic, corruption and a spending culture. Much of the AfDs debate about a two-speed Europe is based on a
crude distinction between good and bad economic conduct. In the period from 2010 to 2013,
this them and us discourse was fuelled by a widespread negative media campaign led by the
tabloid Bild Zeitung. Greece was in the centre of a media storm that depicted the Greek economy
as corrupt and Greeks as work-shy spenders, unwilling to pay taxes while receiving big handouts
of social security payments. It appeared deeply unfair that Germans should pay for the homegrown
structural problems of the Hellenic economy. Why are we paying luxury pensions to Greek pensioners? asked Bild (2010).
When Greece opted for a popular referendum in 2011 on austerity measures, Bild countered:
We are liable for billions of Euros to rescue the bankrupt Greeks and now they have a referendum on whether they actually want to save money? We now want a referendum also; no more
billions for Greece, Greece get out of the Euro! (Bild, 2011b). The day the Bundestag decided on
the second Greek rescue package, Bild ran the headline More money for bankrupt Greece, Bild
says No! (Bild, 2012a). At the same time, the use of metaphors and comparisons to frame the
hegemonic German position in Europe in the 21st century as a continuation of German 20thcentury expansionist politics Merkel dressed in Nazi uniform (Bild, 2011a), the EU as Germanys
Fourth Reich (Daily Mail, 2011) created a sense of isolation and fostered anti-European and
ultimately inward-looking nationalistic feelings among some Germans.
Mudde (2013) has observed that political discourse underwent a tabloidisation in the past
decade, which generated favourable opportunity structures for (populist) political dissent. Media
debates not only in the German tabloid press but also in national broadsheet papers about the

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relaxation of ECB monetary policy and German contributions to European sovereign bailouts contributed to the rise of the AfD. Exaggerated, distorted negative reporting and the general tabloidisation of EU politics in Germany between 2011 and 2013 created a moral panic through use of
sensational headlines and overdramatic vocabulary. The concept of moral panic has been popular
in criminology, the sociology of deviance and youth cultures (Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 2009;
Thompson, 1998). Moral panics tend to follow a sequence of stages involving different stakeholders with distinct roles, ranging from discovery by the mass media of a perceived threat, to the manning of the moral barricades by right-thinking people and the pronunciation of diagnosis and
solutions by socially accredited experts (Cohen, 2002: 1). While the relationship between political actors, the media and their audiences is nuanced and multi-directional, the media primarily sell
services and have financial responsibilities towards their shareholders. News value, either generated in-house or created through simplification and overstatement, is essential to the media business model. The media, thus, have an interest in the (continuous) creation of moral panics (Goode
and Ben-Yehuda, 2009).
At the height of the crisis in 2011 and 2012, the German press was saturated with scaremongering headlines such as Inflation alarm The Bundesbank is softening up the Euro How quickly
will our money be eaten away? Where is my money still safe? Experts warn of double digit inflation because of loose EZB monetary policy (Bild, 2012c). Head of Deutsche Bank expects inflation in Europe Is our money still worth something? Bundesbank argues that banknotes are only
paper Without inflation there is no exit from the crisis (Bild, 2012b). Money Focus painted an
apocalyptic picture about an apparent attack on peoples wealth with cover pages such as Inflation
is coming (2011a) and Inflation is here (2011b) and advised how to rescue value through the
crisis by investing in gold as the last protection (2011c). The renowned Spiegel warned on its front
cover: Beware inflation, the sneaking expropriation of the Germans (Der Spiegel, 2012). In addition, the prestigious conservative paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wondered whether
Draghis money politics risks what we fear most: inflation (2012a).
The memory of interwar hyperinflation sits deep in the national psyche, not least because the
economic volatility of the 1920s and 1930s is considered to be partly responsible for the rise of
Fascism. Germans have experienced several currency changes in living memory: the Reichsmark,
the East German Mark, the Deutsche Mark and finally the Euro. Currency changes are radical
interruptions in peoples lives and always associated with a fear of wealth destruction. The desire
for monetary stability is so entrenched in German expectations and habits that it has been termed
stability culture (Beyer etal., 2009). Bailouts and ECB monetary policies were portrayed by the
media as external assaults on this stability culture and ultimately as a threat to national prosperity.
In the period from 2011 to 2013, a climate of existential fear existed throughout German society
that had not been seen since the end of the Second World War. The AfD received widespread media
attention. Its leading members are established public figures well-liked by the media (such as MEP
Hans Olaf Henkel, former Head of the Federation of German Industry), publicists and publishers
(such as Alexander Gauland and Konrad Adam). Bernd Lucke was also a welcome guest in numerous TV talk shows. It was therefore relatively easy for the AfD to reach a large audience and to
drive public debate.

Party of professors (Professorenpartei)

The German governments pro-bailout position also came under attack from financial experts and
academics. In September 2011, the German chief economist Jrgen Stark left the ECBs executive
board in protest over the banks bond-buying programme. Stark had been seen to represent the
hawkish German position on the ECBs monetary board. German economists voiced their

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objections to Euro rescue politics in an open letter initiated by Hans Werner Sinn, president of the
highly influential Institute for Economic Research that was signed by 172 fellow economists
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 2012b). In 2013, Roland Vaubel scientific advisor to the AfD
and the Ministry of Finance together with 136 academic supporters called the bond-buying programme economically wrong and amounting to the funding of sovereign states (Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, 2013). At the same time, the international community and financial markets
were awaiting a decision from the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on whether German participation in bailout funds was contradicting Basic Law. The perceived imminent collapse of political
and financial stability called for a strong response from the German government to safeguard
national interests. The Merkel administration, however, appeared indecisive and slow to act. Trust
in the governments expertise and resoluteness to confront the crisis was fading among the German
public. According to a representative study by Infratest Dimap for the ARD Morgen Magazin, 55
per cent of respondents had no faith in the Merkel administration in 2011 (Infratest Dimap, 2011).
The AfD filled this vacuum left by the perceived incompetence of the government and constructed a public image for itself as the party with economic expertise and scientific authority
(Professorenpartei). If Professor was a name, it would be the most common first name in the AfD
said Hans Olaf Henkel during the second European election party conference in Berlin 2014. The
macroeconomist Lucke described the crisis as his home game. Lack of know-how, according to
Lucke, is the weak point of the established parties in the Bundestag (Lucke, 2013). The AfD has
indeed a significant and far-reaching academic following. Seven among its 20 MEP candidates in
the 2014 European election were members of the professoriate and a further five had a doctorate.
Bernd Luckes Plenum of the Economists, initiated in 2010, called upon academics to take greater
responsibility and actively participate in processes of social change:
We are united in the knowledge that the crisis of the last weeks was only able to come about because
political decision makers ignored visible warning signs. We are united in the worry that politicians are
driven by events and that they do not have sufficient time to evaluate the consequences of their actions and
we are united in the self-criticism that economists did not make themselves heard in Germany in recent
years. (Plenum der konomen, 2010)

Nine of the 328 signatory economists were members of the scientific advisory committee at the
Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (as of June 2014). Moreover, two Roland
Vaubel and Charles B Blankart functioned as scientific advisors in the AfD. Thus, without having
won a national election, AfD ideology was well represented in Germanys corridors of power.
The academic authority of the AfDs leadership made the partys conservative national-liberal
ideology a persuasive and credible option for voters from all socio-economic strata. Supporters
come from the German middle (53 per cent) and upper class (26 per cent). Fifty-five per cent of
AfD supporters have A-levels or a higher education degree, while 44 per cent have a net household
income of 3000 Euros or more (Der Stern, 2014). Observations at party conferences in 2013 and
2014 confirmed this: attendees included judges, teachers, academics from all disciplines, army
officers, policemen, pensioners, tax advisors, lawyers, journalists, publicists and entrepreneurs.
Most show little confidence in established parties ability to solve the Euro crisis and have a pessimistic view about the future state of the economy. Stable currency, social security and immigration were the most important themes for AfD voters during the European Elections in 2014 (ARD
Tagesschau, 25 May 2014).
The BfB failed as a national-conservative anti-Euro party in the late 1990s precisely because of
the overrepresentation of academics and the lack of charismatic politicians among its ranks
(Decker, 2000). However, the complex constellation of the Great Recession and the European debt

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crisis, the media-hyped moral panic, disagreements among sets of experts and lack of trust in the
German government created a sense of vulnerability and ontological insecurity (Giddens, 1990)
among the German public. This climate paved the way for the arrival of the national-liberal economic-expert-politician. Or, as one party conference attendee in 2014 in Aschaffenburg convincingly put it, if no-one else will understand what is going on only these experts will.

Soft Eurosceptic or radical right

Euroscepticism is a multi-faceted phenomena (Leconte, 2010). Boomgaarden etal. (2011) identified five dimensions explaining Eurosceptic voting: limited trust in the efficacy of European
institutions and poor evaluations of the EUs democratic performance, negative assessment of
the EUs utility, limited affection for the EU, opposition to further integration and lack of a
European identity. According to Van Spanje and De Vreese (2011), negative evaluation of the
EUs democratic institutions is one of the most important predictors of Eurosceptic voting and it
is also one of the main motivators for AfD support. In particular, the democratic deficit associated with European integration has fuelled German Euroscepticism since the 1990s. Support for
European integration is also driven by rational choice and the question of what an individual or
a nation can gain through membership (Hix, 2007). For a considerable section of German society
the positive aspects of EU membership disappeared with mounting pressure to bail out struggling member states. Current ECB monetary policy is perceived as an external threat to German
prosperity and stability culture.
The AfDs (2014) official programme does not table a principled objection to European integration. Presently, the AfD supports the idea of the EU and particularly the single market, but it
rejects its current institutional arrangement and has doubts about the viability of the single currency. Using Taggart and Szczerbiaks (2002) classification, the AfD is a soft Eurosceptic party.
Following Kopecky and Muddes (2002) categorisation, the AfD can best be described as
Eurosceptics rather than Eurorejects. Reflective of its position on European issues, the AfD
joined the soft Eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European
Parliament in 2014 to which the British Conservative Party also belongs. There are indeed considerable similarities between the AfDs liberal wing and the Tories. The Conservatives European
reform programme (Cameron, 2013) had a significant influence on German Eurosceptics and the
liberal hyperglobalism of the Conservative Party (Baker etal., 2002) is close to the agenda of the
AfDs ordoliberal leadership (interview with Bernd Lucke, Manager Magazin, 2014).
The AfD started off as a single-issue Eurosceptic movement. Its critique of the single currency
was based on ordoliberal economic doctrine and was predominantly technical and process oriented. A broad academic and conservative liberal audience in Germany supports this position. The
political consequence of the ordoliberal argument put forward by the AfD implies a return to
national or regional currencies. Breaking up the single currency is also the aim of the radical right.
The AfD is in danger of being undermined by the far right as happened with the BfB in the 1990s.
Whilst some leading members in the AfD carefully safeguard the partys public image as nonideological conservative liberal (like Lucke and Henkel), others comfortably embrace the agenda
of the right fringe (like Gauland, Adam and Petry). In particular, grassroots supporters are drawn
towards the agenda of European populist radical right parties (PRRPs). Mudde (2007, 2013)
defines PRRPs as sharing a core ideology that includes the combination of nativism, affinity to
authoritarianism and populism. The conflict between liberal and radical right camps came more
and more to light after the general elections. Already in 2013, members of the AfD made contact
with like-minded activists from Austrias far-right Freedom Party (FP) and the AfDs youth wing
Junge Alternative organised a panel discussion with the United Kingdom Independence Partys

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(UKIPs) Nigel Farage in early 2014. There have also been allegations about close ties between
AfD members and the German neo-Fascist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). Since
2013, liberal voices in the AfD have become more and more sidelined while the right has been able
to consolidate its power base.
The schism between liberals and radical right populist voices came to light during the European
campaign party conference in Erfurt in January 2014, when the majority of grassroots delegates
questioned economic liberalism. Attendees rejected the establishment of the Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership between the EU and the USA, and a large minority of delegates voted
for the introduction of a minimum wage in Germany. A German contribution to a European defence
force was turned down, as was the deployment of German forces in international conflict zones.
Controversially the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula was considered within the remits
of international law and popular self-determination. Aspects of social-cultural liberalism were
equally vetoed in favour of value conservatism: Turkeys EU membership was opposed on the
basis of ethno-cultural differences; gender mainstreaming policies were rejected and the heterosexual nuclear family became the cornerstone of the AfDs social politics. The AfDs 2014
European election programme has little grounding in the geopolitical realities of German interests
and the socio-cultural diversity of late modern German society. In some respects it is a template for
international isolation and protectionism.
During the local election campaigns in 2014 in the Eastern German states of Brandenburg,
Thuringia and particularly Saxony, the AfDs electoral offerings included broader communitarian,
nativist themes, reminiscent of xenophobic PRRP ideology. AfD Saxony drew on popular fears
about uncontrolled migration, European welfare tourism, bogus and criminal asylum seekers and
trans-border crime, dual citizenship and demanded public referenda to decide on the building of
mosques and minarets. Perhaps most indicative of the AfDs increasing right turn is its positive
evaluation of the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West movement (PEGIDA).
PEGIDA is a radical right xenophobic social movement that gathered popular support, particularly
in the East German city of Dresden in late 2014 and early 2015. Like the AfD, PEGIDA has an
anti-elitist and anti-political establishment discourse but it also addresses popular anxieties like the
loss of German identity (berfremdung) and calls for restrictive migration policies. Most importantly, PEGIDA argues that it is defending European Judeo-Christian values against the increasing
influence of Islam on the continent. While German mainstream parties were quick to condemn
PEGIDA as a xenophobic and an Islamophobic movement, the AfDs position is more favourable.
Party deputy Alexander Gauland described PEGIDA as a natural ally of the AfD and deputy party
leader Frauke Petry invited PEGIDA into Saxonys Parliament in Dresden in January 2015 for
discussions about cooperation. There can be little doubt that in the German party system the AfD
is right of centre, with an increasing tendency to move away from its conservative ordoliberal roots
to become a xenophobic PRRP.

Concluding remarks
This article set out to explain the sudden surge in German Euroscepticism. It argued that
Euroscepticism in Germany has to be understood within the context of wider cultural shifts, a lack
of political choice and the tabloidisation of the debate about the Euro. Euroscepticism was manifest
among Germanys conservative elites well before the European sovereign debt crisis, but it
remained marginal because of the countrys Europeanised state identity following the experience
of National Socialism and World War Two. Changes in European geopolitics and German reunification helped to revalorise the Federal Republic and altered German collective identity. Cultural
changes have also been triggered by the withdrawal of the war and post-war generation from public

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life in recent years. The media-fed moral panic following European bailout politics helped to ignite
dormant popular German Euroscepticism. In the absence of a meaningful opposition in the
Bundestag, the AfD, with its compelling academic authority, was able to establish itself as an
alternative to centrist consensus politics and bring together protest voters who had lost trust in the
European project and the German government.
Currently, the AfD is still best described as a soft Eurosceptic rather than a hard Euroreject
party. Since the general elections in 2013, the AfD has been able to consolidate its position
within the German party system. Not only can it boast seven MEPs but it has also gained a sizable presence in local parliaments in eastern Germany. Ultimately this leads to the question of
whether the AfD will retire to the political backstage once the Euro bailout hysteria has died
down or, alternatively, whether it can become a permanent player in German politics. The AfDs
ability to become a lasting force depends on its ability to convince voters that it is not a singleissue party. So far, the critique of the single currency has been its unique selling point but the
Euro crisis, while not solved, lost much of its urgency in 2014. However, the ECBs decision to
start a bond-buying programme and the victory of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) in
the general election in Greece in January 2015 may start a new chapter in the Euro debate in
Germany. Moreover, to continue to appeal to a broad electorate, the AfD needs to overcome
infighting between ordoliberal supporters on one hand and the ever louder voices of the radical
right faction on the other hand. Recent local election manifestos and the approval of the xenophobic PEGIDA movement by some party leaders suggest that the AfD is steering towards
becoming a party of the populist radical right.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for assistance from two anonymous reviewers. I am also thankful for the patience and support
from Nathalie Brack, Marian Sawer, Nick Startin and Merrindahl Andrew.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit
sectors.

Note
1. Ordoliberal ideology emphasises the importance of a robust political regulatory framework as the basis
for functioning liberal market economies

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Author biography
Robert Grimm is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. His
current research interests include European radical right movements and the political participation of young
people.