Last month, the draft manifesto of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections was leaked to the press, unveiling one of its most prominent stances – advocating a ‘controlled disintegration of the EU’. Despite labeling the EU as ‘deeply undemocratic’ and raising doubts about the legitimacy of the EP, the AfD is actively preparing for the 2024 elections with a robust ‘eurosceptic’ list.

During the first part of the AfD congress last weekend, however, party leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel referred to the term ‘controlled disintegration’ in the manifesto as an ‘editorial oversight’ and stated that it would be removed in the second part of the congress this weekend.

These statements created a commotion within the party. Björn Höcke, the party’s Thuringia chief and alleged member of the ‘radical’ faction, insists on retaining the statement and has even threatened a ‘revolt’ if he is not given the opportunity to speak. On the other hand, Christine Anderson, ranked fourth on the EP list and allegedly part of the ‘moderate’ wing of the party, continues to advocate for Germany’s immediate departure from the EU.

A federation of nation-states instead of the EU

“We demand a restructuring of Europe in order to use the potential of nation-states and rebuild the bridge to the east,” Chrupalla said last month.

Arguing that the European Union ‘usurps national competences without replacing the nation-state’ and that the European Commission is ‘not democratic enough’ because it ‘lacks legitimacy’, Chrupalla also cited EU sanctions against Russia as a prime example of the EU’s ‘illegitimacy’, saying they ‘do not benefit citizens’ and lead to rising inflation and stagnation.

Instead of the EU, the AfD proposes ‘a new European economic and interest-based community, a league of European nations’, the co-chairman said.

AfD’s quest for ‘Staatsvolk’

In its manifesto, the AfD explicitly rejects the idea of a ‘federal Europe’. “Such an entity has neither a Staatsvolk, which are necessary prerequisites for successful states, nor the necessary minimum cultural identity,” the AfD’s draft reads.

The emphasis on Staatsvolk is ours. In literal translation, the concept of ‘people of the state’ encompasses both all national origins of a sovereign state and another, more ‘ethnonationalist’ meaning, which emphasizes the dominant national element in a sovereign state to the exclusion of other minorities. The first meaning refers to all citizens living on the territory of a country, regardless of their ethnic origin; the second refers to an exclusionary ethnonationalism.

It is important to remember that the meaning of many words in Germany was transformed with the National Socialist government. ‘Volk’ is one of them. This word, which we can easily translate into Turkish as ‘people’, for example came to refer to the German nation bound by blood and soil in the Nazi dictionary.

There are clearly people within the AfD who can defend both meanings of Staatsvolk. The AfD’s arguments in the manifesto strongly revolve around the concepts of ‘nation’, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘identity’. The terms ‘nation’ and ‘national’ alone appear 145 times in the election program.

Is the AfD changing instead of the EU?

The AfD argues that decisions should not be made in Brussels but at the center of the nation-state. The program’s introduction talks about ‘globalist elites’ taking over the EU.

The debate around the controlled disintegration of the EU could become even more heated now that the AfD has accepted the application to join the right-wing group Identity and Democracy (ID) in the EP. The current main ID parties, the French National Union (Marine Le Pen) and the Italian Lega (Matteo Salvini), seem to have softened their positions on a federal Europe.

Marine Le Pen, for example, has abandoned her previous advocacy of dissolving the EU and is instead pushing for a ‘fundamental reform’ of the bloc. Similarly, the Lega is now gradually abandoning its ‘eurosceptic’ ideas and is trying to build a broad alliance with center-right forces for the upcoming elections.

In an interview with Deutschlandfunk at the end of last month, Harald Weye, the AfD parliamentary group’s spokesman for European policy, argued that the phrase ‘controlled disintegration of the EU’ was literally ‘one person’s grammatical carelessness’. In the elections of 2017, 2019 and 2021, the AfD openly advocated a ‘Dexit’ – Germany’s exit from the EU – as a ‘must’. The program for the 2021 Bundestag elections stated: “The transformation of the European Union into a planned economic superstate in recent years has led us to the realization that our fundamental reform approaches cannot be implemented in the EU. We consider it necessary for Germany to leave the European Union and establish a new European economic and interest community,” it said.

AfD’s plan for a ‘more German Europe’

An analysis of the Magdeburg party conference in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (faz) claims that the co-chairs have different views on the issue. According to faz, Alice Weidel sees withdrawal as absurd, but Tino Chrupalla is as sympathetic to a controlled break-up of the EU as he is to withdrawal from NATO.

According to a report in WELT, sources close to AfD leader Weidel say that the AfD is advocating a softer wording in order not to scare its partners in the ID, including its allies in the EP, the National Union and the Lega. Weidel recently told Stern, “I prefer to talk about breaking up the EU into parts, which makes sense in some parts, such as common security and defense policy. But that’s where it has failed so far,” he said.

A similar attitude can be seen in the attitude towards the eurozone. “Germany doesn’t need the euro,” the party’s 2013 Bundestag election campaign said. The following year, this position was softened and a ‘more flexible monetary order’ was proposed for the EU and ‘the stability-oriented euro countries should create a smaller monetary system among themselves on the basis of the Maastricht Treaty’.

Ten years later, the draft European Election Program for 2024 does not even mention leaving the Eurozone. It is now only about changing the Eurosystem. In fact, the AfD’s proposal to keep Germany in the eurozone and introduce a more ‘stability-oriented’ monetary system is criticized as making the EU ‘even more German than before’. The European economic area, which is very favorable for German capital, should remain with a common currency, but the costs of maintaining it should be reduced. Above all, there should be no ‘transfer payments’ to other countries at Germany’s expense.

It is important to note that the AfD is not alone. During the Greek crisis, the Free Democrats (FDP), and Frank Schäffler in particular, opposed the bailout package for Greece and financial aid for the Eurozone in general. There is no doubt that these ideas are also quite widespread within the CDU/CSU.

Germany’s withdrawal from NATO is being discussed

In addition to the EU, another topic of discussion is the US and NATO.

In the party’s European election manifesto, seven AfD state leaders, including Björn Höcke, call for ‘European states to finally take responsibility for their own security in their own hands’ and describe NATO as ‘the so-called protective umbrella of a distant hegemon’.

The Seven’s motion argues that the ‘Zeitenwende’ (turning point) that Chancellor Olaf Scholz proposed last year for the reform of the German army should mean that European states should ‘take responsibility for their own security into their own hands’ instead of seeking refuge under the ‘so-called protective umbrella of a distant and self-serving hegemon’.

The motion goes on to say that European countries have been ‘set back’ by the policies of the European Union and that “the policy of military alliance has exacerbated these developments. The EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) has failed to establish an independent European collective security system in the face of the US-led NATO,” the motion says.

The motion seeks to amend the preamble of the Federal Program Commission’s draft motion. The proposal states that the eastward expansion of the EU and NATO has given the US ‘even deeper influence over the European order’. The seven believe that European countries are being drawn into conflicts that are not their own and are diametrically opposed to their ‘natural interests’, such as ‘fruitful trade relations in the Eurasian region’.

But Martin Vincentz, the leader of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, does not want the motion to be perceived as a position against NATO. “As one of the signatories, I don’t see the motion as an exit from NATO, but as a strengthening of European defense policy in the interest of NATO,” Vincentz told WELT AM SONNTAG.

It is hard to say that there is a clear consensus within the party on relations with the US and NATO. For example, a joint motion by Kurt Kleinschmidt, president of Schleswig-Holstein, and state parliamentarians from North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin states that ‘excellent political relations require that American foreign and security policy strategies do not contradict German and European strategies’.

The group also wants to include in the European election manifesto a sentence from the basic program adopted in 2016: “NATO membership is in Germany’s foreign and security policy interests insofar as NATO limits itself to its task as a defense alliance.”

Another motion for an amendment on NATO was submitted by some state parliamentarians from Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia. “In view of the emerging and possibly unstoppable bloc formation between the two rivals, the United States and China, we believe that it is best for Germany to remain in the current alliance and use all possibilities to prioritize its own national interests,” the motion reads.

This includes expanding NATO’s European footprint and thus Germany’s own economic, cultural and military capabilities “in order to have a stronger influence in the world and to avoid having to obey Washington’s every whim,” according to the motion. According to the AfD, “then there would also be no need for a permanent deployment of US troops in Europe.”

The AfD’s 2017 party program ‘Manifesto for Germany’ also states that “NATO membership is in Germany’s interests in terms of foreign and security policy as long as NATO’s role remains as a defense alliance. We are in favor of a significant strengthening of the European pillar of the North Atlantic Alliance.” However, the AfD favors the withdrawal of allied troops and nuclear weapons deployed on German soil.