- Alice Weidel said party wanted to reform EU institutions to curb the power of the European Commission
Britain was ‘dead right’ to leave the EU and Germany should hold a ‘Dexit’ referendum, the co-leader of the country’s hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has said.
‘It’s a model for Germany, that one can make a sovereign decision like that,’ Alice Weidel said in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper.
Ms Weidel, 44, the AfD’s leader since 2022, said the party wanted to reform EU institutions to curb the power of the European Commission and address what she saw as a democratic deficit.
She said the vote would take place if an AfD government could not secure reforms to stave off overreach by the ‘unelected’ European Commission.
‘If a reform isn’t possible, if we fail to rebuild the sovereignty of the EU member states, we should let the people decide, just as Britain did,’ she said.
But if the changes sought by the AfD could not be realised, ‘we could have a referendum on “Dexit” – a German exit from the EU’, she added.
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the parliamentary group of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), said the party wanted to reform EU institutions to curb the power of the European Commission and address what she saw as a democratic deficit
People gather to protest against the AfD party on Sunday in Munich, Germany
She said: ‘It is a model for Germany, that one can make a sovereign decision like that.’
Ms Weidel’s comments put her at odds with the mainstream parties and the German public, which overwhelmingly support staying in the EU.
The AfD, which was founded in 2013 as a single-issue party opposing the euro, has played down its euroscepticism in recent years as it seized on anger over immigration, moving further to the extremes.
The far-right party is currently riding high in national opinion polls at around 22 percent, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats on 13 percent and behind only the conservative CDU-CSU.
Its next big electoral test will come at the European Parliament elections in June.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany have turned out to protest against the AfD in recent days, after investigative outlet Correctiv revealed party members had discussed a mass deportation plan at a meeting of extremists in November.
The AfD, which is classified as Right-wing extremist by the intelligence services in three East German states, confirmed the presence of its members at the meeting, but denied taking on the reported ‘remigration’ plan for the expulsion of immigrants and ‘non-assimilated citizens’.
The revelations provoked condemnation from senior politicians and figures from civil society, including church bishops and Bundesliga coaches.
The far-right party is currently riding high in national opinion polls at around 22 percent, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats on 13 percent and behind only the conservative CDU-CSU
Ms Weidel said the vote would take place if an AfD government could not secure reforms to stave off overreach by the ‘unelected’ European Commission (File Photo)
Mr Scholz called on citizens to take a stand against the AfD, describing the deportation plan as ‘an attack against our democracy’.
A recent poll found that 45 percent of AfD members would vote for Dexit.
The party’s current success does not make it certain that it will secure a place in a future government.
Establishment parties have said that they will not enter coalition deals with it and it does not lead any of the nation’s 16 states due to the cordon sanitaire or firewall by the other parties.