How Germany's AfD party fits into the bigger picture of far-right populism in Europe | DW News

The AfD's state election successes political leaders here in Germany are weighing their options after the far right alternative for Germany party took first place in a state election on Sunday the afd won the vote in the Eastern State of Thia despite being classified as extremist by German authorities the afd won almost a third of theia's votes and came a close second in the neighboring state of Saxony but its chances of governing are uncertain as all other parties have refused to work in Coalition with it German Chancellor Olaf Schultz who so social Democrats fed poorly in both votes urged all parties to form coalitions without right-wing extremists the farri right afd may have emerged as the biggest winner in two Regional elections but will likely end up in opposition all mainstream parties have pledged to uphold a firewall against entering a coalition with the anti- migration party in both theia and Saxony but although a clear majority didn't cast their vote for the afd and don't want to see it govern some say it has a mandate to form a Coalition in certain matters you just have to come together in the interest of democracy sh of votes is simply too big at some point you have to ensure that people see their choices being reflected I think they should be given the chance to work together with everyone only then can you say whether they're up to it or Not by denying them that chance by claiming to be too good you actually end up elevating them and you shouldn't do that but there is concern about the rise of the far right the fact that the afd has done so well especially in rural areas is concerning I think it's basically right not to work with them but it's hard to see a government being formed at all then this is it's terrible absolutely terrible I don't know what will become of Germany and while the afd say they have a right to govern in state level coalitions the parties running the national government are under pressure they barely managed to scrape 10% of the vote combined with just a year to go before federal election these results are likely to increase the tensions felt by Olaf Schultz's already divided Daniela Schwarzer, Bertelsmann Stiftung Coalition Daniela is with the berlman shti dong and is one of Germany's leading experts on European and international politics welcome to DW could we start by explaining to our International audience why these two State elections are being viewed with such Horror by the leaders of Germany's national governing parties it's a historical first in post-war Germany uh that a farri party has scored uh so well that it came in first in Regional elections gets uh roughly a third of the seats um and in a second region it comes in second and also sits a parliament with with a very big parliamentary group why is this important first of all because it indicates shifts in the German party system that some of our neighbors have gone through uh years earlier and Germany always seem to be a country where the far right can maybe rise to uh 13 or 15% but but not to a third of the vote um and here we are this has happened in the in two regions and the question now is does this have implications for the federal elections which will only happen in one year time okay we'll come to that let's talk first of of all though about the rise of the afd in Germany and then we we'll we'll talk about the the rise of of of rightwing populism across Europe but here in Germany why are so many Germans looking to the afd to say gu them because this these results didn't come out of nowhere did they yes that's true um ifda has built its base over years and opinion po data for Eastern German regions had indicated for while that they can come out very strongly and indeed there there was a risk that they would come first and they did in one of the regions now what did they do first of all they offered a party platform which speaks to uh the fears of many people uh in Eastern Germany uh picking up socioeconomic concerns picking up a certain criticism of the federal government's green transition um policy that many uh Germans feel puts them under pressure but doesn't really support them and IFD actually denies the need uh to implement uh a very um engaged uh policy to fight climate change and then um IFD also and this is not a policy issue but a question of presence and Anchorage within Society has built uh social structures in municipalities in Eastern Germany that that really kind of crowded out that maybe didn't have a sports club didn't have a youth center and they helped set up structures they showed big presence and so people felt uh they are close to us they are you know they they understand what bothers us and they are part of our um of our community and so we we saw those very strong results uh yesterday but this doesn't mean that this will translate automatically to a similar result on the federal level because um structural differences between between Eastern Germany and Western Germany really remain also questions of political culture um the German uh mainstream parties have a deep Anchorage in Western Germany didn't have the historical break uh that they had in Eastern Germany where uh for several decades uh there was a a socialist regime uh with no free democracy right and so there are differences which play out okay and we' we've we we've seen the right-wing populist parties making significant inroads into mainstream politics across Europe Italy France the UK Sweden Finland the lint the list seems endless and migration is a common factor there and here in Germany but what you're talking about there um is not just migration but the fact that these um these these right-wing uh parties these Insurgent parties seem to root themselves uh in community say yes absolutely but migration of course is an important issue as well um and not only for IFD but also for the farle party BSW which which came out of nothing and jumped to 16% and then also the mainstream parties have really hardened their positions on immigration on sending home uh non-legal uh immigrants and so on and interestingly the fact that uh the European Union's migration policy uh really got tougher over the past month and also uh Germany um the the government Coalition at this point um has more restrictive positions on uh on immigration uh did not change much to the appeal of uh the far rights position on immigration in regions where the actual number of immigrants is not particular high and definitely not higher than in Western Germany okay now the you posted on on X today you believe that this this far right surge in this Eastern corner of Germany could also impact German foreign policy is I think you were you were sort of hinting at that when you talked about the the EU and and Germany um toughening their stance but I'm guessing that that there's also uh more than just migration that you're talking about yes that is true so what we have seen in in the two Eastern German regions yesterday is that two parties scored fairly well that criticized the federal government's support for Ukraine um and take a much softer stance on Russia and actually uh argue that um rather than delivering weapons to Ukraine uh the country which really needs to defend itself into a completely illegal aggression and Invasion um that rather than supporting Ukraine uh the German government should promote peace a meaning uh should push Ukraine towards negotiations with Russia and interestingly both uh the farle and the far right try to position themselves as the parties that will bring peace back to our neighborhood and of course completely um ignoring the fact and their rhetoric uh that it's Russia's aggression on Ukraine and also um not mentioning clearly that Russia is a completely unreliable negotiation partner at this point so uh they seem to have an easy fix uh don't deliver weapons peace will come back um and this is of course attractive to some people who are after uh years of support for for Ukraine feel a certain fatigue in particular those who feel they are not being treated well and they feel that their socioeconomic future is endangered this argument which is really um a very very different ult and bad one um this argument that it's easy to bring peace to Ukraine uh seems to be quite attractive to some and this may put pressure on the German government in particular in a situation where the US May uh downscale its support for Ukraine then a bigger burden will be on Europeans and uh a public which which is faced with an option that there's an easy peace deal uh of course will be more critical of that support