Rise of the far-right: Germany at a tipping point ? | To the Point

The AfD platform Germany is Reckoning with the results of regional elections that have left many questioning whether German history is rearing its ugly head for the first time since Nazi rule right-wing extremists have won a regional election in Germany in the state of Thia the afd or alternative for Germany also came in second place in neighboring Saxony now other populists also snapped up votes by promising to stop immigration and to stop arms delivery to Ukraine so what does this mean for the future of Europe's largest economy and its relation to the world this week on to the point we're looking at the rise of the far right is Germany at a Tipping [Music] [Music] Point hello I'm CLA Richardson in Berlin a very warm welcome to this week's up to the point I'd like to introduce our panel today we have wol gang Merle uh former professor of political science at humal University we have Matthew car nnig a politico's chief Europe correspondent and Nadine Lindner a correspondent in deuts radio's Berlin Bureau very warm welcome to you all thank you so much for being here Nadine let's start with you uh what does the afd stand for that was so appealing to voters in the these eastern states well the afd is 11 years old now most of the voters in Germany know what the afd stands for I would say in this election campaign we saw like two or three main topics that the afd focuses on the main topic the number one topic is migration to stop the influx of Asylum Seekers to Germany to deport people from Germany to their home countries the remigration how they frame this concept then the second point is to stop the war in Ukraine by stopping the arms deliveries to Ukraine and I would say the third point is more like a cultural war that they want to or that they see um they argue against well the open display of homosexuality and also the use of gender neutral language these are all points that uh that were important for the afd in this election campaign now these successes do have alarm Bells going off in many quarters in Germany Wolf Gang for the first time since the end of World War II we're looking here at a party that German intelligence has designated as right-wing extremists in Saxony and thja uh winning these Regional elections one of them the other one performing very well how much of a taboo would you say has been broken here the taboo was Taboo was broken when AfD joined German parliament years ago broken before it was broken when afd entered the German Parliament the bundestag with roughly eight or uh 12% of the votes this was the first time when an uh right-wing populist party I prefer populist right-wing populist party because right uh extremist party this is something as you have said which was born out of the terminology of the internal Secret Service the intelligence and uh and upheld by a court in Germany as well uh yeah but no they only said you are entitled to call them a right-wing extremist party they did not decide on the substantial matter there is a difference on it so I would say uh the taboo is broken and in a way it is an European normalization not a pleasant normalization but we have seen this in many many other countries before rightwing populists were governing in 15 In 15 EU countries, right-wing populists are already part of governments countries of the European Union and this Germany still is far from a situation where the afd would enter the federal government so to some extent we hear typical German alarmist subtones in the discussion but the development is not very pleasant no doubt okay so you think this is a bit overblown uh Matthew maybe you can put this into perspective for international viewers those who are maybe not closely following German politics and understand how the afd was seen previously how a party that that can be called right-wing extremist uh coming into Power really resonates here well I think it resonates in particular as we saw in these elections in the east of Germany where there's a lot of frustration with the traditional parties with the establishment parties in Germany and in particular with the current government under Olaf Schultz and as nine mentioned migration has been a very Central issue recently in Germany there were some recent killings involving uh Asylum Seekers allegedly in in Germany uh knife attacks and so this has become a a very heated political issue and the afd has been very skilled in seizing on the migration issue and uh also the the question of Islam in Germany which is very uh closely related to that in the minds of many people because most of the Asylum Seekers here have come from the Muslim world and over the past 10 years viewers might remember Angela merkel's famous uh statement that uh that Germany can manage this this uh influx of Asylum seekers in the wake of the Syrian Civil War in 2015 and since then the country has brought in about two million people in the afd has over that period gone from the low single digits now nationally to the to the high teens and in some states Turing and and Saxony as we saw uh you know o over 30% The AfD’s success is very closely tied to the topic of migration so their success is very closely tied to this question of migration and and Dean how does that compare to what we might have seen in the last 10 years in Germany and you look at the way that they campaign the kind of policies that they're putting forward um would this have shocked Germans of your childhood I think yes to see a party that is that strong the afd reached 32.8% into ring gear it's on Place one like with a huge um distance to that City on place too so what we see here is that um within Society there are a lot of people supporting afd and I think there's like one point that really changed in the last 10 years maybe 10 years ago the the avd is 11 years old now maybe 10 years ago maybe even five years ago we would have said well the afd is only a phenomenon for a short time when we beat them in the elections they will like more or less disappear AfD is here to stay, has a strategy of damaging the CDU and now we know know they here to stay and they have like a long-term strategy to destroy the city the conservative party here in Germany they say well now we forested CDU into really awkward strange coalitions because this is what's going to happen um in turingia and also in Saxony that maybe the CDU will work together with the ex-communist party of Zara vag we'll come to them in a moment nobody knows if this is going to work and the afd says well this is a coalition that's not going to work that will lead to a lot of frustration uh for people who voted for CDU so we just wait five more years until 2029 and then we have the majority and then the city was gone nobody knows if this plan is going to work but this is the long-term strategy behind it Nadine you've mentioned it just there at these Regional elections they saw the Triumph of populist ideas more generally not just the far right also the far left doing well and that's something that you can really only read as a resounding rejection of the more traditional parties including those that are currently in government together at the national level in turingia the afd took over 30% of the vote under the leadership of be hookah it's the first time a party classified by the office for the protection of the Constitution as extreme right has won a state election we are number one in turingia don't classify a third of tan voters as right- R extremists hookas scor Points with voters with his ethn nationalist ideology by campaigning against Why is the AfD so successful? migration and against further Aid to Ukraine in Saxony the afd also received more than 30% of the vote to become the second strongest party after the CDU by contrast the parties that formed Germany's current federal government the SBD greens and fdp received fewer votes than in any previous state election the populist Zada vagan KES Alliance which splintered off from the left party won big after securing double-digit election results in Berlin they issued this Fierce criticism against the traffic light coalition's Ukraine policy I'm tired of being treated like fools here we keep being told that we can end a war by supplying more and more weapons do the election results from zon and turingia one year before the federal elections Herald a different Germany to come so we saw her there Zara the name sake of this new BSW party um WF gong as I've said they're new on the scene they've really risen to success in these elections as well can you tell us a little bit about where they see eye to eye with the afd on policies uh like immigration like the war in Ukraine yeah but uh there are some similarities but I wouldn't overstresses There are certain similarities between BSW and AfD if if you look to the program of the uh Sara vag party we should call it this way because it's complete leninist and p personalist uh party uh but if we compare it with other European parties the first would you would say it is somehow like the very traditional Social Democratic party of Denmark if it comes to distributional uh issues if it comes to BSW partly resembles the Socialist Party in Denmark, except for on migration the question of state and Market it resamples a lot this uh German social democracy uh if it comes to migration and immigration it's exactly what they propose very successfully in uh in Denmark there's one difference you mentioned certainly and this is foreign policy and especially uh policies towards NATO and the Russian aggression against Ukraine and this provokes certainly the German political establishment but we should be calm and we should not compare too much with this right-wing populist to some extent semi loyal party to uh democracy but let's be clear when we're looking at uh the zag vagan con alliance's view toward the war in Ukraine what exactly is it that they want they want uh as they point out they BSW wants to freeze the conflict between Russia and Ukraine want to have negotiations and uh they have the idea to freeze the conflict whether there a good or bad idea I don't want to judge it here uh but uh the basic argument is the longer the War uh linges on the more people will be killed and at the end there will be anyway negotiation so what they have in mind negotiations now freezing the conflict hoping that in 10 20 30 years the situation will be a different one and so they can uh negotiate the territorial losses they count uh that there will be territorial losses for uh Ukraine and they want to end the arms deliveries German arms deliveries to Ukraine as well certainly a crucial Point as well let's come back to immigration with you Matthew here Germany it does have a big demographic problem doesn't it there are a lot of old people there are generous generous social programs that need to be supported by the youth when voters in Saxony and Thia vote for the afd or uh the zagan connection Alliance are they voting against their own interests some people would say so there have been some interesting remarks um in recent Days by a a governor of the bundis bank of the German Central Bank um who's sort of arguing in this direction because Germany is facing this this demographic Cliff but I think on a day-to-day basis for many people who are um grappling with these problems one of the issues that many of the refug g s who have come are are not easily put into the open positions in Germany if you will if you have for example a a a teenage Afghan Refugee uh who is illiterate and many of them are because they didn't go to school in Afghanistan to uh train these people to work in a Audi Factory or VW Factory or to do something like that is is is is quite complicated because first they have to learn uh German for example so all of these ideas ideas about you know being able to just take these refugees and and to to fill these these gaps in the workforce are uh a little bit more more complicated than than people think but the interesting thing about uh Thia and and Saxony is is that those are areas that have some of the the the the lowest levels of migration in Germany most of the migrants who have Thuringia & Saxony have almost no “foreigners” living there; just 8 come here are not in East Germany they're in other parts of the country but it is sort of in their heads that these Asylum Seekers POS a threat to German society and to uh German German identity and nine when you look at the afd's uh platform regarding immigration has this also had an effect on other parties within Germany some of the more Centrist or traditional ones has it dragged them further toward the right on that issue yeah I think there are like Domino effects that you can see that like one stone is tipping and then another Stone follows like in a domino game um I think you if you look at the positions that the CDU is now proposing towards migration I think you can really see that the CDU the Christian Democratic conservative party is now trying to be stricter against Asylum CDU is getting tougher on migration politics Seekers also to be stricter um within the set of rules within the Europe European Union they want to reject Asylum Seekers at the German border and now there's like a current huge discussion whether this is possible within EU law or not and I I think to my point of view it's for the CDU for the conservatives it's always a question of how far do they go on that slippery slope of following the afd2 populism because um a lot of political scientists also from France they say there's like no use or there's like no good for the conservatives to follow the right-wing radicalists because then the voters won't vote for the conservatives they will always vote for the original for the so I think what is important now is to have a pragmatic solution orientated discussion in this country to focus on the points that are possible to reduce migration to put more order in the influx of migrants and Asylum Seekers and then F also focus on the integration of people into society and into Workforce and the the point is they are like two interesting numbers 60% of people in turingia say oh it's dangerous because we have so many foreigners in this country but there's only 8% of the share of people in ringia that come from foreign countries so you see I would say huge imbalance between the perception and the real numbers and the afd is clearly focusing on this and they say Asylum Seekers are a danger to our security here and they refer to um Islamic attacks like en zingan all right so that is the pitch to voters it seems to have resonated um the election results we can say for sure are a slap in the face for the national government um currently that's of course a three-party coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Schultz ahead of those votes in Saxony and thja um there was both High turnout and expectations I expected a change in policy that something would change in the country that all those arrogant politicians who are so sure of themselves might be knocked down a peg Expectations of voters in Saxony and Thuringia or two migration migration too many too many too many too many security also a more stable economy it's going downhill the German economy is set to slide into a recession this year economists in particular believe that voting for The xenophobic afd could be fatal because there is already a shortage of skilled workers the technology company Yan optic in turingia is is seeing this firsthand the people of turingia are a creative Bunch but we won't be able to fix it all by ourselves we also need people from other parts of the world pream gvad from India is also concerned I actually worry a lot my family is also worried they read what's in the news is the Once Rock Solid Germany becoming increasingly unstable politically and [Music] economically so w kongad has said the afd is here to stay uh do you agree with that because one statistic that I found quite surprising coming out of these elections was looking at the youth vote these weren't conservative older voters voting for the far right it was in fact 38% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 who turned out to vote for the afd AfD is here to stay afd is here to stay at least for a couple of years and I would assume even longer again Germany it's not the island of the Happy People it is an uh European country and you see it in almost all of these European countries the that these Right wing populist parties are successful all over Europe right-wing populist parties are becoming a quite stable element within all these party system and there is a political space as we have seen here in the perception of the people there's a political space on the right wing of the party system the Merkel uh the previous Chancellor of uh the German uh federal republic moved with the CDU to the center of the party system and opened a political space on the right-wing and uh the right-wing populists uh marged in so afd will be here the second uh reason will be uh uh that migration it's a problem which will not be solved during the next years to come uh uh the political parties have to demonstrate The migration topic won’t be solved soon that they are able to solve problems to deliver and this again opens a political space for an anti- system party at least partially anti- system party they have the priv privilege to monopolize the real opposition and this makes it attractive to many people so this is European normality Unfortunately they will stay here because the problems they uh campaign uh on the problems will stay last Point uh migration for example it's not a problem uh which can be solved by uh the federal government in Germany alone they need a kind of European solution and I don't see this European solution so far and I think some important context uh for those watching at home has been Germany's history of dealing with the afd since it first came into the bundestag since it first came onto the scene really um there's been a socalled firewall around them right that parties don't want to go into government together with the afd um that's been something that's been taboo do you think that that firewall Matthew is going to stand now that we've seen such a high turnout at the region level and should it Firewalls against the AfD will stand, no coalitions with the party foreseeable stand I I think it will stand in in Germany because of the examples that exist around Europe uh in terms of establishment parties going into Coalition with the the far-right populist and it it never ends well and uh viewers can uh Google Austria and far right and and we we'll see why there have been a few attempts there and there might be a new attempt um next month when Austria has elections so I I I don't think there's a a very convincing track record that going into Coalition with uh the the far right is is a a a path to uh political success can you tell me more about the Austrian case because sorry to interrupt but that's interesting and perhaps very relevant for the moment we're in well Austria really crossed that Rubicon in um late 1999 when uh the center right party at the time the Austrian People's Party um decided to go into Coalition with the far right with man named yck Haider who was really the pioneer of modern far-right populism in in Europe and he also ran on a very anti- uh migration uh platform that government um prompted the rest of Europe the rest of the European Union to impose what they then called diplomatic sanctions on Austria so Austria was isolated for a short period of time that didn't really last but the government also didn't last it was beset by uh Scandal and then the the the party the Freedom Party fell apart uh some years later uh viewers might remember Sebastian KZ who was also the the chancellor of Austria the a youthful CH Chancellor of Austria he formed a Coalition in 2018 with the Freedom Party again um and then there was a dramatic implosion of of of that government uh in in scan in a in a scandal uh just a couple of years later so these parties have not proved to be uh very very very stable and there is a lot of volatility in support for these farri parties ac across across Europe but they do seem to be here to stay but nine can you just uh ignore the will of onethird of the electorate in the states of Saxony and theing is that in itself damaging to democracy to try to to keep the afd out from decision making well this is the Can you ignore one-third of voters? argument that the afd uses they say we represent onethird of the voters and it's not Democratic to to keep them out I think there's like one point we should have a closer look at um it's not only that we had elections in the bu Lander to ring and sex but we also had votes for the uh communal for the city parliaments in June and what we see now is that the afd now has Vice Mayors in several towns in Saxony with a help or against the city so we have we see a two-way process of the afd gaining more influence gaining more power I think for now it will be possible to keep the afd out into ringa and in Saxony I see I also I think it's right but I also see the representation problem for sure but I think we shouldn't like give the country to the populists because that would open the floodgates to to normalizing far-right ideology I think the process of normalization is already there if we look at the young voters that we saw in the pictures the afd is now 11 years old when you're voter of maybe 18 1920 the afd like naturally belongs to the party system that you know since your childhood so I think we have to deal with a lot of different Large numbers of young people voting AfD layers and levels and I think we should really focus on the youth to kind of prevent them into growing into um into voting for afd longer now as we've said at the beginning there is a lot of fear around what's happened here partially because thja was the place in 1930 where the Nazi party had its first success um becoming only the second largest party in Regional elections and that allowed them into government wolf Kong um do you think this is history repeating itself The AfD certainly is not a follow up to the Nazi NSDAP here no not at all and this is a wrong comparison we would relativize uh the horrendous crime of the Nazi regime and we should be more analytical this is not simply an follow following up party of uh the National Socialist and Hitler this does not really uh keep uh the point and we don't find the causes for the uh strength of the rightwing populist party with only a few seconds left Matthew your thoughts do you think this is dangerous moment I don't think it's dangerous I agree with Wolf Gang on that but you know as Mark Twain said uh history history doesn't repeat itself but it often Rhymes all right well we'll leave it there uh thank you all so much for your insights today and thank you for watching to the point let us know what you thought in the comments and we hope to see you here next time