AfD on Europe

The AfD wants Germany to leave the euro system and reintroduce its own currency. It considers the euro a flawed construction whose rules on debt and liability are constantly broken, mostly at Germany's expense.

The AfD wants Germany to leave the euro. Germany should have its own money again. The AfD says the euro rules are broken all the time. In its view, Germany pays for other countries' debts.

According to the platform, the stability criteria and the ban on mutual liability are violated continuously, for example through guarantees, joint funds, and bond purchases by the ECB system. It says one currency for 20 very different economies cannot work economically or socially. With their own currencies, states could again decide on exchange rates and economic policy themselves. The AfD admits the switch would bring costs but considers them lower than the cost of staying. It says the euro or an accounting unit like the former ECU could be kept alongside.

The AfD rejects both a right for the EU to levy its own taxes and borrowing by the EU; debt should exist only at the national level. It also wants the ECB to stop its interventions in the capital market, such as bond purchases.

The AfD does not want the EU to collect its own taxes. The EU should not take on its own debt either. Only the individual countries should borrow money. The European Central Bank should stop buying government bonds. Bonds are IOUs from states or companies.

The platform treats taxation as a core right of national parliaments and says handing it to the EU would violate the eternity clause of the Basic Law. In the AfD's view, EU borrowing breaches the European treaties, burdens future generations, and worsens Germany's credit rating. It regards the ECB's bond purchases, worth trillions, as banned state financing that causes inflation and damages savings. It also rejects ESG rules and the EU taxonomy as a form of central planning.

The AfD opposes a common European deposit insurance system. German banks should be liable only at the national level and keep their own protection schemes. The party fears that German savers would otherwise have to cover risky banks in other countries.

The EU plans a shared safety net for savings in banks. The AfD is against it. It says German savers would pay for weak banks abroad. German banks should only be liable inside Germany. Local savings banks should keep their own safety net.

According to the platform, the European banking union would draw Germany's savings banks, cooperative banks and private banks into redistribution within the EU. The planned European deposit insurance scheme would, it says, be the EU's largest shared liability instrument, worth several trillion euros. The AfD expects large losses at banks in other countries and resulting payment obligations for Germany. It demands that banking groups such as the Sparkassen (savings banks) and cooperative banks be allowed to keep their own joint liability and deposit protection arrangements. It also wants to regain national authority over all financial services.

The AfD wants to transform the European Union into a newly founded "Bund europäischer Nationen" (league of European nations), in which sovereign states cooperate only on a few shared interests. All other powers would return to the nation-states. In the party's view, the EU has developed into a centralized federal state.

The AfD wants to replace the EU with a new league. It would be called the league of European nations. Countries would decide for themselves there. They would work together on only a few issues. Germany should pay less.

The program names four shared tasks for the new league: a common market, protecting the external borders against illegal immigration, autonomy in security policy, and preserving European cultures and identities. The transition is to be orderly, and Germany is to lose its role as the largest net contributor right at the start. The AfD accuses the EU of centralization, overregulation and a transfer union that violates the treaties, and it criticizes the Green Deal and the funding of weapons for Ukraine through EU funds. It rejects the digital euro because, in its view, a programmable currency could endanger civil rights.