AfD on the economy

The AfD wants to keep state intervention in the market to a minimum and remove rules for businesses. Among other things, the supply chain law, the packaging law and the ban on combustion engines would go. The party argues that this bureaucracy distorts competition.

The AfD wants fewer rules for companies. The supply chain law should end. This law makes companies check on their suppliers. The packaging law should end too. Cars with gas and diesel engines should stay allowed.

The German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, the corresponding EU directive and the Packaging Act would be abolished. Sustainability reporting would be cut back, and the General Data Protection Regulation and public procurement law would be simplified. For small and mid-sized firms and farmers, the platform calls for far fewer rules and reporting and documentation duties. The AfD also wants to lift the combustion engine ban and the fleet emission limits, which it considers unattainable. Restaurants would again get the reduced value-added tax rate.

The AfD wants to expand international trade and remove barriers. It wants trade deals that secure raw material supplies, an end to sanctions it considers harmful to the economy, and repeal of the carbon border adjustment.

The AfD wants more trade with other countries. Barriers to trade should go. New deals should secure raw materials for Germany. Sanctions should end if they hurt the economy. Sanctions are penalties against other countries.

Exchange with other markets would become easier and closer, and existing trade barriers would be removed. Trade agreements are meant to benefit Germany and secure supply chains for raw materials. Sanctions that the party sees as damaging to the economy would end. The carbon border adjustment, an EU charge on the carbon content of certain imports, would be repealed.

The AfD wants German companies to have open access to foreign markets, raw materials and trade routes. It rejects the Lieferkettengesetz (supply chain law), wants to expand trade with China and, at the same time, better protect German companies from foreign takeovers.

The AfD wants German companies to trade freely everywhere. It is against the supply chain law. That law makes companies watch human rights at their suppliers. Trade with China should grow. Important German companies should not be sold to foreigners.

The platform backs reform of the World Trade Organization and cooperation with the BRICS countries, ASEAN and Mercosur where this benefits Germany; it says the Mercosur agreement currently harms domestic farming. Economic, scientific and cultural ties with China are to deepen, on condition of fair competition and protection of German technology and key industries; the AfD wants to use opportunities from the "New Silk Road." Takeovers by foreign corporations and financial investors are to be screened more strictly, and security-related and basic-supply sectors are to be protected. The party does not recognize rulings by foreign courts and authorities that claim effect beyond their own territory.

The AfD rejects government subsidies for particular technologies and wants the market to decide what prevails. The exception is technologies that serve strategic independence, which the state should fund directly. The platform calls support for the semiconductor industry wasted tax money.

The AfD wants no tax money for single technologies. The market should decide which technology wins. There is one exception. Some technologies make Germany independent. The state should pay for those directly.

As evidence that state planning fails, the platform points to the German solar industry, electric mobility, the ban on combustion engines and the heating law. In the AfD's view, technologies succeed on their own when people need them. Production sites emerge where regulation, infrastructure, education and costs are right. The party calls for openness to all technologies and wants to inform the public about the benefits of new ones. In aerospace, it backs competition as well as government programs and proposes a space law along with lower labor and energy costs.