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Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel said her party would seek Germany’s withdrawal from the euro and the Schengen Area, close the country’s borders and tighten migration rules if it entered the federal government.
Speaking in ZDF’s summer interview, Weidel argued that Germany had been “significantly better off before the introduction of the euro,” saying the currency had weakened the economy and reduced household wealth.
On migration, Weidel said Germany should close its borders and leave the Schengen Area.
“We will close them, and we will leave Schengen,” she said.
She also called for more deportations and fewer naturalizations, including the return of Syrians whose protection status has ended.
Weidel criticized Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil’s Social Democratic Party, and condemned the CDU’s refusal to cooperate with the AfD.
“We will govern in the first federal states,” she said. “And we will also govern at the federal level.”
The AfD is polling above 40% in Saxony-Anhalt ahead of the Sept. 6 state election, according to Forschungsgruppe Wahlen.
Nationally, the party stands at 27%, compared with 22% for the CDU.
Weidel also reiterated the AfD’s opposition to a planned combustion-engine ban and rejected measures to address human-caused climate change.
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