AfD Pushes Germany Toward a Break With Europe

Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel has taken the party’s challenge to Germany’s European role a step further, calling for the country to leave both the euro and the Schengen Area if the AfD enters federal government.

In a ZDF summer interview, Weidel argued that Germany had been better off before adopting the single currency, claiming that the euro had weakened the German economy and reduced household wealth. She also said an AfD-led government would close Germany’s borders, withdraw from Schengen and pursue tougher migration policies, including more deportations and fewer naturalisations.

The proposals go beyond the migration politics that have defined much of the AfD’s rise. They target two of the most visible mechanisms of European integration: a common currency and passport-free movement.

From border controls to institutional separation

Germany has been part of the euro area since 1999 and Schengen since 1995. The country is also one of the EU’s founding members and remains the bloc’s largest economy.

That makes Weidel’s proposal qualitatively different from demands for temporary border controls or changes to EU migration rules. Leaving Schengen would mean dismantling a system built around the removal of routine internal border checks, while abandoning the euro would reopen the question of Germany’s monetary relationship with the rest of the EU.

The political message is therefore broader than migration. The AfD is presenting European integration itself as something that can be reversed.

Weidel’s comments also come at a moment when the party is attempting to turn growing electoral support into political power. The AfD is polling at around 27% nationally, ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU at 22%, while in Saxony-Anhalt it is polling above 40% ahead of the September 6 state election. Weidel has explicitly framed a victory there as a step towards governing at the federal level.

The euro question is bigger than the currency

The political appeal of returning to the Deutsche Mark rests on a familiar AfD argument: that Germany surrendered too much economic sovereignty when it adopted the euro.

But Germany is not simply another member of the currency union. It has been at the centre of the euro area since its creation, alongside France, Italy, the Netherlands and other founding participants. The euro area now comprises 21 EU member states and is governed through a common monetary policy under the European Central Bank.

A German departure would therefore not be a technical currency adjustment. It would raise questions over contracts, financial markets, debt, cross-border trade and the value of assets and liabilities denominated in euros. It would also remove Europe's largest economy from the monetary framework that has shaped its economic policy for more than a quarter of a century.

For the AfD, that disruption is part of the political argument. The party is increasingly positioning national sovereignty as an alternative to deeper European integration rather than simply seeking a different balance inside the EU.

Schengen is becoming another fault line

The demand to leave Schengen follows the same logic.

Weidel said an AfD government would close Germany’s borders and leave the passport-free travel area, while simultaneously calling for tougher deportation policies and fewer naturalisations.

Germany has already used temporary internal border controls in response to migration and security concerns. But a permanent withdrawal from Schengen would be a different proposition, affecting the movement of people across Germany’s borders with neighbouring EU countries and potentially increasing pressure for reciprocal measures elsewhere.

For a country located at the centre of Europe, the practical consequences would extend far beyond migration policy. Germany’s borders connect it to nine neighbouring states, making the functioning of the single market and cross-border movement particularly important to its economy.

This is why the AfD’s proposal matters even before it becomes a realistic government programme. It changes the political debate from how Germany should manage European integration to whether parts of that integration should be dismantled altogether.

The firewall is facing a stronger test

The immediate obstacle for the AfD remains political rather than legal.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has repeatedly ruled out cooperation with the party, describing it as a threat to Germany’s post-war democratic tradition. In July, he again pledged to prevent the AfD from entering government in any German state.

Yet the continued rise of the party is making the so-called firewall harder to treat as a peripheral issue. Earlier surveys showed the AfD opening its largest-ever lead over the CDU/CSU, while a separate INSA poll found that 35% of Germans could imagine voting for the party.

The September election in Saxony-Anhalt will therefore be watched beyond the state itself. A strong AfD result would demonstrate that the party’s programme is no longer confined to protest politics in eastern Germany.

Its current demands are deliberately maximalist. Leaving the euro, leaving Schengen, closing borders and reshaping citizenship policy would represent a profound reversal of Germany’s post-war European trajectory.