Germany: Eurosceptics and the Illusion of an Alternative

Abstract

For decades Germany’s European policy has been determined by parties, media and civil society that generally support deeper European integration. In the early 1990s the first cracks materialized in this so-called ‘permissive consensus’: the Christian Social Union (CSU) repeatedly denounced a loss of national sovereignty; the Greens criticised regressive environmental policies and democratic deficits; and individual voices in the left party (Die Linke) declared the EU to be militaristic, neoliberal and undemocratic. However, it was the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) that made hard Euroscepticism in Germany publicly respectable during the management of the financial crisis in the eurozone, which had started at the end of 2009. For some, the foundation of this right-wing to far-right political party in 2013 represents a liberation of political discourse in terms of finally being allowed to say what one thinks for others the alternative is nothing but an illusion and a dangerous one, too.