As of: February 17, 2024, 11:08 a.m
Comments
Press
Split
EU “reform” and withdrawal of nuclear weapons: Such AfD plans seem popular – but there are serious consequences, warns retired CSU minister Otto Wiesheu.
By Otto Wiesheu
The AfD is regularly criticized – for its right-wing radical stance and for its xenophobia.
Now finally another danger that is at least as big is making headlines: the AfD is the biggest risk to the economy and jobs.
The AfD is a risk to Germany's prosperity - millions of jobs are at risk
The first big topic: Europe
.
The AfD is calling for a reform of the European Union according to its ideas, without explaining this in more detail.
Otherwise, Germany would just have to leave.
That may sound popular - but she doesn't care about Great Britain's bad experiences with Brexit.
According to the latest reports, Great Britain is losing around 160 billion euros in gross domestic product every year, is losing skilled workers, but has not yet been able to restrict illegal immigration in any way.
The expectations of Brexit in 2016 were in no way fulfilled.
Most Brits now consider leaving the EU to be a mistake.
The AfD doesn't care about any of that.
The AfD denies that Germany, as the EU's largest export country, delivers more than 50 percent of its exports to European countries.
The fact that we would have a big problem with the sales of our products is not an issue.
The fact that a lot of jobs would be lost and Germany's economic development would be affected is not an issue.
The fact that exiting the euro would make the movement of goods, services and people massively more difficult for Germany as an export country is not an issue.
The director of the German Economic Institute (IW), Michael Hüther, has for the first time quantified the costs of the AfD's economic policy plans.
As a result of a “Dexit”, the German economy would grow by an estimated six percent less within a few years, and in 10 to 15 years the minus would be around 10 percent, said Hüther, according to media reports.
“We are talking about a loss of 400 to 500 billion.
That would be lost gains in prosperity of thousands of euros per capita.” Hüther expects the loss of 2.2 million jobs.
Germany outside NATO?
AfD plans can only please Russia or China
The second big, very central chapter: According to its basic program, the AfD does not want a common European defense, the withdrawal of foreign troops or the withdrawal of nuclear weapons stored in Germany.
That sounds quite pleasant to naive minds.
But what is reality?
Anyone who understands even a little about the topic knows: Europe must strive for more commonality in defense.
For many reasons.
On the one hand, it's about common armaments.
Europe suffers from weak production in the manufacture of many different defense equipment.
Less instead of more cooperation makes deployment, logistics and supply more difficult, repairs massively more difficult and joint defense impaired.
The withdrawal of foreign troops would lead to the US and other NATO allies' shared responsibility for Germany shrinking.
And the withdrawal of the nuclear weapons stored here would mean that Germany would lose its say in nuclear deployment planning.
We would be left blank on this key issue of defense capability.
Germany would then be more likely to be considered as a field for nuclear conflict.
A Germany outside NATO, a severely compromised alliance - these are exactly ideas that only Russia and perhaps China can be happy about.
If Europe wants to build up and have its own economic and military weight between the large blocs of China, Russia and the USA, Europe needs not less, but more integration.
Not less, but more shared armament.
Not less, but more joint strategic planning.
Not less, but more cooperation, both economically and militarily.
Anyone who ignores this wants to significantly weaken Europe compared to other blocs.
My news
Young teachers have to take part in a strange custom – lawyer: “That really stuns me” read
31 mins ago
In Munich, Zelensky warns of a global “catastrophe” caused by Putin: “Secret services are aware” read
2 hours ago
“We were robbed of hope”: Putin’s police crack down on grieving Navalny supporters read
Putin speaks in Moscow about the one thing he regrets about the Ukraine war
Ukrainians proudly demonstrate Leopard 1 tanks to ZDF - but there's a lot missing from it
2 hours ago
Detail shows how afraid Putin was of Navalny
Germany is left empty-handed without a nuclear protective shield
Added to this is the uncertainty about the stability and loyalty of the USA in the coming years.
If a US President Trump, in his contempt for Europe, suspends Article 5 of the NATO Treaty and withdraws the nuclear protective umbrella, exactly the risk that was described in the retrofitting debate about medium-range missiles at the beginning of the 80s occurs: the use of nuclear-equipped medium-range missiles would Russia no longer has to fear the use of nuclear-equipped long-range missiles from the USA; Germany would be powerless and defenseless.
After the decision to upgrade medium-range missiles, the USSR was ready to enter into disarmament treaties.
The medium-range missiles were dismantled.
Russia has now upgraded in this area, without any serious reaction from NATO.
Former CSU minister Otto Wiesheu (linked in) warns urgently about the AfD's “chaos strategy” in his Merkur guest article.
© Montage: Imago/Jacob Schröter/Eibner/fn
It is more than negligent to abandon economic cooperation and joint military development in this situation.
This is a targeted disavowal of the freedom, security and prosperity of the Federal Republic.
That is the real danger posed by the AfD.
Ultimately, she has learned nothing from Germany's history: she wants the singularization of Germany as it was before the First and Second World Wars.
After the First World War, Foreign Ministers Aristide Briand (France) and Gustav Stresemann (Germany) wanted to avoid this wrong path and pursue new paths of cooperation.
They failed because of the nationalist aspirations in both Germany and France.
Only after the devastation and destruction of the Second World War was it possible to gradually realize the ideas of balance, cooperation and integration.
This is what the names Adenauer, Schumann and de Gasperi stand for.
Does anyone believe that the breakup of Europe will create an effective force against the US, China and Russia blocs?
(...) Anyone who wants that is sinning against Germany, against the German nation, and has learned nothing from history.
Otto Wiesheu
It was and is in Germany's existential interest to be integrated into the European community.
And to participate in a European defense alliance as a second pillar in NATO, as was already planned in the 1950s with the European Defense Community (which unfortunately failed because of France).
Integration into NATO is in the very interests of Germany and the European states.
A withdrawal, even a neutral Germany, would be devastating for these institutions, but above all for Germany itself, because it would gradually separate us from all partners in Europe.
Germany would lose massive amounts of trust among its neighbors.
This is even more true now than after the 90s, after the collapse of the USSR, the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
At that time, a great perspective for peace emerged, but unfortunately this is no longer a basis for cooperation due to the aggressive politics and armament of Russia and China and their polemics and aggressiveness against the West.
The simple question is: Where does this leave Europe?
Does anyone believe that the breakup of Europe will create an effective force against the US, China and Russia blocs?
Does anyone think that Germany would have a vision of the future with a policy of singularization?
Anyone who wants that is sinning against Germany, against the German nation, and has learned nothing from history.
By the way, we also have to talk about the motives: The AfD would shout “foreigners out” even louder if leaving the EU with the foreseeable loss of over two million jobs had ruined our country.
Or if a Russian victory in Ukraine would drive up to ten million refugees to Germany.
Is that what the AfD is aiming for?
New boost for their agitation?
The AfD's admiration for Russian President Putin appears in a new light.
The AfD chaos strategy is leading us to ruin
One thing is clear: a chaos strategy in the areas of economy and security would lead to terrible conditions.
The more chaotic the situation becomes internally, the greater the chances of extremist groups becoming.
The AfD does not pursue this policy out of naivety, it is a strategy.
This must be made transparent.
It is time to return to a realistic confrontation with the AfD and to a realistic policy on key issues.
Otherwise, Germany will find itself on a difficult, or rather illusory and dangerous, path.