In an interview with the Financial Times, Weidel, who together with Tino Chrupalla leads the right-wing populist German party and the AfD parliamentary group, said a government led by her party would try to reform the EU and eliminate its “democratic deficit.”
“If such a reform is not possible, if we cannot restore the sovereignty of EU member states, then citizens should decide, just like in Britain,” she said. “And we might hold a referendum on ‘Dexit’ – a German exit from the EU.” The British exit from the EU was “absolutely right” as a sovereign decision, Weidel told the newspaper. The vote in 2016 was a “model for Germany”.
In 2016, 52 percent of the British people who took part voted to leave the EU in a referendum, while 48 percent voted to remain in the EU. Great Britain’s exit was completed in 2020.
AfD plan leads to “dwarfing of Germany”
In Germany, referendums at the federal level are not provided for in the Basic Law, except for the reorganization of federal states. In order to make a referendum possible, the Basic Law would first have to be changed with a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
The SPD European politician Katharina Barley sharply criticized Weidel’s move. “The AfD’s plan is to dwarf Germany,” she told the German Press Agency. Furthermore, such a move would play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Putin wants nothing more than an EU that is falling apart,” said Barley, who wants to elect the SPD as its top candidate for the European elections on June 9th next Sunday. The parliamentary director of the SPD parliamentary group, Katja Mast, said: “A Dexit is a stupid idea, but the AfD has many of them.” The AfD is damaging Germany. The party is “the greatest threat to the location and jobs in Germany”.
