(Bloomberg) -- Alice Weidel, the long-shot chancellor candidate from the far-right Alternative for Germany, slammed the European Union for destroying the country’s auto industry and proposed winding back the bloc to a free-trade zone.
“What we need to have is free trade among the European countries, but we don’t need all the bureaucracy,” co-leader of the second-strongest party in German polls told Bloomberg TV in Berlin. The EU’s “socialist policy making” has “destroyed the market mechanism in Europe.”
As an example, Weidel — the AfD’s first-ever candidate for chancellor — cited Germany’s automotive sector, which she said had been “ripped off” by an EU ban on the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles by 2035.
“We don’t need all of these bureaucrats who have no clue what they’re doing and destroying our foundation in the European Union,“ Weidel said. “We don’t see that the European Union in its current state is an institution that is working well.”
In its campaign platform for the Feb. 23 snap election, the AfD calls for a German exit from the EU and the euro zone, moves that would mark a major shift in German policy and unwind decades of political and economic integration. The party also calls for a crackdown on undocumented migrants, including expelling hundreds of thousands of people.
The Germany First appeal has resonated with many voters unsettled by the country’s sputtering economy. The anti-immigration party trails only the Christian Democrat-led conservative opposition and is ahead of all ruling parties including Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.
In the interview, which was recorded on Wednesday, Weidel pushed back against labeling the party as “far right,” calling it “libertarian” and “conservative.”
Three state chapters in the former communist east are classified as extremist and are under surveillance by Germany’s domestic intelligence service. The party says Islam doesn’t belong in the country, and former leader Alexander Gauland has called the Nazi period a mere blemish on Germany’s long history.
Weidel said that her main priorities, if elected, would be border control, lowering taxes and reviving nuclear power after Germany shut down its last plants in 2023.
The policies though have little chance of being implemented since all other parties have ruled out a coalition with the AfD. Still, the party has had a major influence on the political debate in Germany, notably pushing for a harder line on migration.
The 45-year-old, who has co-chaired the AfD with Tino Chrupalla since 2021, called for reforms of EU treaties that allow member states to veto decisions by the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. She also said that countries should be allowed to exit the EU, with the default being a free-trade partnership rather than going through the contortions that accompanied the UK’s Brexit negotiations.
“I highly recommend just a free trade zone because all the bureaucrats — thousands of them — are eating up taxpayers’ money,” she said.
Weidel, whose party is an advocate of restoring business and political ties with Russia, welcomed Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Her party calls for an end of all military aid for Ukraine and has warned against what AfD officials described as further military escalation by the West.
“We have huge hopes with his presidency,” she said. “I really hope that he puts an end to this terrible war in the Ukraine because the European member states are actually not willing or capable of doing something like that.”
The background to the end of the war is the prospect for restarting deliveries of cheap energy from Russia, most notably natural gas. The party, which is skeptical of man-made climate change, is also in favor of burning coal to generate power over an expansion of renewable sources.
Weidel played down concerns that Trump will levy tariffs against German carmakers. Volkswagen AG, BMW AG and Mercedes-Benz Group AG have built factories there to tap demand from American consumers.
Germany’s carmakers “are already in the US,” she said. “And you know why? Because of high energy prices here in Germany.”
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