A New German Political Party Is The First To Openly Call For Scrapping The Euro

AS FOUNDER of a new Eurosceptic party, Bernd Lucke, an economics professor, is among the most controversial figures in Germany. The website of his Alternative for Germany party went online this month. Its first gathering is in April, and it has until the summer to collect up to 2,000 signatures in each of Germany's 16 states in order to get on the ballot for the federal election in September.

Supported by an impressive list of fellow professors, Mr Lucke has three main goals. The most urgent is an "orderly dissolution" of the euro, with a return to national currencies or to new, smaller and more homogenous currency blocks. He wants a decentralised European Union with less bureaucracy and more emphasis on the single market. He favours more direct democracy, with Swiss-style plebiscites.

In its own mind, the Alternative is classically liberal in philosophy and otherwise pro-European. Mr Lucke argues that the euro, far from being the "peace project" that was intended, nowadays causes strife among Europeans. Cyprus is a case in point. Starting when the "no-bail-out clause" in the EU treaties was first ignored in 2010, successive euro rescues have in his view broken rules and undermined the single currency beyond repair.

Anywhere else such a voice might count as just another in the political spectrum. Not so in Germany, where any form of Euroscepticism remains taboo. The German media, ever vigilant against creeping populism or right-wing extremism, are now applying a magnifying glass to the party's supporter lists. That is "grotesque," snaps Hans-Olaf Henkel, a former head of Germany's main industry association, who supports the Alternative.

"We are not fishing on the left or right," insists Frauke Petry, a member of the party's board. Membership applications are being screened to ferret out potential extremists, even though this slows down the party's growth. Around 4,000 people have become members since March 7th. They are coming from across the political spectrum, says Mrs Petry.

Even if the Alternative qualifies in time, hardly anybody expects it to reach the 5% needed to enter the Bundestag. But the election looks increasingly likely to be a tight race between the centre-right coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel and the centre-left opposition. Since the Alternative appeals most directly to disillusioned voters on the centre-right, its mere appearance on ballots could prove to be "incredibly dangerous for Mrs Merkel," says Mr Henkel. He points to a state election in Lower Saxony in January, where Mr Lucke ran as a candidate for another mildly Eurosceptic party, the Free Voters, which got barely over 1%. In a race that hinged on a few hundred votes, this mattered.

It would be undemocratic to obstruct a new party because of such tactical considerations, says Michael Wohlgemuth, the director of Open Europe Berlin, a Eurosceptic think tank. A large minority of Germans--one in four, according to one recent poll--are unsupportive of the euro. So far, Mrs Merkel has presented rescue efforts as "alternative-less." Sooner or later, something called an Alternative for Germany was bound to come along.

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