<div class="image-container" style="width:620px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/51543fe1eab8eada7c000016-3500-1583/rtr3euy0.jpg?maxX=620" border="0" alt="Bernd Lucke, leader of Alternative für Deutschland" width="620" /></div>REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach</div>
 <keyword id="87" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Germany">Germany</keyword>'s new, anti-euro political party – <keyword id="1745978" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Alternative-Fr-Deutschland">Alternative für Deutschland</keyword> (AfD) – <a href="http://www.n-tv.de/ticker/Anti-Euro-Partei-AfD-erstmals-bei-fuenf-Prozent-article10519771.html">would get the 5% minimum share of the national vote</a> required to enter the German Bundestag if September's federal elections were held today, according to a new INSA Institute poll conducted for Bild, Germany's most widely circulated daily newspaper.
This is a big milestone for the party, which was only officially founded on Sunday, April 14, and hasn't even fully registered for the September elections yet. The poll shows how much appeal the anti-euro stance has in Germany right now.
(Last Monday's INSA Institute poll only gave AfD 3% of the total vote.)
In a report on the rise of AfD published Friday, Deutsche Bank's Co-Chief European Economist Gilles Moec discussed the remarkable success the nascent political party has found so far.
Moec provides figures from a few other polls that show the extent to which AfD is able to tap into the anti-euro sentiment that exists in Germany (emphasis added):
According to a recent poll by Infratest Dimap (mandated by German weekly Welt am Sonntag) dated April 7, 24% of the respondents indicated that they could imagine voting for the AfD in the federal elections. 7% of respondents answered "Yes, for sure". 17% of respondents answered "Yes, perhaps". (CDU/CSU voters: 19%; SPD: 21%; Greens: 14%; Left Party: 29%; FDP: n/a; undecided/non-voters: 31%)
In another poll by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen (mandated by ZDF Politbarometer) dated April 12, 17% of respondents stated they would vote for a party at the federal elections that favoured an EMU exit. (CDU/CSU voters: 11%; SPD: 18%; Greens: 8%; Left Party: 20%; FDP: n/a; undecided/non-voters: 26%).
These voter potential analyses do not provide any hard indications of the real election outcome. For example, the Pirates party occasionally scored well above 30% in similar polls when they reached their zenith of public attention last year, but would likely score considerably lower in real voter polls now. Still, these figures provide an initial indication of the potential for swing voters. Interestingly, despite the right-wing connotation of the party, there is also a considerable amount of voters of the SPD and the Left that indicated they could imagine switching sides.
Given the evident interest in an anti-euro choice among the German electorate, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that AfD has already garnered significant media attention.
Moec outlines three reasons for this:
<ul>
<li>Apart from discussions in academic journals, any debate on the benefits and costs of the EMU has generally been muted due to the general pro- European consensus in parliament and among the so-called social partners (e.g., labor unions, business associations, social aid/welfare groups). Initially euro-rescue measures were described as “without alternative” by the German government. In this context, there have often been expectations that a eurosceptic movement could be founded soon.</li>
<li>The established parties in Germany have been facing a constant loss of membership over the past two decades. There has been ongoing debate about where a political milieu might arise that could be a new intellectual home for the bourgeois-conservative camp.</li>
<li>The rise of eurosceptic powers in the rest of the euro area has increased the public’s awareness of political risks.</li>
</ul>
Moreover, Moec says, AfD is cleaning up on social media networks.
"So far, the AfD has already gathered 24,000 ‘friends’ [on Facebook] while more than 18,000 users are involved in forum discussions," Moec writes. "(By comparison: CDU: 36,100, 806 involved in discussions. SPD: 36,850, 5,460. FDP: 20,300, 1,702. Linke: 20,750, 1291)."
In short, the party is off to a good start.
However, according to Moec, "From now on, it will likely be mostly exogenous factors that influence the AfD’s success in federal elections."
In other words, should the <keyword id="123292" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Euro-crisis">euro crisis</keyword> begin to re-escalate prior to the election – with Angela Merkel unable to handle it in a way that "[squeezes] the AfD off the public's radar screen," the party could really translate this early momentum into a significant impact on the electoral outcome in September.

Germany's Surging Anti-Euro Party Hit A Key Milestone Today

<h3><div class="image-container" style="width:620px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/51543fe1eab8eada7c000016-3500-1583/rtr3euy0.jpg?maxX=620" border="0" alt="Bernd Lucke, leader of Alternative für Deutschland" width="620" /></div>REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach</div></h3>
<h3>Meet Dr. <keyword id="1638287" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Bernd-Lucke">Bernd Lucke</keyword>, the University of Hamburg economics professor who just formed a new, anti-euro political party to unseat Angela Merkel in this September's German elections.</h3>
Lucke, the leader of <keyword id="1745978" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Alternative-Fr-Deutschland">Alternative für Deutschland</keyword>, is on board with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dijsselbloem-reveals-the-euro-end-game-2013-3">the "new approach" the euro zone appears to be taking with bank bailouts</a> in the wake of this week's Cyprus deal that has sent bank stocks in Italy and Spain tumbling.
Depositors in the two largest Cypriot banks will take a substantial haircut on bank account balances in excess of 100,000 euros in order to help pay for the bailout. This shifts the burden of footing the bill away from the taxpayers and onto those involved directly with the banks.
<keyword id="87" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Germany">Germany</keyword>, the kingmaker in the euro zone, pushed hard for the EU to take a hard line with Cyprus, ensuring that depositors would be involved in the restructuring. After all, with elections looming in September, the last thing German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her party needs is to look like they are willing to write blank checks to Cypriot banks, which are viewed by the international community as an offshore tax haven for moneyed Russian interests.
Lucke says the reason Germany had to take such a hard line toward depositors – a stance that has set in motion a whole new disruptive chain of events in the euro zone in recent weeks – was because of the new dynamic his party has brought to the German political scene.
"My sentiment is that this is a response to the fact that our party has gone public and that Angela Merkel feels threatened and now fights back for her popular support," Lucke told Business Insider.
So, what exactly is Alternative's plan for Germany and the euro?
For Germany, it's severing the fiscal transfers to struggling peripheral euro zone countries in southern Europe that have fallen into recession.
"While it currently seems to be the case that we do benefit from the euro crisis, there are tremendous risks in the wings, and we would like to end these policies of disguising fiscal risk, and discharging banks of their risk to the detriment of taxpayers," says Lucke. "This heavy burden we just do not want to bear, and this is why we have formed our party to oppose it."
For the rest of Europe, in which Germany remains dominant, it's dissolving the euro altogether.
Lucke says the economic division the euro is creating between North and South "certainly is the cause for envious sentiment and angry sentiment in the southern European countries, so that the political tensions within the European Union actually rise."
Alternative für Deutschland fears that these tensions could jeopardize the principles of a "common market" that make the EU so great for German trade. Lucke suggests, for example, that peripheral nations could perhaps impose customs duties if they can find no other way to become competitive.
"We use the completely wrong incentives for the crisis countries," says Lucke. "We do not help them solve their problems, but pile up more debt for them and force them into a recession, which makes the situation simply unsustainable."
Thus, it's about sacrificing the euro to save the European Project.
We also spoke to Lucke about AfD's chances in September's elections, what an AfD opposition would look like in the German Bundestag, his thoughts on the rise of Beppe Grillo and the anti-euro Five Star Movement in Italy, and the economics Germany's relationship with the euro.
The full transcript is included below.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUSINESS INSIDER: What is your opinion of how Angela Merkel has handled the Cypriot bank bailout?
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:275px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5134e381eab8ea916a000013-4565-3038/ap405095794449.jpg" border="0" alt="Bernd Lucke" width="275" /></div>AP</div>BERND LUCKE: I think it was a stupid idea of hers to try to use the savings of smaller savers with credits in the bank of less than 100,000 euros for bailing out the Cypriot banks.
This was against European law, as everybody knows, so by doing that, she has caused a very aggressive climate in Cyprus, which made it much more difficult to find public support for the one step which was right, which was correct, which is to use some of the wealth of the big creditors of Cypriot banks to stabilize the banking system there.
So, I do approve of the decision the Cypriot parliament has taken with respect to wealth beyond 100,000 euros. I think this is a good and necessary step. I do not approve, however, of the fact that the bailout clause of the Maastricht Treaty has again been violated by the promise of another 10 billion euros for the Cypriot government.
BI: Do you think the rise of Alternative für Deutschland pressured the Merkel government to take a harder line with Cyprus?
BL: It seems that the German government has been rather tough in recent weeks on the government of Cyprus, and my sentiment is that this is a response to the fact that our party has gone public and that Angela Merkel feels threatened and now fights back for her popular support.
BI: Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem this week sparked some controversy by suggesting that the Cypriot bank bailout deal could be a template for future bank restructurings in the euro area. How would a Germany led by your party seek to guide the restructuring process?
BL: I think that the restructuring of banks is necessary in many circumstances. I am very much in favor of having an orderly sovereign default in those countries which are overly indebted. An orderly default means that while the government does default, it is necessary to stabilize banks, and if banks are being recapitalized, then I think the prime resource for recapitalizing banks are the owners and the large creditors of those banks.
So, I am very much in favor, actually, of the policy that has already been outlined this week.
BI: Germany has managed to avoid recession, and unemployment continues to fall. Why would you want to endanger that status quo by leaving the euro?
BL: There is a huge build-up of fiscal risk in Germany by the obligations which we have agreed to under the European Stabilization Mechanism. So, while it currently seems to be the case that we do benefit from the euro crisis, there are tremendous risks in the wings, and we would like to end these policies of disguising fiscal risk, and discharging banks of their risk to the detriment of taxpayers.
We think that the tensions in the euro zone, which are currently just hidden by those transfer payments we make, should be made visible and should be solved by reintroducing national currencies and exchange rate flexibility.
This may, in the short run, put some burden on the German economy as well, but I think in the long run, it will be much more beneficial than the current policy.
BI: What is the real downside to continued wealth transfers from Germany and other northern euro member states to those on the periphery?
BL: Well, I don't really see that those economies are coming back on track. What we see currently is a steep rise in unemployment and youth unemployment in the southern European countries. We do observe some improvement in the terms of current account deficits and measures of productivity, but these are an improvement only because unemployment is rising – because less productive workers have been fired.
So, I do not think that this does indicate any kind of real progress, or at least enough progress to make those countries competitive again.
The problem seems to be that we have started with a transfer union, and there is no way out that we currently see as long as we stay in the euro. Rather, it seems that this policy will linger on for years, and possibly decades, which will put a heavy burden on German taxpayers, households, as well as enterprises.
This heavy burden we just do not want to bear, and this is why we have formed our party to oppose it.
BI: What is your response to the rise of Beppe Grillo and his anti-euro, Five Star Movement in Italy?
BL: I don't really have any response to that – I observe this rise, but we do not have any contact with his party.
I do share some of his views that the euro is not the appropriate currency for Italy. So, I have some sympathy for some of his positions, but certainly not for all of his positions, and certainly not necessarily for the way he is advancing his positions.
So, I think there are also big differences between our party and Grillo's party.
BI: Does Alternative advocate that Germany should leave the euro?
BL: No. We are running on a platform to dissolve the euro in a stepwise fashion, on a platform which proposes to reintroduce national currencies, but not by having Germany leave the euro, but rather by making the southern European countries leave the euro first, and then breaking up the remaining euro zone into other smaller currency areas, or into countries which each have their own national currency.
What we do not propose is that Germany leave the euro either now or in the future in any kind of unilateral sense.
BI: What do you hope to achieve going into the September elections? What sort of ground can you reasonably hope to gain in the government?
BL: Opinion polls currently indicate that about 25 percent of the German population is sympathetic to our anti-euro view, so we hope, of course, to take advantage of this share of the population as much as is possible.
If we do get elected to parliament, then the next question is whether we will be in the opposition there, or whether we will join other forces to form a government. My guess is that we will be an opposition party, because we would be willing to cooperate with any other party only if it changes its view on euro policy, and this is currently not conceivable.
BI: How have relatively calm financial markets in Europe since last summer affected the German perception of the euro and "bailout fatigue" in the German population?
BL: I think that the unrest which the public feels has grown, even though I also believe that there was a big share of the population that was displeased with Angela Merkel's policies already from the start of this policy in May 2010 on.
You may remember that Angela Merkel's party suffered heavy, heavy losses in regional elections which immediately followed the decision of May 2010 to establish the first big rescue facility.
So, there is a large share of the population which is deeply displeased with that, which perhaps has not really had the means to express itself properly, because many people are not so familiar with economics, and don't feel on safe grounds when they speak about that topic.
It is precisely for this reason that we have formed our party now, which is supported by many, many professors of economics, for instance, and many entrepreneurs for whom it is their daily bread to deal with economic issues, and which are quite outspoken in their criticism toward the government's euro policies.
BI: How has your background informed your views on the euro and Alternative's euro policy platform?
BL: I think there are basically two sources. One source is that i do not see much support for the economics behind the rescue policies. We have a big misallocation of capital by the rescue facilities.
We use the completely wrong incentives for the crisis countries. We do not help them solve their problems, but pile up more debt for them and force them into a recession, which makes the situation simply unsustainable.
So, there is a lot of economics which can actually be advanced against current policies.
The second source of my thinking was sort of more democratic or legalistic way of thinking in the sense that I was shocked by the fact that our government does not respective the Treaty of Maastricht. It just acts as it pleases in certain circumstances, completely disregarding all the promises which ever have been made to German voters, completely disregarding the legal framework of the European Union.
This, I think, is something which is really shameful for a democratic society, and is also a major source for my political engagement.
BI: What are your views toward the European Union?
BL: We do think that this is the way to save the European Union from a breakup. Actually, this is a big concern that we have.
We think that the euro currently splits the European Union into two parts – a segment of an economically unsuccessful southern part, and a more northern, or more central, European part, which currently seems to benefit from the misery of the southern European countries, because all of the capital flows back from southern Europe to Germany, and the Netherlands, and other stable countries, where it helps us to do cheap investment, but which is at the expense of those southern European countries, and which certainly is the cause for envious sentiment and angry sentiment in the southern European countries, so that the political tensions within the European Union actually rise.
There is the imminent danger of the disintegration of the European Union and of the common market, possibly even with a return to, say, impediments to trade, like a reintroduction of customs duties if those southern European countries are not able to balance their trade by any other means – in particular, not able to balance their trade by a devaluation of their own currency.
BI: Is Alternative's plan to sacrifice the euro in order to save the European Project?
BL: That would be absolutely correct.

Meet The Influential German Professor Who Wants To Get Rid Of The Euro In Order To Save Europe

<div class="image-container" style="width:600px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/51570c876bb3f7fd2000001c-1280-640/cyprus-bailout-protest-12-3.jpg?maxX=600" border="0" alt="cyprus bailout protest 12" width="600" /></div>Christina Avraam</div>
If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, take some time this weekend to glance at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bernd-lucke-alternative-fur-deutschland-interview-on-cyprus-2013-3">Matthew Boesler's interview with Bernd Lucke</a>, the German professor who is is leading an insurgent movement called Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative For Germany) which advocates an end to the Eurozone.
A key part of Lucke's argument is that the euro must be sacrificed to save the greater European project (the European Union), as the status quo is tearing apart the continent.
<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5134e45becad04cd6600001c-4052-3038/bernd-lucke-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Bernd Lucke" width="400" /></div>AP</div>This line from Lucke <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bernd-lucke-alternative-fur-deutschland-interview-on-cyprus-2013-3">is critical</a>:
We think that the euro currently splits the European Union into two parts ? a segment of an economically unsuccessful southern part, and a more northern, or more central, European part, which currently seems to benefit from the misery of the southern European countries, because all of the capital flows back from southern Europe to Germany, and the Netherlands, and other stable countries, where it helps us to do cheap investment, but which is at the expense of those southern European countries, and which certainly is the cause for envious sentiment and angry sentiment in the southern European countries, so that the political tensions within the European Union actually rise.
It's hard to disagree with much that Lucke has to say.
For one thing, all you have to do is look at the gigantic split that's opened up between German unemployment and unemployment in the rest of the Eurozone to see why there's so much anger about the status quo.
<table class="image-container" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/514e08caecad04c312000000-491-382/screen shot 2013-03-23 at 3.53.17 pm.png" border="0" alt="german unemployment" /></div>Danske Bank</td></tr></table>
<a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/europes-second-depression-a-correction/">And as Paul Krugman observed this week</a>, the European economic crisis now represents a bigger disaster than the Great Depression in terms of the trajectory of GDP per capita.
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5156f11a6bb3f77c6b00000d-480-290/032913krugman4-blog480.png" border="0" alt="032913krugman4 blog480" />
The Great Depression ended as countries took themselves off of the gold standard. The European crisis may only end when countries take themselves off of the modern equivalent, the inflexible currency.

The Euro Is Destroying Europe By Ripping It In Half

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55ac7ccfdd0895334b8b45fc-2467-1850/rtx1kout.jpg" alt="RTX1KOUT" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Eric Gaillard" data-mce-caption="A group of riders cycle past a sunflowers field during the 198.5-km (123.3 miles) 13th stage of the 102nd Tour de France cycling race from Muret to Rodez, France, July 17, 2015. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard" />REUTERS/Eric GaillardA group of riders cycle past a sunflowers field during the 198.5-km (123.3 miles) 13th stage of the 102nd Tour de France cycling race from Muret to Rodez, France, July 17, 2015. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard</div></div></div>Hello! Here's what you need to know for Monday.1. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-greek-banks-ready-to-open-monday-expect-long-queues-2015-7">Greek banks reopen Monday for the first time since June 29</a>, though capital controls will remain in place limiting the amount of cash people can withdrawal to €420 (£291, $454) a week.2. German Chancellor <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33587330">Angela Merkel said in an interview on Sunday that extending maturities of Greece's debt and reducing interest paid by the country might be considered</a>, but only once the first successful review of an €86 billion (£59 billion, $93 billion) bailout package has been completed.3. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/world/middleeast/un-vote-on-iran-nuclear-deal-irks-congress.html?ref=world">UN security council will vote Monday morning on a resolution to endorse the Iran nuclear deal</a>, before US Congress has a chance to complete its 60-day review.4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-houthi-bombardment-in-yemens-aden-kills-43-exiled-government-2015-7">Rockets fired by Houthi rebels killed 43 people in the city of Aden</a>, just two days after Yemen's exiled government declared the city "liberated."5. Drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who slipped out of his prison cell through a mile-long tunnel, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-mayor-of-el-chapos-hometown-thinks-his-prison-escape-was-totally-bad-ass-2015-7">has become somewhat of hero in his hometown of </a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/the-mayor-of-el-chapos-hometown-thinks-his-prison-escape-was-totally-bad-ass-2015-7">Badiraguato in northwestern Mexico</a>, with the mayor calling his escape "totally bad ass."6. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-japans-mitsubishi-apologizes-to-us-prisoners-of-war-2015-7">Mitsubishi Materials has become the first Japanese corporation to apologize for using American prisoners of war</a> for forced labor in its mines during World War II.7. British Prime Minister David Cameron said in an interview on Sunday that <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-pm-cameron-says-he-wants-britain-to-do-more-to-fight-is-in-syria-2015-7">he wants Britain to do more to fight Islamic State militants in Syria</a> as airstrikes are currently centered on Iraq. 8. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-lockheed-to-buy-united-techs-sikorsky-for-over-8-billion-source-2015-7">US weapons maker Lockheed Martin is reportedly buying </a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-lockheed-to-buy-united-techs-sikorsky-for-over-8-billion-source-2015-7">United Technologies</a> for $8 billion (£5.1 billion), which will be Lockheed's largest acquisition in two decades.9. Surviving relatives of those killed in the Germanwings plane crash in March <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-crash-victims-families-reject-germanwings-compensation-offer-2015-7">rejected an offer of €</a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-crash-victims-families-reject-germanwings-compensation-offer-2015-7">25,000 (£17,364, $27,000) in compensation for their pain and suffering</a>, saying it was an inadequate amount. 10. Bernd Lucke, former leader of the eurosceptic Alternative for Germany(AfD) party, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-germanys-ex-afd-leader-sets-up-new-eurosceptic-party-2015-7">set up a new party on Sunday called </a><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-germanys-ex-afd-leader-sets-up-new-eurosceptic-party-2015-7">The "Alliance for Progress and Renewal" (ALFA)</a>, which also opposes eurozone bailouts.And finally...<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/mick-fanning-fights-off-shark-attack-2015-7">Professional Australian surfer Mick Fanning fought off a great white shark attack on live television on Sunday during the finals of the J-Bay Open</a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/mick-fanning-fights-off-shark-attack-2015-7"> of the Men's Samsung Galaxy Championship Tour in South Africa</a>. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/1998-mclaren-f1-auction-15-million-dollars-2015-6">This 1998 supercar could auction for $15 million</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Rsc3hodTqM0OE0pn7eL8MJ-yolA-SZHN" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'Rsc3hodTqM0OE0pn7eL8MJ-yolA-SZHN',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

The 10 most important things in the world right now

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/514a3f416bb3f75f58000007-617-463/euro-coin.png?maxX=400" border="0" alt="euro coin" width="400" /></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29487767@N02/3073526125/">Flickr / alles-schulmpf</a></div>AS FOUNDER of a new Eurosceptic party, Bernd Lucke, an economics professor, is among the most controversial figures in <keyword id="87" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Germany">Germany</keyword>. 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 <keyword id="6431122" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="euro">euro</keyword>, 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 <keyword id="28249" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="europe">Europe</keyword> 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.
Click <a href="http://www.economist.com/products/subscribe/CUR22/noreg">here</a> to subscribe to The <keyword id="6365396" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Economist">Economist</keyword>
<img class="nc_pixel" src="http://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT0xY2E4NGRmZjRlZGQ1MjJhOTExMWNjMDE3ZDY1OTkyNCZvd25lcj1kM2Y2MjMzYjQ4YzhmNmE1ZWQ2NzhjMzU2NDBkZmQxNCZub25jZT0yZGZlN2U5MS1mZmQ5LTQ2YTYtODQyYi0zMDQ2MTYxYjBiMjUmcHVibGlzaGVyPThjMDBmYmVlNjFkNWJjZjBjNjA5MmQ4YjkyZWJiY2Ex" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" />

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

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5421994d6da8112028c31fcc-1200-924/rtr459il-1.jpg" border="0" alt="RTR459IL">REUTERS/Michael DalderGermany's Eurosceptics could cause a major knock-on effect for the Eurozone</img></div></div></div>A new report from credit ratings agency Standard &amp; Poor's is flagging up a new concern for the struggling Eurozone: Germany's surging Eurosceptic party, Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD). 
S&amp;P's case is fairly simple. Though AfD doesn't have mass political support as yet, it's gaining momentum. After taking 4.7% of the vote in the last Bundestag elections, it won 7% in the European election and between 9.7% and 12.2% in three recent state elections in eastern Germany.
The Telegraph's Ambrose Evans Pritchard pithily describes the AfD as <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100028199/germanys-eurosceptic-afd-spells-end-to-europes-false-calm-warns-sp/">'standing across Angela Merkel's path with bayonets'</a> in his write-up of the report. 
If they had their way, AfD would have Germany using the Deutschmark again, exiting from the common currency. They're picking up steam by opposing the role that Germany has played in recent years: as Germans see it, they're the guy with the checkbook. 
S&amp;P says Germany's domestic opposition to Eurozone crisis management hasn't yet had a major political voice, allowing the government some leeway on the measures it took. Both the main conservative and social democratic parties in Germany have been roughly supportive of the biggest measures to tackle the euro-crisis. Or at least, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/04/uk-germany-fears-idUKKBN0GZ1QQ20140904">more supportive than the German public</a>.
The German government is already a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-new-european-political-trend-blame-germany/256575/">lightning rod for blame over the continent's austerity measures</a>. The S&amp;P report suggests that there could be even more of a bias towards tight money if Angela Merkel's centre-right CDU have to mop up AfD voters.
In the same way that UKIP has pushed British Prime Minister David Cameron to increased Euroscepticism, S&amp;P head of sovereign ratings Moritz Kraemer explains why Merkel might have to shift to the right:
<blockquote class="blockquote">
"More conservative, and arguably more eurosceptic, voters had increasingly felt their concerns were overlooked by the CDU, a trend that may have deepened since the establishment of the Grand Coalition government in late 2013.
"AfD has been successful in attracting those disenchanted voters. This has been made easier by a parallel related development: the rapid and seemingly inexorable demise of the Liberal party (FDP), which could otherwise have been a beneficiary of disgruntled voters."
</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uk-eu-referendum-cameron-vs-ukip-2013-1">Remind you of anywhere?</a>
If the German government and their wing of the European Central Bank (the Bundesbank) began objecting even more to monetary stimulus, it could be negative for the people of Europe's struggling periphery. 
In a sort of grim irony, AfD leader Leader Bernd Lucke says that <a href="http://www.dw.de/euroskeptic-afd-cements-place-in-german-politics-for-now/a-17921496">"southern European states are becoming impoverished under the pressure to compete"</a> under the monetary union. If the Bundesbank (the German arm of the ECB) and the German government became less co-operative with Eurozone stimulus as the AfD gain popularity, it's exactly those southern European states that would suffer most. 
S&amp;P sums up its case succinctly: "Why is this a concern for the eurozone? None of this would matter much, if we were to assess that the euro crisis is safely behind us. However, this is unlikely to be the case."

Germany's Eurosceptics Are On The Rise And They Could Send The Eurozone Back Into Crisis 

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5134e483eab8ea936c000021-4052-3038/bernd-lucke-2.jpg?maxX=400" border="0" alt="Bernd Lucke" width="400" /></div>AP</div>There's a new political party in <keyword id="87" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Germany">Germany</keyword>. Its major platform, headed into this year's German elections in September: abolishing the euro.
The group, which calls itself "Alternative for Germany," is made up of several prominent economists and intellectuals with a reputation for euroscepticism.
Deutsche Bank <a href="http://www.dbresearch.com/servlet/reweb2.ReWEB;jsessionid=6F47FA0C4E77D8ED71421A95FF66BD40.srv-loc-dbr-com?addmenu=false&amp;document=PROD0000000000302571&amp;rdShowArchivedDocus=true&amp;rwnode=DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD$NAVIGATION&amp;rwobj=ReDisplay.Start.class&amp;rwsite=DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD">posted a nice summary of the movement</a> today on its website – who it is, what it's all about, and its chances for success.
In the report, Deutsche Bank's Nicolaus Heinen explains who is behind Alternative:
The movement Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) is centered around the German economist Bernd Lucke, a professor of macroeconomics in Hamburg. Other spokespersons are former FAZ journalist Konrad Adam and a former state secretary in Hesse, Alexander Gauland.
Another prominent supporter is the former president of the Federation of German Industry (BDI) Hans-Olaf Henkel – a prominent and colourful eurosceptic who wrote a book about establishing a North-EMU and a South-EMU.
Other supporters are well-known eurosceptic economists such as Stefan Homburg (Hanover), Charles Blankart (Berlin), Wilhelm Hankel and Karl Schachtschneider (both multiple plaintiffs at the German Constitutional Court of Justice in various euro-proceedings).
Germany has arguably been the biggest winner from the creation of the euro. The currency bloc provides a relatively stable and low-cost destination for German exports.
However, the idea of bailing out other countries, like Greece, Spain, Italy, and the like – even though those countries were running up debt to buy German exports all of those years – is still pretty cringeworthy in Germany. Alternative hopes to capitalize on that.
Heinen notes that this isn't the first eurosceptic party to hit the German political scene, but it is the first one in a while. (The one Heinen recalls was established in the late 1990s but fizzled out after a few years.)
The problems for these parties in the past have been four-fold, according to Heinen: fragmentation, money, content, and appeal.
The situation now, amid the economic crisis engulfing the bloc, is dramatically different than then.
So, how big of a problem for this new party do those four issues present?
Here is Heinen's take:
Fragmentation remains the crucial issue: The economists that make up the movement have quite differing views on how to achieve their political goals. They are just at the very beginning of their opinion-forming process. While their communication is professional, they have almost no experience in policymaking. Also, fragmentation within the eurosceptic party spectrum remains an issue: AD offered to cooperate with the eurosceptic Freie Wähler (free voters) during the state elections in Lower Saxony in January but the Freie Wähler refused to agree. The Freie Wähler ended up with 0.5% in Lower Saxony.
Money: The financial resources of the movement are scarce. Additional funding from economically powerful sources remains unlikely as long as the degree of internal fragmentation remains high.
Content: As long as AD does not further carve out its position in other policy areas, campaigning on just one topic will remain a risky strategy that has not paid off in the past.
Appeal: In contrast to other fragmented eurosceptic movements, the AD has some prominent supporters in its ranks. Most prominent supporters of the movement are highly professional media personalities as well as well-known eurosceptics like Hans-Olaf Henkel. Thus, a new eurosceptic party with prominent supporters could attract the media’s attention as Angela Merkel’s euro rescue politics remains a recurrent issue in German public debate and talk shows.
Alternative still needs to officially register as a party and collect the requisite number of signatures to participate in elections come September.
Moreover, Heinen says aside from the four factors above, much of Alternative's success will be determined by the public mood toward the <keyword id="123292" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Euro-crisis">euro crisis</keyword> when September arrives – will markets be flaring up, or will the environment seem largely benign?
<a href="http://www.dbresearch.com/servlet/reweb2.ReWEB;jsessionid=6F47FA0C4E77D8ED71421A95FF66BD40.srv-loc-dbr-com?addmenu=false&amp;document=PROD0000000000302571&amp;rdShowArchivedDocus=true&amp;rwnode=DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD$NAVIGATION&amp;rwobj=ReDisplay.Start.class&amp;rwsite=DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD">Click here to read the full report on Deutsche Bank's website &gt;</a>

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