European Election Program, 9th European Parliament 2019, Europe of Nations

European Election Program

Program of the Alternative für Deutschland for Election

     of the 9th European Parliament 2019

A Europe of Nations

2.2.2 Referenda in European Affairs

As long as the sovereignty of the national states is not reconstructed, Germany may conclude or alter no treaty referring to EU expansion, a yielding of sovereignty or assent to liability without a referendum. We hold it to be a self-evident right of each of the peoples of the European Union to vote on remaining in the EU, the Monetary Union or special supra-national projects.

The exit of Great Britain from the EU has historic dimensions. It was brought about by the EU’s political classes and has inflicted heavy damage on Europe. We respect Brexit as the sovereign decision of the British citizens to leave the EU.

2.3 Lobbyism, Corruption and Self-enrichment

Due to a lack of proximity to the citizens and a lack of transparency of EU institutions with wide-ranging regulatory power and discretion over potent financial means, a machinery of officialdom with more than 25,000 lobbyists has been established at the control points of the EU. These attempt to exert influence on political decisions, oftentimes in the gray area of corruption. The effect upon the Brussels bureaucracy occurs with frightening ease, at times the guidelines and draft statutes being drawn up directly by the lobbyists. The measures aimed, after countless scandals, at regulating lobbying are only eye-wash.

Even before realization of the necessary EU reform measures, we demand an obligatory lobby register in which appears each contact with lobbyists and which is to be published unedited. Besides complete transparency, we demand definite duties and corresponding penalties for all EU functionaries and co-workers. We want to appropriately penalize bribery, corruption and subventions fraud with automatic loss of eligibility for election and the ability to place public officials under observation. In addition, we require the unrestricted publication of members’ and functionaries’ outside activities as well as a three year interim period for rotation between politics and business (“Revolving-door principle”).

European Election Program, 9th European Parliament 2019, Europe of Nations

European Election Program

Program of the Alternative für Deutschland for Election

     of the 9th European Parliament 2019

A Europe of Nations

2.2.1 Dexit – Exit as Last Resort

Should our fundamental reform measures of the EU’s existing system not be realized in a suitable period of time, we maintain that a German exit, or an orderly undoing of the European Union and the founding of a new European economic and interests community, will be necessary. The decision concerning Dexit will be obtained from the citizens, as is self-evident  according to our model of direct democracy.

EU – Centralism and Bureaucracy

The political players of Europe have built up the European Union into a monstrous apparatus of authorities and administration. Twelve EU institutions with 44,000 EU officials and 11,000 employees, personnel costs of over eight billion euros, 24 EU agencies with a number (not made public) of co-workers and service providers such as interpreters and experts. The members, commissioners, officials and special EU employees receive uncommonly high compensation and privileges, from paradisaical pension entitlements to tax-free allowances. For example, there are presently some 4,000 EU officials earning more than the German Chancellor (290,000 € gross per year).

By reforming the EU, we wish to shrink the inflated authorities apparatus and stop the disproportionate care and feeding of EU bureaucrats. The filling of the offices and functions of EU institutions should be the result of aptitude and ability, not party membership.

The renunciation of the unanimity principle and the introduction of a majority principle is not coherent with our concept of the European Union. The majority principle annuls the sovereignty of the states.

Abolish EU Parliament

We want to abolish the un-democratic EU parliament with its presently privileged 751 members.We see the law-giving competence as belonging exclusively to the national states, although we favor an intensification of inter-state cooperation of member countries and the conclusion of multilateral state treaties. Not centralism and leading around by the nose, but a cooperation of partners guarantees sustained prosperity and peace.

A New European Supreme Court as Supra-national Court of Arbitration

By the re-ordering of the European Union we want to create, in place of previous EU organs, an organizational structure which corresponds to the organization of other interstate federations. The specifics of the organizational structure are to be regulated in multilateral treaties.

We want an end to the incursion of the European Court of Justice [EuGH] into the sovereignty of the national states. With the abolition of the EU’s law-making competence, the primacy of the German basic law and national statutes is to be reconstructed. A new EuGH should provide for the duties of a supra-national court of arbitration. The judges of the new EuGH should be elected from the leading magistrates of the national states.

European Election Program, 9th European Parliament 2019, Europe of Nations

European Election Program

Program of the Alternative für Deutschland for the Election

     of the 9^th European Parliament 2019

2.1 A Europe of Nations, 2.2 Reform of the European Union

2.1 A Europe of Nations

The variety of national cultures and traditions is the foundation for the political, economic and social strength of Europe. We reject the transformation of the EU into a state with its own government and legislative authority as well as the idea of a “United States of Europe”. Instead, the AfD stands for a Europe as an economic and interests community of sovereign states. We want to live together in friendship and as good neighbors.

The principle of national sovereignty was hollowed out by the treaties of Schengen, Maastricht and Lisbon. The attempt to undo functioning, democratic national states and replace them with a kind of European super-state cannot succeed. It is an illusion that the national identities could be by and by unloosened by a European one. There is no European population that would conform to such a project and it is not possible to identify one such that could be constructed in the foreseeable future. Cultures, languages and national identities arise through centuries of enduring historical development. Only in national states with a democratic constitution can the sovereignty and fundamental rights of the citizen as the centerpiece of democracy be pledged and preserved.

2.2 Reform of the European Union

The European community has evolved into an undemocratic structure which is occupied by the political players of Europe and shaped by opaque, uncontrolled bureaucracies. The principles, posited in the European treaties, of subsidiarity and the prohibition of state liability for the debts of other states are being ignored. The politics of the EU branches, especially the European Council and the European Commission, is dominated by the special interests bargaining of individual states and the lobby cliques. Competition is increasingly throttled by a European regulatory mania. Democratic control of the EU branches is utterly insufficient; not even the European Court of Justice observes this role but persistently expands the EU competencies,  burdening the sovereignty of national states.



[Translated by Todd Martin]