CDU state premier: 'The AfD is really a threat to democracy'

DW (English)

In an exclusive interview with DW, Thuringia Premier Mario Voigt told DW Chief Political Editor Michaela Küfner how he has handled the popularity of the far-right AfD in his state, and says the CDU wants to "take issues away from the far right."

Transcript

00:00With me is Mario Voigt, the State Premier of Thuringia.

00:04Mr. Voigt, you have experience of forming a coalition against the far-right alternative for Germany.

00:09It became the strongest force in regional elections,

00:12and you then had to form a rather complicated three-way coalition

00:16to prevent the AfD from actually being in power in Thuringia.

00:22How is that working out?

00:24Right now, it's working fine. We are right in the start of it,

00:27and we are all aligned with our goals.

00:29We have a reform-driven process,

00:32which basically takes the main issues of the voters as the driving factors,

00:38like education, like reforming the economical process in Thuringia,

00:42reducing red tape when it comes to bureaucracy.

00:46But now we have budget discussions coming up,

00:48and so we're going to see how this works out.

00:51But I'm rather optimistic that it's playing fine.

00:53But still, a three-party coalition is always more communication, more dialogue,

00:58and sometimes difficult.

01:00And that's why I'm working hard on the federal level,

01:03that we can form a much easier coalition.

01:06Here in Germany, we've seen a huge debate about the so-called firewall.

01:10That is the commitment by all parties of the center not to work with the far-right AfD party.

01:17Your party, Dieter Friedrich Merz,

01:19accepted votes by the AfD for the very first time in German history

01:23to reach a majority in the German parliament.

01:27How is that impacting on how that firewall is being seen by your own people,

01:32who want to have a more open conversation with the AfD?

01:36What the CDU wants is to take issues away from the far-right.

01:41And what you're going to see all around Europe is,

01:44if the center-right and the centrist parties are not solving the issues of the voters,

01:51they will tend to vote rather extreme.

01:54You're going to find this in France, you're going to find this in the Netherlands,

01:57and in different places else.

01:59And therefore, what we do as a CDU is try to position ourselves right in the middle of it,

02:05and inviting also social democrats and others to come along

02:10and solve the issues from the center,

02:13and not relying on people from the extreme left or from the extreme right.

02:18And unfortunately, they didn't play along,

02:21and this was, in my opinion, a big strategic mistake of the social democrats and the Greens in the first place.

02:27But therefore, we're going to have the election on the 23rd of February

02:31in order to form a coalition who can solve these issues.

02:34The AfD in Thuringia is led by Björn Höcke.

02:38He can legally be called a fascist.

02:41Parts of the party are being looked at very closely by German intelligence services.

02:45They're suspected of undermining democracy here in Germany.

02:49How acute is the danger when you look ahead to these elections

02:53that are less than two weeks away here in Germany?

02:56I think the AfD is really a threat to democracy in Germany,

03:00and with Björn Höcke they have the most extremist leader in my home state.

03:05And there is a basic struggle going on between the Christian democrats,

03:09as a more centrist center right-wing party,

03:12and on the other hand, the far extreme right with the AfD.

03:16And what we try to do is, we try to invite all the other parties to solve the issues

03:21which are high on the radar of the people,

03:23which is migration, which is the economic situation of Germany,

03:26and which is also the competitiveness of our country.

03:31And if we are able to solve these issues,

03:34then I'm pretty certain that we will reduce the vote share of the AfD,

03:38and this is what we are looking for.

03:41Well, how optimistic are you that it will be possible to find common ground on migration

03:46after we saw that spectacular failure to actually do exactly that

03:49in German parliament ahead of the elections?

03:52Those very parties that were calling each other liars

03:55will potentially have to form a government again after election day.

04:00I'm pretty optimistic that this will be possible after the election,

04:04but it also depends on the vote share for the Christian democrats.

04:07That's why we are working hard in the next two weeks to increase our vote share,

04:13and then we will invite other parties to come along.

04:17And what I'm pretty optimistic, or makes me optimistic,

04:21is that the social democrats with their prime ministers in the states

04:26have already agreed on the policy initiatives the CDU have proposed,

04:32and therefore I believe that we have a good chance to tackle these issues

04:36right after the federal elections.

04:38And we have to in order to make this pretty dominant issue in German politics to be solved.

04:47Now, one argument I've heard from your conservative CDU-CSU camp is that,

04:51look, the AFD polling at 20% and your state has got more than 30%.

04:56Nobody is willing to go into a coalition with them,

04:59and that means people who are leaning right, potentially far right,

05:03effectively out of having their say in German politics,

05:07because they have no chance of forming a government.

05:10But the flip side is how successful has the AFD been in driving the agenda,

05:15for instance on migration, after all it was celebrating in German parliament

05:19when the conservative CDU agreed to team up with them and voted with them.

05:23Quite frankly, I believe that they are not driving the agenda.

05:27The agenda is driven by what are the problems of the real voters out there,

05:32and the people, how they perceive it.

05:34In the last three years, there almost have been 2 million refugees coming to Germany,

05:41and this is an issue every local municipality is experiencing,

05:45and they sometimes have the impression that this is not high on the radar of the parties on the federal level.

05:51And what the CDU is trying to achieve is basically to say,

05:56well, we see you with your issues out there,

05:59and what we are experiencing right now in the German society is,

06:03there are rather more, let's say, the somewhere voters who live more in rural areas,

06:10who have middle education, who are very closely tied to their social communities,

06:15socially more conservative people, and they feel neglected,

06:19they feel overseen from the people, the anywheres,

06:23who can live in Berlin, in Munich, in Paris or London,

06:27and they are highly educated, they have leadership positions in the society,

06:32and they try to impose their lifestyle and their worldview on these somewhere voters,

06:37and they are sending a stop sign.

06:39And what we as CDU try to achieve is basically bridging the gap between these two voting blocs,

06:45and if we are able to do so, to be more inclusive,

06:49then we also will reduce the extremism in the society.

06:53So what you're describing there, that has a lot of parallels with what we're seeing in the United States.

06:58Donald Trump won because also there is a discrepancy

07:04between the big centers and rural communities.

07:07JD Vance, the now Vice President, even wrote a book about it.

07:10How far away is Germany from such a scenario?

07:13Many are already seeing 2029 as the key election that could determine which way Germany will go.

07:21I think this is a very crucial question.

07:23I mean, first of all, we are a parliamentary system,

07:26so I believe German society is more consensual and we are more stable in a way.

07:31We are not like driving and pushing so much around like the presidential politics in the U.S. has done,

07:39and we are not so divided.

07:41But I think taking the bigger picture and seeing that 2029 is a crucial year,

07:47not just for federal election, also for the election in Eastern Germany,

07:50where Saxony and Thuringia will also have election,

07:53and this all taken together will decide if Germany in the next four years is able to solve the issues,

08:00reducing the disconnect, reducing the anger in the society, pushing the anger points away,

08:07or we are not able to solve that because we are moving too slow,

08:11we are not reform driven enough, and then probably 2029 will be the water sheet of it.

08:18And so from that all together, I believe it's crucial that everyone is understanding

08:23that it's not the nitty gritty little things which have to change,

08:27the whole direction of the country has to change.

08:29And if we are able to deliver that, I'm certain that the AFD will be shrinking,

08:34and this is what we are aiming for.

08:36Mario Fuchs, State Premier of Thuringia, thank you very much.

08:39Thank you very much for the talk.

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