The AfD - Alternative for Germany - was founded in 2013 to protest the Euro rescue policy. Originally conservative-liberal, but to the right of the CDU/CSU, the party presented itself after 2015 as the main opponent to Angela Merkel's migration policy. It subsequently achieved electoral success, including its entry into the Bundestag in 2017.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, celebrations have taken a disappointing turn. The electoral successes of the far-right German party AfD (Alternative for Germany (in German:  Alternative für Deutschland)) in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia in September and October 2019 reflect growing unease and discontent in the new Länder faced with mitigated outcomes of the unification.

The UK leaving the EU. Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election. The crushing defeat of Italy's prime minister in a national referendum. 2016 was a year of massive change led by populism. The roots of this trend are widespread, and they involve the ideological divide between the elites of current political systems and ordinary citizens, as well as the widening gaps in social inequality that can be attributed to growing globalization.

The AfD - Alternative for Germany – founded in opposition to Angela Merkel’s policy line of supporting southern European countries, has quickly become part of the political family of "right-wing populism" in Europe, with whom it cultivates close ties.

The right-wing spiral of Germany’s anti-EU Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) has brought it shoulder to shoulder with France’s National Front (NF). The two parties see eye-to-eye on a number of issues, including Russia. 

The Netherlands and France are not the only founding member states of the European Union that see extreme right party’s on the rise. The “Alternative für Deutschland” gathers 10 percent of voting intentions in Germany – especially in the East. Some of its leaders don’t hesitate to use vocabulary banished since 1945.