GERMANY elections Anti-euro party becomes wild card


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Members of the new anti-Euro party Alternative for Germany react during the party’s founding convention in Berlin, Germany, on Sunday. The organizers had to open a second room to squeeze in more than 1,500 members who had come from across the country to adopt a program and vote for a party board.

Associated Press

BERLIN

The leader of a new anti-euro party called Sunday for Germany to leave the common currency, telling an inaugural convention that the euro forces German taxpayers to rescue bankrupt southern European countries whose people denounce them as Nazis for their efforts.

A crowd of about 1,500 mostly older men cheered as the leader of the Alternative for Germany party, economics professor Bernd Lucke, said the euro had done little to bring Europeans together, tapping into public anger at southern European protesters who have compared Chancellor Angela Merkel to Adolf Hitler over the demands for reforms and austerity in return for bailout funds.

“Because of the euro, people in southern Europe don’t hesitate to express their disgust toward Germany, using old Nazi comparisons,” Lucke said. “This is not what I imagine Europe to be like.”

The convention adopted a platform calling for changes in the European treaty to allow each of the 17 Euro-pean Union countries that use the euro to “decide democratically which currency it wants to use.”

Such sentiments are still the exception in Germany, where a sense of obligation to help fellow Europeans in distress is rooted in shame for the crimes of the Third Reich.

But the new political party hopes to capitalize on simmering fears that the euro crisis could deepen and drag down Europe’s biggest economy. It aims to garner enough votes in the federal elections to reach the 5 percent minimum needed for seats in Parliament.

“The euro was a failure, and it would be bad if we continue to believe in this fairy tale,” Lucke said. “If the euro fails, Europe doesn’t fail.”

The stance puts the party in sharp opposition to Merkel’s position that there can be no Europe without the preservation of the single currency, with her repeated insistence that “if the euro fails, Europe will fail.” While still a fledgling movement, the new party could hurt Merkel by sapping support from her main coalition partner — which she has relied on for a stable government.

Alternative for Germany wants to introduce Swiss-style national referendums so voters can have a say on important matters, including economic rescue packages. The party congress, at Berlin’s upscale Intercontinental Hotel, plans to adopt a program and vote for a party board on Sunday.

Many attendees expressed anger about what they said have been unfair money transfers from German taxpayers to help bail out countries such as Cyprus and Greece.

“This party has good ideas,” said Andreas Fluegge, 49, a software specialist from Limburgerhof in the country’s southwest. “The euro is a big problem for us. Since we have had the euro I’m making less money and paying more taxes for things I don’t understand. I hope these politicians will change this.”