Opposition Against the Euro: The Case of the German AfD

For decades, Germany has been the country characterized by the exception not having either a relevant extreme right wing party or a Euro-sceptic party. But in 2013 the newly founded “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD) gained 4.7% of the votes. Core issue of the AfD was the criticism of the EURO. How comparable is the AfD to other Eurosceptic parties within the EU? Is the AfD a right-wing populist party? Based on content analysis data these questions are addressed by inspecting programmatic stances both in their short party manifesto and in press releases. Relying on the coding scheme of the Manifesto Group the similarity to other Eurosceptic parties is assessed. The press releases are analysed according to populist style elements in order to determine the character of the AfD more precisely. It is shown that the AfD started with moderate statements but is increasingly becoming a party with right-wing populists’ elements.