Should the centre take over positions from the far right?
Should the centre take over positions from the far right?
#203
My Dear Friend of Democracy,
There are two theories about how to push back far-right parties: by either partially adopting their positions or by explicitly not doing so.
Which strategy is the successful one?
In Germany, the centrist parties mainly follow the first path.
This weekend's elections in the neighbouring country Austria, with the far-right FPÖ's tremendous success, may indicate that this is not promising.
Here in Germany, the supposedly bad policies of the German government coalition (it is called the traffic light coalition, Ampel-Koalition, because the colours of the parties are red, yellow and green) are blamed for the rise of the partially extremist far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). More specifically, the so-called heating law (Heizungsgesetz in German; it is about new heating systems installed in German buildings using predominantly renewable energy instead of, as now, oil and gas) has become a running source of strife in the government coalition for months. Or the relatively large number of refugees that Germany has taken in. Or a pretty unpopular chancellor. All this, used in Germany to explain the rise of the AfD, is not something that Austria has.
"The only thing that is the same between Austria and Germany is,“ political consultant and author Erik Flügge says, „that the conservatives in both countries are increasingly adopting a right-wing tone. They are shifting the discourse to the right and are eventually being overtaken by the extreme right. That is the pattern."
I tend to agree with Erik Flügge.
See you in Europe,
Johannes