Right-wing populist parties would “destroy” the EU’s prosperity and values, warned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD, S&D), seemingly switching to campaign mode at a European Socialists event in Bucharest this weekend.

While social democratic parties are polling in second place ahead of the EU elections in June, far-right and conservative parties are making significant gains. In polls, the chancellor’s party is trailing behind the centre-right CDU and the far-right AfD in third place.

Speaking to members of his EU family of parties in Bucharest, Scholz warned of the consequences of a shift to the far right.

“Right-wing populists are campaigning against our united Europe and its values,” Scholz said in Bucharest on Saturday.

“They are ready to destroy what we have built up over decades,” he added. “They threaten our prosperity built on our joint European market.”

The economic risk posed by the rise of the far-right remains topical in Germany, where the AfD is particularly strong in the former East Germany, which lags behind the West economically.

Scholz has previously warned that the AfD’s hostility to immigration would deter investment and talent. The party has also toyed with the idea of an exit from the EU.

Nearly three-quarters of business association representatives surveyed in a recent poll by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) see virtually no policy overlap with the AfD, while many fear the party is a ‘risk to the economy’.

Far-right surge could endanger East German businesses

As the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) leads the polls in Eastern Germany, business and government representatives warn that a rise in xenophobia could endanger the region’s position in the global fight for talent.

The far-right threat is thus a key talking point for Germany’s ailing Social Democrats in a campaign that has yet to gain momentum two months before the election.

Unlike populists, Europe’s social democrats are “those who defend what we have achieved in Europe”, Scholz said in Bucharest.

The Chancellor also used his first campaign appearance to drum up support for Socialist Spitzenkandidat Nicolas Schmit, who was also present.

Scholz said that in times of crisis, people need a social Europe, which Schmit, the EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, stands for.

(Nick Alipour | Euractiv.de)

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