Oliver Hartwich: New Zealand Initiative executive director on the economic factors that led to the rise of the AfD

Conservatives have won Germany's election, with the far-right securing record votes.

Exit polls have the centre-right CDU topping votes at about 29 percent.

AFD has had the best showing for a German far-right political party since World War Two, surging to 20 percent.

New Zealand Initiative executive director Oliver Hartwich unpacks the economic factors at play.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Frame Bridge, so Germany is on the road to change.
The Christian Democrats got the highest share of the vote,
with a tech over twenty eight percent. The far right
the AfD, got their best of a result with a
twenty percent share, but they won't enter government, as they
say to you. He's ruled them out as a coalition partner.
The New Zealand executive director, sorry, New Zealand Initiative executive

(00:20):
director is Oliver Hart. Which he's with me. He's an
expert on European and German politics. Good evening, Oliver, good
even thanks for being with me. I want to talk
about the German economy, massive manufacturing powerhouse, third largest economy
in the world, but is facing some real headwinds and
selling it's basically its cars to the rest of the world.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yes, and that's not the only problem the German economy faces.
It's also an economy facing massive bureaucracy costs and of
course massive energy costs because it was an economic model
that was based on cheap, cheap energy imports from Russia.
And of course with the Ukraine War ended, and then
of course the Chinese took over the large part of

(01:05):
the German car manufacturer's market, and that was it, and
saw Germany has been struggling ever since, and that was
one of the reasons why the outgoing government was so
unpopular in the end.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
And Germans, Germany is not used to struggling in recent years,
is it.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, the last time Germany struggled was about twenty years
ago when unemployment reached five million people in two thousand
and three two thousand and four. But then they had
some economic reformance in the labor market and the next
twenty years basically went sillingly. More recently, of course, and
all the other geopolitical factors are starting to buy it
for the Germans, and ever said, this is one of

(01:43):
the explanations for the rights of the AfD.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
So what do they do about it? Because you've got,
as you said, the energy situation. Well, hopefully we'll have
a resolution to the war in Ukraine, which will help
you alleviate some of that. But the bureaucracy, obviously you
can cut some of that. What do they have to
do and can they do it? Was whoever they might
manage to form a government with.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well, they obviously have to work on deregulation and getting
rid of the bureaucracy, which is a massive problem for Germany.
They have to do something about the energy market because
the cheap Russian guests will not come back. Even at
the end of the Ukraine War, and keep in minds
that they also faced out nuclear power right in the
middle of the war, so that was probably not the

(02:25):
wisest decision to take. So they have to work at
on the economic front. But they also have to do
on top of that is they have to re arm
because the German armed forces are in a sorry state
and with the current uncertain geopolitical landscape, Germany has to
invest a lot more in its defense. So there are
many many challengers waiting for the next and most likely

(02:45):
new Chancellor. British mats And he has never had an
executive role in his whole career at sixty nine. He's
been an MP for a long time. He's an experienced lawyer,
but this is the first time that he actually takes
an executive job in government and interesting to see how
he adjusted that.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Did Angela Merkel make some pretty big fatal errors in
relying on that guess from Russia and also on migration.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, she made some massive errors on guests. She also
made some massive errors and consto migration, opening the boarders
to a massive wave of refugees in twenty fifteen. And
again this is another explanation for the rise of the EFD,
because the AfD was the party that made it its
main topic really over the last ten years, to fight
against this rise of asilum seekers and refugees, to the

(03:33):
point actually we're sixty eight percent of Germans and recent
polls said that they thought the level was where the
fine should be reduced. And so all of this and
the unwillingness of the existing parties to tackle any of
these issues explains why the AfD became such a strong
party in yesterday's election.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Do you believe Mees when he says he won't touch
the AfD. Do you think he would break that blockade?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
I totally believe him on that, because he has actually
positioned himself very clearly on that. What he was trying
to do, especially over the past few weeks, was to
rob the AfD of its lifeblood by basically tackling the
problems that many other German politicians on the center right
had so far refused to even talk about. He tried
to actually rob the AfD some of the percentage points

(04:18):
that may not have worked in the short run, as
we could see in the elections out yesterday, but I
think in the long run it's probably the only chance
that his party has to actually regain some of the
territory that over the past ten years lost.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Can you explain how his party is going to work
basically basically going to have to work with ol Of
Schultz's party that they know, more left wing party that's
in government and coalition at the moment. How does that work?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
It's not very interesting to see. But then again Germans
are used to having relatively unusual coalitions and mine by
New Zealand stent. That's what they're talking about is the
coalition of National and Labor except National would have twenty
eight percent in Labor sixteen. So this is rough. Just
to put it in context into context, this is what
the Germans have to deal with. But then again they've

(05:05):
had very unusual constellations in government before. I mean, think
of the outgoing government. It was the coalition of the
Social Democrats, the Greens and the FTPS about New Zealand standards,
that's sort have been Labor Act and the Greens together.
I mean, it was one of the reasons why it
probably didn't work any end because it was such an
unusual coalition. But there is a tradition of having unusual

(05:25):
coalitions and it's not the first time, of course that
we get this so called grand coalition. I mean it's
happened in the nineteen sixties, before it happened for most
of the time that Ange Lamac was chancellor. Saw this
is just another kind of grand coalition and they have
been there before.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Oliver, thank you very much for that. Oliver Hartwich, who's
the New Zealand Initiative executive director. For more from Hither
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