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ELECTIONS

German activists stage anti-racism protest ahead of key state polls

Thousands of civil society activists are to mount a march against hate and racism on Saturday in Dresden, a week before state elections when far-right party AfD is projected to make huge gains.

Published: 24 August 2019 07:56 CEST
German activists stage anti-racism protest ahead of key state polls
A previous demonstration using the slogan 'unteilbar' (indivisible) in Leipzig in July. Photo: DPA

Under the banner “indivisible”, a broad coalition of artists, unionists and politicians will gather in the eastern German city to urge voters to reject exclusion which they argue is championed by right-wing extremists.

The three-hour protest on Saturday afternoon afternoon will be staged in the picturesque baroque city, one of the most popular tourism destinations in the former communist east.

But Dresden is also the cradle of the Islamophobic movement Pegida, and the 
state of Saxony is a stronghold of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party.

Organisers expect at least 10,000 people to turn up at the protest, while about 70 kilometres away, the co-leader of the AfD Alexander Gauland is due to hold a rally in the city of Chemnitz.

New polls show the AfD party running neck and neck with Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party in Saxony.

In the state of Brandenburg, the region surrounding Berlin, some surveys even see the AfD topping the polls, which would be a major new blow for Merkel's junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD).

If a strong showing by the AfD is confirmed in both regional polls, it could throw Merkel's coalition into a new crisis by potentially heightening calls for the SPD to pull the plug on the partnership.

For the organisers of Saturday's march, the regional elections, together with October 27th polls in the state of Thuringia, would be the “moment of truth for democracy”.

“We want to show that there are more people on the side of solidarity than on the side of hate,” they vowed.

Under the banner #indivisible, the collective of activists managed to get a quarter of a million people on the streets in Berlin last October to defend inclusion and unity.

That march was organised with Germany still shocked by xenophobic attacks in a Saxony city, Chemnitz, in the aftermath of the stabbing of a German by a migrant.

AfD politicians then also joined in a silent march through Chemnitz alongside the head of Pegida, as well as neo-Nazis and other hooligans.

Since its entry into the Bundestag after the 2017 general elections, the far-right AfD has shaken up German politics, including breaching taboos such as openly questioning Germany's atonement culture over World War II. 

Its anti-immigrant and anti-Islam rhetoric has proved attractive to those resentful of Merkel's decision to let in more than a million asylum seekers since the 2015 refugee crisis.

The former communist east has been most receptive to the AfD, as part of the population feels left behind economically as villages are depleted of younger inhabitants, many of whom have headed to western Germany for better paying jobs or opportunities.

But Saxony's state premier, Michael Kretschmer of Merkel's CDU party, warned that a win by the AfD could acerbate the problem by scaring off investors and foreign talent.

“We're talking about jobs here and economic opportunities. The people should take that into account when they vote,” Kretschmer told daily newspaper Tagesspiegel.

READ ALSO: Man jailed for Chemnitz knife killing that sparked far-right protests

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EUROPEAN UNION

Norway flirts with the idea of a ‘mini Brexit’ in election campaign

On paper, Norway's election on Monday looks like it could cool Oslo's relationship with the European Union but analysts say that appearances may be deceiving.

Published: 11 September 2021 14:08 CEST
Norway flirts with the idea of a 'mini Brexit' in election campaign
The Centre Party's leader Slagsvold Vedum has called for Norway's relationship with the European Union to be renegotiated. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB / AFP

After eight years of a pro-European centre-right government, polls suggest the Scandinavian country is headed for a change of administration.

A left-green coalition in some shape or form is expected to emerge victorious, with the main opposition Labour Party relying on the backing of several eurosceptic parties to obtain a majority in parliament.

In its remote corner of Europe, Norway is not a member of the EU but it is closely linked to the bloc through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement.

The deal gives Norway access to the common market in exchange for the adoption of most European directives.

Both the Centre Party and the Socialist Left — the Labour Party’s closest allies, which together have around 20 percent of voter support — have called for the marriage of convenience to be dissolved.

“The problem with the agreement we have today is that we gradually transfer more and more power from the Storting (Norway’s parliament), from Norwegian lawmakers to the bureaucrats in Brussels who are not accountable,” Centre Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in a recent televised debate.

READ ALSO: 

Defending the interests of its rural base, the Centre Party wants to replace the EEA with trade and cooperation agreements.

However, Labour leader Jonas Gahr Store, who is expected to become the next prime minister, does not want to jeopardise the country’s ties to the EU, by far Norway’s biggest trading partner.

“If I go to my wife and say ‘Look, we’ve been married for years and things are pretty good, but now I want to look around to see if there are any other options out there’… Nobody (in Brussels) is going to pick up the phone” and be willing to renegotiate the terms, Gahr Store said in the same debate.

Running with the same metaphor, Slagsvold Vedum snapped back: “If your wife were riding roughshod over you every day, maybe you would react.”

EU a ‘tough negotiating partner’

Initially, Brexit gave Norwegian eurosceptics a whiff of hope. But the difficulties in untangling British-EU ties put a damper on things.

“In Norway, we saw that the EU is a very tough negotiating partner and even a big country like Britain did not manage to win very much in its negotiations,” said Ulf Sverdrup, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

While Norwegians have rejected EU membership twice, in referendums in 1972 and 1994, a majority are in favour of the current EEA agreement.

During the election campaign, the EU issue has gradually been pushed to the back burner as the Centre Party — which briefly led in the polls — has seen its support deflate.

The nature of Norway’s relationship to the bloc will depend on the distribution of seats in parliament, but experts generally agree that little is likely to change.

“The Labour Party will surely be firm about the need to maintain the EEA agreement,” said Johannes Bergh, political scientist at the Institute for Social Research, “even if that means making concessions to the other parties in other areas”.

Closer cooperation over climate?

It’s possible that common issues, like the fight against climate change, could in fact bring Norway and the EU even closer.

“Cooperation with the EU will very likely become stronger because of the climate issue” which “could become a source of friction” within the next coalition, Sverdrup suggested.

“Even though the past 25 years have been a period of increasingly close cooperation, and though we can therefore expect that it will probably continue, there are still question marks” surrounding Norway’s future ties to the EU, he said.

These likely include the inclusion and strength of eurosceptics within the future government as well as the ability of coalition partners to agree on all EU-related issues.

Meanwhile, Brussels is looking on cautiously. The EEA agreement is “fundamental” for relations between the EU and its
partners Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, according to EU spokesman Peter Stano.

But when it comes to the rest, “we do not speculate on possible election outcomes nor do we comment on different party positions.”

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