Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker Petr Bystron (in courtesy of Petr Bystron)
by Zheng Jianghua, Ren Ke
BRUSSELS, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The meteoric rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the German political landscape since last September's parliamentary election has rattled traditional political parties, which often tag the AfD, among others, as "far-right", "populist", "xenophobia".
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua recently, Petr Bystron, 45, an MP from AfD in the Bundestag, or German Federal Parliament, contests these tags and tries to present a different image.
Beyond German politics, the AfD bigwig pulls no punch on the deficiencies of the European Union (EU), saying he expects to build up a new Europe on the ruins of current one.
REJECTING LABELS
At the Bundestag office building in Berlin, Bystron, who is also AfD spokesperson on Committee on Foreign Affairs, tells Xinhua that the AfD is indeed an anti-establishment political party, but he rejects most of the labels other parties stick on it.
Bystron spoke about the achievements of the AfD established in 2013, hailing it as "the youngest" and "the most successful" political party in Germany.
However, this is also why its political competitors slapped on it labels such as "far-right", "populist", and even "neo-Nazis", he observes.
"Most of them are false," he insists, defining the AfD as an anti-establishment party criticizing everything.
Bystron tilts at German mainstream parties for being afraid of discussing "their failures", because "this is very uncomfortable for them".
"It's much easier to put us in a kind of ghetto, to make us untouchable, so that the people don't get in contact with us; so that all the voters have some kind of fear to touch us," Bystron says, slamming it as a deliberate tactic.
"You can poison every argument in Germany with, if you say, it's coming from a Nazi," he notes.
The AfD, in one fell swoop, crossed the 5-percent threshold of the Bundestag and became the third-largest political force in the legislature, after securing 12.6 percent of votes in the parliamentary elections last September.
Referring to the party's jaw-dropping rise from obscurity, Bystron says a sum of 1.5 million "non-voters", who were loath to vote in previous elections, carried a lot of weight in last year's election.
"They have some hope that there is somebody who takes care of them," he says.
And besides, the AfD siphoned support of more than 1 million disaffected voters from its competitors like the SPD, the Left Party, and the Green Party, according to Bystron.
"We are the alternative to the old system. We are the hope. The hope for a better Germany, for a better Europe. This is what we represent," Bystron said, stressing the party's name has expressed its label.
HITTING OUT AT EU
When asked his views on the EU, Bystron, though rejecting the "Euroskeptic" tag, strikes a sour tone.
The AfD leader delivers a broadside at the soon-to-be 27-member bloc. The first target he shoots is the euro, the EU's currency in a selected 19-member zone.
The German lawmaker seems indulged in good old days when the Deutsche Mark typified the "economic strength" and cultural identity of Germany.
He laments that Germany gave up its own currency for a "political construction", referring to the euro.
"They set up the euro as a political construction, but economically it still doesn't work. For the southern countries in the EU, the euro is too strong; but for the northern countries, it's too weak," he says.
Painting a gloomy picture of the euro, Bystron warns that "the euro will collapse, this is sure. it's just not sure when."
"When the financial system collapses, it will have very negative implications on a high number of the population across all Europe, in Germany especially," he continues.
To dodge being scapegoat of established parties, Bystron says, he hopes the establishment parties will stay on power till the system crashes down.
"We can then take over the power. On the ruins of their doing, we can start to build up a new Europe," he says.
Another EU target in his crosshairs is what he calls the "open border". That refers to the mass influx of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa in the past few years.
Citing Schengen Treaty, based on which the EU set up the world's largest visa-free area, Bystron underscores that "throwing down the inner border within the European Union should go hand in hand with strong control of the outer border."
But "what happened is totally the opposite. we had all the borders open," Bystron says, noting that it had begun to bite.
He mentions the worsening public security in Germany and financial burden for the Germans.
By Bystron's account, the German government shells out 50 billion euros per year for up to 2 million immigrants, who have arrived in Europe since the peak of the refugee crisis in the summer of 2015.
Arguing that the funds should be used in other areas, Bystron lamented: "What Germany gave up is invest into high technologies, in education, and in other tasks."
The migration and border control issues have returned to the fore in Germany and the EU since June.
The German ruling coalition was stuck into a crisis as Chancellor Angela Merkel disputed and later reconciled with the CSU, her Bavarian ally, on tougher migration policy.
At the EU summit in late June, European leaders forged a hard-won compromise on dealing with migration issues, including ideas such as setting up "disembarkation platforms" in non-EU countries to shelter immigrants rescued at the Mediterranean. However, the implementation is far from simple.
Scathing though his remarks on the EU may have been, Bystron recognizes a handful of saving graces of the bloc, such as freedom of movement within the EU, and the large-size market, which makes the EU on a par with the United States and China.
"It makes sense if you make the economic entity bigger," he says.
