AfD co-leader calls for Germany to leave euro, Schengen

Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel said her party would seek Germany's withdrawal from the euro and the Schengen Area, close national borders, and impose tougher migration policies if it enters the federal government.

Speaking in ZDF's summer interview, Weidel said "Germany was significantly better off before the introduction of the euro," arguing that the currency had weakened Germany's economy and reduced household wealth.

On migration, she said: "We will close them, and we will leave Schengen," referring to Germany's borders. She also called for more deportations and fewer naturalizations, including the return of Syrians whose protection status had ended.

Weidel criticized Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil's Social Democratic Party (SPD) while condemning the CDU's refusal to cooperate with the AfD.

"We will govern in the first federal states," she said. "And we will also govern at the federal level."

The AfD is polling above 40% in Saxony-Anhalt ahead of Sept. 6 state elections and at 27% nationally, according to the research institute Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, compared with 22% for the CDU.

Weidel also reaffirmed the AfD's opposition to a planned combustion-engine ban and rejected measures targeting human-caused climate change.