by Rebecca Perring
July 03, 2016

from SundayExpress Website

Spanish version

Italian version

Frauke Petry

is calling for

a German EU referendum
 

Beleaguered Angela Merkel

is facing calls for a referendum

to free German people of "EU slavery"

in the wake of Britain's sensational decision

to cut ties with Brussels.

Far right figures in Alternative for Germany (AfD) have promised to call their own vote if they clutch power in country's general election in autumn next year.

A party spokesman branded Brussels a "bureaucracy monster", before adding:

"Next year the AfD will enter the German parliament and Dexit will be top on our agenda".

They called the vote a Dexit as it stands for a Deutschland exit from the EU.

Euroskepticism has swept across the continent after the people of Britain backed Brexit in the historic EU referendum on June 23.

AfD chairman Bjorn Hocke said:

"I know the German people want to be free of EU slavery."

George Pazderski of Berlin AfD added:

"Germans must decided on staying in the EU."

"The AfD is the only part which speaks out clearly in favor of them deciding."

Party leader Frauke Petry, who caused controversy earlier this year when she called on German police to open fire on illegal immigrations, reacted with delight at Britain's decision to sever ties with Brussels.

She said:

"This is the chance for a new Europe, one which maintains partnerships and respected national sovereignties. The Great Britain decision to leave the EU is a signal to the Brussels Politburo and its bureaucratic attachments.

 

If the EU does not finally leave its wrong path, and the quasi-socialist experiment of deeper political integration, more European Nations will reclaim their sovereignty the way British are
 

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel

addresses a press conference at EU summit

PA
 

Brexit has fuelled

a rise in euroskepticism GETTY

"The result would be more exits. At the very least the Brussels bureaucracy must be radically reduced and the centralist regulation craze ended.

"The time is ripe for a new Europe, a Europe of fatherlands, where we peacefully trade with each other, maintain partnerships and respect the will of the national sovereignties.

"One can only warn the German government not to fill the missing British net contribution with German tax money and thus continue the political fallacy."

However a chance of a German EU referendum may not be that simple.

The experience of Nazi manipulation of plebiscites has left a dent in the trust of polls on a national scale.

The country's post-war constitution currently only allows for referendums if the constitution itself or the territories of the states making ip the republic are to be reformed.
 

Frauke Petry

Alternative for Germany

are calling for a Dexit
 

Ralph Kampwirth of the Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe said:

"Germany is one of the few EU countries with no experience of national referendums.

 

"In the Weimar Republic there were two national referendums; during the Nazi reign, three plebiscites were held, with biased questions and blatant manipulation of results.

"A referendum does not mandate an organized political opposition - it simply requires a yes or no answer - one reason why both Napoleon and Hitler were enamored of them."

Merkel and French president Francois Hollande are said to be concerned that Brexit will lead to contagion and populist far-right parties would win support for their planes for the disintegration of the EU off the back of it.

 

So far far-right National Front party leader Marine Le Pen has called for France to host an EU referendum as she declared her support for Brexit.

The leader of far-right Danish People's Party says Denmark should now follow Britain's lead and hold a referendum on its membership. Euroskeptic feeling is also surging in the Netherlands, with two-thirds of voters rejecting a Ukraine-EU treaty on closer political and economic ties.

Anti-EU politician Geert Wilders declared the result the "beginning of the end" for the Dutch government and the EU.