How the split in Germany’s Eurosceptic AfD is likely to help Angela Merkel

The Eurosceptic Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) narrowly failed to cross Germany’s five per cent electoral threshold in the country’s 2013 federal elections, but managed to gain seven MEPs in the 2014 European Parliament elections. However, as Julian M Hoerner notes, this initial success has evaporated in recent months following a split within the party. He writes that the split represented a fundamental disagreement between the AfD’s economically liberal/Eurosceptic wing, and a more traditional far-right element focused on restricting immigration, with the latter group now likely to dominate the party under the leadership of Frauke Petry.