Jörg Meuthen

Professor Jörg Meuthen
Meuthen in 2015
Leader of the Alternative for Germany
In office 5 July 2015 – 28 January 2022 Serving with Tino Chrupalla
Preceded by	Bernd Lucke
Succeeded by	Alice Weidel
Leader of the Alternative for Germany in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg
In office 11 October 2016 – 8 November 2017
Chief Whip	Anton Baron
Preceded by	Heiner Merz
Succeeded by	Bernd Gögel
In office 16 March 2016 – 6 July 2016
Chief Whip	Bernd Grimmer
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Heiner Merz
Member of the European Parliament for Germany
In office 8 November 2017 – 17 July 2024
Preceded by	Beatrix von Storch
Member of the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg for Backnang
In office 11 May 2016 – 31 December 2017
Preceded by	multi-member district
Succeeded by	Markus Widenmeyer (2018)
Constituency	Alternative for Germany list
Personal details
Born	Jörg Hubert Meuthen (1961-06-29) 29 June 1961 (age 63) Essen, West Germany (now Germany)
Political party	Values Union (September 2024 – present)
Other political affiliations	Christian Democratic Union (1977) Alternative for Germany (2013–2022) Zentrum (2022–2023)
Spouse	Natalia Zvekic ​ (m. 2018)​
Children	5
Alma mater	University of Münster (no degree) University of Mainz University of Cologne (Dr. rer. pol.)
Occupation	Economist Politician Public Servant Professor
Website	Official website

Jörg Hubert Meuthen (German: [ˈjœɐ̯k ˈmɔʏtn̩]; born 29 June 1961)^[1] is a German economist, academic and Independent politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Germany from 2017 until 2024.^[2][3]

He was frontrunner for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party at the 2016 Baden-Württemberg state election and was a Member of Parliament and parliamentary leader from March 2016.^[4] He was the leading candidate of the AfD for the 2019 European Parliament election.^[5] He served as federal spokesman for, and thus leader of, the AfD from July 2015 until his resignation in January 2022, caused by conflict with right-wing extremist elements in the party.^[4][6] From June 2022 to September 2023, he sat as a member of the German Centre Party.^[7] He sat as an independent MEP for the remainder of his term.

Life

Meuthen is a professor of political economy and finance at the Academy of Kehl. Initially close to the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), he joined the AfD because of its eurosceptic positions. He strongly defends economic liberalism.^[8] He is married to the Russian-born Natalia Zvekic, whose ex-husband came from Yugoslavia.^[9]

He was leader of the AfD in the 2016 regional elections in Baden-Württemberg and has been a member of parliament and parliamentary leader since March 2016. In November 2017, he joined the European Parliament following the resignation of Beatrix von Storch. Re-elected MEP in May 2019, he is a member of the parliamentary group Identity and Democracy (ID). While he maintains that "the AfD must be a bourgeois party with a bourgeois reason and endowed with an appearance of seriousness," he was strongly challenged in 2020 by 'the wing' (Der Flügel) a far-right faction within the party. Meuthen was trying to exclude one of the wing’s leaders (Björn Höcke) because of his neo-Nazi, failing ultimately.^[10] This provoked a split within the party. Meuthen was accused by his internal opponents of wanting to polish the image of the AfD, of asserting his personal ambitions to obtain the top candidate position on the list (and therefore of candidate for the chancellorship of the AfD for the Bundestag elections). He was booed at the party congress in November 2020. A motion of no confidence received 47 per cent of the votes.^[11]

In September 2019, the regional film fund HessenFilm [de] fired its CEO Hans Joachim Mendig over a controversial meeting with Jörg Meuthen.^[12]

Meuthen announced in October 2021 that he would not be running in the next leadership election.^[13] In January 2022, he announced that he would step down from his official positions and leave the AfD, because the party had moved too far to the right.^[14]

Political views

Meuthen was initially considered part of the Bernd Lucke-related, more economically liberal and moderate wing of the AfD near the start of the party's founding. He has described himself as an economic liberal but "pretty conservative" on other issues.^[15] Following the election of Frauke Petry as AfD chairwoman, Meuthen was seen to ally himself with the party's more right-wing faction.^[16] In 2016, he expressed support for what he termed a "conservative reformation" in Germany and argued against what he regards as lingering influence of the West German student movement on German politics.^[17] He has expressed opposition to extremist elements within the AfD.^[11] He also adopts national-conservative positions. Some press outlets consider his rhetoric as xenophobic against migrants and Muslims.^[18] The Financial Times described Meuthen as a "populist" but promoting a relatively more moderate and "quazi-accetable" image compared to other AfD spokespeople.^[19]

European Union

In 2015, Meuthen stated he was not a "Europe hater" but opposed the Eurozone, claiming the Euro currency had "perverted" European unity.^[20] In 2019, he argued that the European People's Party had moved too far to the left and criticized the EPP's decision to expel Viktor Orban's Fidesz party.^[21]

Immigration

Meuthen has expressed opposition to the immigration and asylum policies under Angela Merkel. During an AfD party conference in 2016, he stated "We are opposed to allowing immigration in such large numbers with open eyes that we will no longer recognize our own country in just a few years. The leading culture in Germany is not Islam, but the Christian - occidental culture. The call of the muezzin cannot claim to be as self-evident as the Christian ringing of church bells."^[22]

Meuthen has argued that asylum seekers should be granted temporary resident permits as opposed to full citizenship and permanent residency.^[23]

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, Meuthen stated that Germany should suspend its membership of the Schengen agreement, arguing that open borders were contributing to the spread of the virus.^[24]

Foreign policy

Meuthen has expressed support for Israel and has called on the German government to ban the Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah.^[25]

Resignation and post-AfD life

On January 28, 2022, Meuthen declared that he would resign from the party chairmanship with immediate effect and resign from the AfD.^[26]

He justified this with the fact that he had lost the power struggle with the formally dissolved right-wing extremist "Der Flügel" ("the wing") over the political direction of AfD. Meuthen criticized that the party had developed far to the right and was in large parts no longer concurrent with the liberal democratic basic order in Germany.^[26][27]

In 2024, Meuthen gave a detailed interview to the Financial Times in which he discussed his time as the AfD's leader and the direction of the party. Methen said that he had hoped for the AfD to be a “a liberal conservative movement,” opposing EU integration and mass immigration, but opined that the party's more radical far-right wing was able to gain influence over the AfD due to better networking compared to the classical liberal and national conservative factions, but said that he remained in the party despite its growing hardline image as the AfD was “the only chance to do something" in changing German politics. In the interview, he stated that he confided in Marine Le Pen on how to remove extremist elements from the party, but said that expelling controversial members of the AfD was more difficult due to German law on the matter. He also claimed to have voted against expelling Björn Höcke to avoid dividing the party and believed that the Der Flügel wing would not gain popularity due to voters seeing it as too extreme, but later felt this decision was "a complete error.” Meuthen claimed that he ultimately quit the party after he was unable to fire a senior member of the AfD's federal board who had praised national socialism and said that while Germany still needed much stronger policies to deal with immigration, Islamism and the EU, the AfD would be unable to wield any influence in these areas even with strong support due to the other parties refusing to make deals with it.^[28]

Centre Party

In June 2022 he joined the Centre Party.^[7]

Meuthen resigned from the Centre Party in September 2023, citing disagreements over the party's stance on governance.^[29]

References

1. "Die Kirchensteuer als Einnahmequelle von Religionsgemeinschaften". www.peterlang.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
2. "Home | Jörg MEUTHEN | Abgeordnete | Europäisches Parlament". www.europarl.europa.eu (in German). Retrieved 9 April 2019.
3. "Jörg Meuthen". www.efddgroup.eu. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
4. "Bundessprecher; Spitzenkandidat der AfD für die Landtagswahl in Baden-Württemberg - Hart aber Fair - Das Erste". www1.wdr.de (in German). Archived from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
5. "Scharfe Kritik an Robert Habeck: Meuthen führt AfD in Europawahl". www.zdf.de (in German). Retrieved 9 April 2019.
6. tagesschau.de. "Meuthen verlässt die AfD". tagesschau.de (in German). Retrieved 28 January 2022.
7. "Ex-AfD-Chef Meuthen in Zentrumspartei gewechselt". www.zdf.de (in German). Retrieved 10 June 2022.
8. Alexander Häusler: Ausblick. In: Derselbe (Hrsg.): Die Alternative für Deutschland. Programmatik, Entwicklung und politische Verortung. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2016, 239–245, hier: S. 242.
9. "Jörg Meuthen: Ehefrau, Kinder und Privates - Wer ist der AfD-Kandidat?". 29 January 2022.
10. "Moderate AfD co-leader Meuthen gives up - DW -10/11/2021". Deutsche Welle. 10 November 2021.
11. "Profondes divisions dans l'extrême droite allemande". Le Monde.fr. 30 November 2020.
12. Blaney2019-09-25T02:35:00+01:00, Martin. "Germany's HessenFilm fund fires CEO after meeting with far-right politician sparks outrage (exclusive)". Screen. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
13. "Germany's far-right AfD: Moderate co-leader Meuthen gives up, spelling victory for radical fringe | DW | 11.10.2021". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
14. "Leader of Germany's far-right AfD steps down — and quits party | Politico | 01.28.2022". Politico. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
15. Alexander Häusler: Ausblick. In: Derselbe (Hrsg.): Die Alternative für Deutschland. Programmatik, Entwicklung und politische Verortung. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10638-6, S. 239–245, hier: S. 242.
16. Hubert Röderer (8 July 2015). "Kehl: Wer ist der Kehler Professor an der AfD-Spitze?". Badische-zeitung.de. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
17. Wolfgang Gessenharter: Strategien und Einflusssphären der ‚Neuen Rechten‘. In: Mechtild Gomolla, Ellen Kollender, Marlene Menk: Rassismus und Rechtsextremismus in Deutschland. Figurationen und Interventionen in Gesellschaft und staatlichen Institutionen. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim 2018, S. 57.
18. Soldt, Rüdiger. "AfD-Politiker: Paktiert Jörg Meuthen mit den Rechtsradikalen?". Faz.net.
19. "An insider's account of the AfD: 'The wrong people stayed'". Retrieved 10 June 2024.(subscription required)
20. hup, tst (23 July 2015). "Südwest: Jörg Meuthen: "Europahasser? Das könnte falscher nicht sein"". Badische-zeitung.de. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
21. Meuthen hofiert Orban. www.fr.de, 6. März 2019.
22. "Bundesparteitag in Stuttgart soll Richtung weisen: AfD will Volkspartei werden". SWR.de. 30 April 2015. Archived from the original on 6 July 2016. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
23. AfD-Chef Jörg Meuthen bei Dunja Hayali: „Integration ergibt keinen Sinn“.
24. Robert Bongen, Julian Feldmann, Birgit Wärnke: Unbekümmert durch die Pandemie. www.tagesschau.de, 26. März 2020.
25. Mariam Lau: „Diese Mitglieder scheuen auch vor antisemitischen wie rassistischen Positionen nicht zurück“. In: Die Zeit vom 28. Februar 2019, S. 5 (online, Abruf am 2. März 2019).
26. "Ex-AfD-Chef Meuthen zu seinem Austritt: "Keine Zukunft mehr"". www1.wdr.de (in German). 29 January 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
27. derwesten.de, DerWesten- (28 January 2022). "AfD: Jörg Meuthen gibt Austritt bekannt – "Das Herz der Partei schlägt heute sehr weit rechts"". www.derwesten.de (in German). Retrieved 29 January 2022.
28. "An insider's account of the AfD: 'The wrong people stayed'". Retrieved 10 June 2024.
29. Streib, Daniel (8 September 2023). "Ex-AfD-Chef Jörg Meuthen verlässt Zentrum und räumt Scheitern ein". Badische Neueste Nachrichten (in German).