New Anti-Euro party in Germany of business execs and economists, standing room only crowd at first open meeting, middle class people who say established parties sold them out. (Tea may have been served)

3/17/13, "Anti-Euro Party Mobilizes in Germany," Wall St. Journal, by William Boston in Berlin and Nina Koeppen in Oberursel, Germany

"Merkel's Ruling Coalition Faces Test as Economists, Business Leaders Offer Conservative Voters an 'Alternative'"

"A prominent group of anti-euro German economists and business leaders has formed a political party to challenge Germany's support for euro-zone bailouts, a move that could test the ruling center-right coalition's hold on conservative votes in the fall general election. 
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With just six months until the election, the new party, which calls itself Alternative for Germany, is unlikely to gain enough traction to win seats in Parliament, analysts say. Yet even if the party comes in below the 5% threshold needed to win representation, it could still attract enough conservative votes to prevent a return of the current coalition government, a combination of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, their Bavarian sister party, and the pro-business Free Democrats.

If Ms. Merkel's coalition were to fail to garner enough support in the fall, she would likely be forced to reach out to the center-left Social Democrats, Germany's other mainstream political party, to form what Germans call a "grand coalition." While such a combination would enjoy a large parliamentary majority, it would likely force Ms. Merkel's party to abandon a more-conservative agenda.

Ms. Merkel's party has gone on the offensive. "If this group criticizes our euro policies, we will stand firm," Volker Kauder, the head of the conservative parliamentary group, said last week. "There is an alternative to everything—even to the euro. But every alternative to the euro is much worse for Germany."

At an event outside Frankfurt to kick off their election campaign last week, the Alternative for Germany's leadership left little doubt about their objective.

"We are convinced that the euro zone should be dissolved," said Bernd Lucke, an Alternative for Germany leader who quit the CDU party to protest euro-zone bailouts....

Germany's future path may well depend on how the euro crisis evolves in the coming months. Germans have largely supported Ms. Merkel's course despite widespread unease over the mounting cost of the bailouts. If Italy's political instability or other events lead to renewed financial-market upheaval and popular angst over the euro's future, crisis-weary Germans may be more likely to support the movement. 

The TNS Emnid polling group last week released the results of a one-question survey that suggests there could be support for an anti-euro party. About 26% of those polled by Emnid for the weekly news magazine Focus said they could imagine voting for an anti-euro party, most of those first-time voters or disgruntled conservatives. The poll didn't mention Alternative for Germany. Analysts cautioned that voter openness to supporting such a party wouldn't necessarily translate into actual votes. 

The new party's leadership is made up of a group of well-known euro-skeptics. The most prominent party backer is Hans-Olaf Henkel, a former chief executive of IBM IBM +1.14% Europe and former president of Germany's leading industry federation, the BDI. In 2010, Mr. Henkel became a leading euro critic with the publication of his book, "Save Our Money! Germany Is Being Sold Out—How the Euro Fraud Endangers Our Prosperity."

Others backing the party include Wilhelm Hankel, Karl Albrecht Schachschneider and Joachim Starbatty, economists who have co-written books arguing for dissolving the euro. The three filed a complaint with Germany's Constitutional Court in 2010, saying Germany's support for rescuing euro member Greece violated the constitution and the treaty on monetary union's no-bailout clause. The court ruled against them in 2011. The euro critics continue to challenge the euro-zone bailouts in court. A final decision on a constitutional change to the European Stability Mechanism, or ESM, the euro zone's permanent bailout fund, is still pending and could come by July.

The party held its first public meeting last week in Oberursel, a suburb north of Frankfurt, Germany's financial center and home to the European Central Bank. More than 1,000 people packed into the wood-paneled auditorium, so many more than expected that organizers couldn't begin the meeting until they had removed several room dividers to create space for the standing-only crowd.

Past anti-euro parties have appeared nationalist, often with links to the far-right, espousing a "Germany first" program and bashing Europe. Anti-European policies that flirt with the far-right don't go over well with German voters. That is why the Alternative for Germany is embracing Europe, but insisting that German support for covering the debt of other euro members should stop. Party leaders argue that in the interest of Europe, Ms. Merkel's drive for more European policy integration to bolster the euro must stop.

"The euro has proved to be a cause of great discord and polarization for Europe," Mr. Lucke said at the party's opening rally to a round of raucous applause.

The crowd at the rally consisted mainly of middle-aged men frustrated with the established parties. German political analysts describe this group as "Wutbürger," or "enraged citizens"—middle-class citizens who feel the established parties are selling them out."...

[Ed. note: Was Tea served at the meeting?....]

(continuing): "Many of these people no longer vote, which gives Alternative for Germany a large of pool of voters to mobilize, analysts said.

"These are not people who are in dire straits," said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist from Berlin's Free University. "These are people who are afraid of losing their standard of living. That's why in the end, they will damage the Christian Democrats and the [Free Democrats] more than the [Social Democrats]."" via BBC radio

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