2/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  About half of the party’s voters are economically disaffected – people without jobs, people with declining real income and people fearing future losses. This is the economic side of why protectionism and populism have enjoyed support in Germany.
The AfD, like many other populist parties, blames the economic malaise on globalisation and European integration – and are demanding that they be reversed. These simple explanations offer intuitively appealing solutions to Europe’s problems. But they overshadow the mid-term economic challenges, which need to be tackled urgently, however.