Jörg Meuthen

Jörg Meuthen
Meuthen in 2015
Personal details
Born (1961-06-29) 29 June 1961
Essen, West Germany
NationalityGerman
Political partyCDU (1977)
AfD (2013–present)
Occupation
  • Economist
  • politician

Jörg Hubert Meuthen (German: [ˈjœəg ˈmɔʏtn̩]; born 29 June 1961)[1] is a German economist serving as Federal spokesman for Alternative for Germany (AfD) since July 2015.[2] He was frontrunner for the AfD at the 2016 Baden-Württemberg state election and has been a Member of Parliament and parliamentary leader since March 2016.[2] Since the end of 2017, Meuthen has been a member of the European Parliament[3] and deputy chairman of the EFDD.[4] He was the leading candidate of the AfD for the 2019 European Parliament election.[5]

Jörg Meuthen is a professor of political economy and finance at the Academy of Kehl.

Initially close to the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), he joined the AfD because of its eurosceptic positions. He strongly defends economic liberalism.[6] He also adopts national-conservative positions and a rhetoric considered xenophobic against migrants and Muslims.[7]

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 is strongly challenged in 2020 by the trend Der Flügel of the party, of which he had one of the leaders excluded because of his neo-Nazi past, to the point that the hypothesis of a split is evoked. He is accused of wanting to polish the image of the AfD, to assert his personal ambitions and to obtain the position of head of 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, and was then targeted by a motion of no confidence that received 47 per cent of the votes.[8]

The regional film fund HessenFilm fired CEO Hans Joachim Mendig over a controversial meeting with Jörg Meuthen in September 2019.[9]

Meuthen announced in October 2021 that he won't be running in the next leadership election.[10]

References
  1. "Die Kirchensteuer als Einnahmequelle von Religionsgemeinschaften". www.peterlang.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
  2. "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.
  3. "Home | Jörg MEUTHEN | Abgeordnete | Europäisches Parlament". www.europarl.europa.eu (in German). Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  4. User, Super. "Jörg Meuthen". www.efddgroup.eu. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  5. "Scharfe Kritik an Robert Habeck: Meuthen führt AfD in Europawahl". www.zdf.de (in German). Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  6. Alexander Häusler: Ausblick. In: Ders. (Hrsg.): Die Alternative für Deutschland. Programmatik, Entwicklung und politische Verortung. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2016, 239–245, hier: S. 242.
  7. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/paktiert-afd-politiker-joerg-meuthen-mit-den-rechten-ein-portraet-14876913.html
  8. https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/11/30/l-extreme-droite-allemande-affiche-ses-profondes-divisions_6061637_3210.html
  9. 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.
  10. "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.


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