The surging Alternative for Germany (AfD) wants to destroy the EU if Alice Weidel, its leader, replaces the deeply unpopular Friedrich Merz as chancellor.

Ms Weidel has demanded the bloc be turned into a loose federation of “sovereign nations”, or face a Brexit-style “Dexit” referendum if she wrests power from the centre-Right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

“We would like to rebuild and reform the European Union,” the hard-Right leader said in the European parliament in Strasbourg.

“The EU is not a group of sovereign states any more. National parliaments and governments need to take over the decision-making process.”The reforms would be so sweeping that they would amount to the destruction of the EU. They would also be strongly opposed by the pro-EU centre-Right leaders who dominate the bloc.

Ms Weidel celebrates the AfD’s landslide victory in the 2026 Saxony-Anhalt state election, with Ulrich Siegmund, the party’s candidate EU sources have already ruled out the radical changes, which include shrinking the European Commission and handing its decision-making powers to prime ministers and presidents on the European Council.

The AfD wants to replace the European Court of Justice with an arbitration tribunal, cut German payments to Brussels’s budget, ditch the EU’s net zero target and scrap its 2035 ban on petrol cars.

Under the plans set out in a policy paper, European parliament elections would also be cancelled, with MEPs instead being nominated by national parliaments, and capitals given opt-outs and vetoes on EU law.

“Alice is in Wonderland,” one EU official told The Telegraph, before adding the Kremlin-friendly party should be renamed the “Alternative Reality for Germany”.

“It is quite telling that they chose the European parliament as the place to announce a proposal to effectively dismantle it. You don’t win elections with ‘exits’ any more – rather more often with wanting to get into Europe these days.”Supremacy of national law The AfD backs European-level co-operation on border protection, defence, joint technology projects and the EU’s single market rules to facilitate easier trade, but supports the supremacy of national law in almost all areas.

All 27 EU leaders would also have to unanimously back the wholesale changes to the European treaties that the reforms would need, which is a notoriously difficult process.

The EU official suggested the reforms were intentionally maximalist so as to give cover to the AfD to hold a referendum that most Germans did not want.

The AfD is Germany’s most popular party and has shaken Mr Merz’s coalition government by winning two state elections in September.

The pro-Putin party has never been so close to power, despite establishment parties operating a “firewall” to shut it out of coalition talks.

Ms Weidel has predicted Mr Merz’s chancellorship will not last until the end of his term in 2030, after he endured months of rumours of a leadership coup.

The policy paper warns that if a future AfD government could not secure “substantial changes” to the EU, a Dexit referendum would be held.

“The German people should then decide for themselves which path Germany should take,” it reads.

Dexit would pose an existential threat to a bloc that survived Brexit almost ten years ago, although opinion polls show 82 per cent of Germans back EU membership.

The loss of its largest economy, its most influential state with France and the most powerful member of the eurozone would be an even bigger challenge than the UK’s departure.

Left to right: Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president; Emmanuel Macron, the French president; and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, at a EU leaders summit last year David McAllister is a veteran of the Brexit negotiations, chairman of the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee, and an MEP for Mr Merz’s CDU.

He said the AfD’s hostility towards the EU put Germany’s security and prosperity at risk, adding: “Its proximity to Putin undermines the trust we need among allies. “Our country depends on the single market and on close co-operation with our European partners.

“At a time of war on our continent and growing pressure from authoritarian powers, weakening the EU would leave Germany more exposed and less able to defend its interests.”Roderich Kiesewetter, a CDU MP, former colonel and a member of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, said the AfD’s alternative to the EU and Nato was combining German engineering expertise with Russian resources.

“They debate it very openly,” he said, adding that influence from Donald Trump could help “dismantle” the EU.

Ms Weidel was unrepentant in Strasbourg, despite accusations that weakening the EU would embolden Russia.

Reform was needed because “we believe we’re being robbed”, she said, before criticising green policies she blamed for high energy costs in Germany.

If the EU could not protect its outer borders, Germany should leave the passport-free Schengen zone and end freedom of movement.

“If Schengen is over, and Schengen doesn’t work, we need to get out of Schengen and protect our borders,” Ms Weidel said.

She also urged the EU to end the “nonsense” of its backing for Ukraine and leave peace negotiations to the US, Russia and China.

“It’s high time that we pushed for a pragmatic solution in Ukraine,” Ms Weidel said.

A carnival float at a parade in Dusseldorf showing Russia’s Vladimir Putin controlling drones carrying Ms Weidel Ms Weidel is buoyed by the success of Eurosceptic hard-Right parties across Europe, and wants their support for her reforms.

She hopes “patriotic” parties will turn victories in the 2030 European parliament elections into a majority in Brussels and Strasbourg, giving their MEPs sway over EU legislation.

A parliament insider told The Telegraph the AfD was on the hunt for European allies, in particular Marine Le Pen, who distanced herself from the German party some years ago because of its alleged sympathies for Nazis.

“The AfD has a quite pragmatic view. We think that we need to work together on an EU level, and therefore we need to be in talks and discussions, and we are,” Ms Weidel said.

Euroscepticism around Europe Europe’s hard-Right parties are divided in their support for Russia or Ukraine.

However, many share the AfD’s ambition to turn the EU into a grouping of like-minded nations under the authority of their capitals rather than the European Commission.

Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, has called for a “Europe of homelands” rather than a centralised superstate.

Ms Le Pen, the front-runner to become France’s president after elections in April, wanted to call a “Frexit” referendum in 2017. After losing presidential elections that year, she moderated her views.

Earlier this month, she called for a reformed “Europe of nations”, vowing to oppose an EU that “wants to turn itself into a state”.

The AfD was founded in 2013 as a party opposed to Eurozone bailouts and in support of dissolving the euro.

Germany leaving the EU became official party policy in 2021 but that stance has evolved.

In 2023, the AfD instead called for a loose federation of trading nations to replace the EU, with Ms Weidel saying Brexit could be a model for Germany.

This year’s policy paper has made that vision more detailed and – according to Gunnar Beck, a former AfD MEP – is an effort to meet party members who oppose Dexit halfway.

He said Ms Weidel “may or may not” be trying to force a Dexit referendum.

“Of course, it could have the same consequence. We know how implacably opposed the EU is to any kind of reform, except in one direction,” he said.

“I do think that there is a consensus amongst AfD voters in favour of just leaving, but they all would want to see substantial reforms.”Mr Beck said that rather than pushing through Dexit, Ms Weidel could be reined in once she was in power and “settle for breadcrumbs like Giorgia Meloni”. The Italian prime minister moderated her strident Euroscepticism upon taking office and earned a reputation as a pragmatist in the EU corridors of power. “I would hope that Weidel will be a bit more steadfast and stay the course,” he said.

Ms Weidel’s plan to give Brussels a “take it or we leave” ultimatum has echoes of Lord Cameron’s doomed attempt to force the EU to reform in 2016.

He called the Brexit referendum but said he would go to Brussels and secure a new deal for Britain, which would make a compelling case for Remain.

Lord Cameron demanded an immediate four-year ban on in-work benefits for EU migrants, an exemption from the principle of an “ever closer union” with the EU, and a parliamentary “red card” system to block EU laws.

He secured the exemption and red card system and some protections for British financial services, but only an “emergency brake” on benefits.

The reforms fell far short of Tory expectations, with Boris Johnson swiftly dismissing them as “thin gruel”, and played little part in the referendum debate.

The reforms were conditional on Remain winning the referendum, and were taken definitively off the table the moment Leave’s victory was confirmed.

Lord Cameron sought new terms with the EU to make a compelling case for the doomed Remain campaign In the painful years of the Brexit negotiations, and the reset talks that followed, EU leaders have insisted that bloc rules for access to the single market are unbreakable.

Sir David Lidington was Lord Cameron’s Europe minister during Britain’s reform negotiations with the EU.

He told The Telegraph the AfD strategy was “mad”.

Sir David said: “The AfD must know that what they want would require the EU to change its treaties. That needs the unanimous agreement of all 27 members, and almost certainly referendums in some countries.

“What the AfD plan would do is plunge Germany and the EU into bitter argument and division. That’s just what Putin, a great friend of AfD, wants to see, and no doubt Ms Weidel would be delighted to serve his interests.”