According to the Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Halle (IWH), a regional government led by the AfD party could significantly slow the economic growth in Saxony-Anhalt. IWH Head Reint Gropp told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that even the mere presence of anti-immigrant rhetoric has the potential to trigger this slowdown.
Gropp estimated that preliminary models suggest Saxony-Anhalt’s economic growth could decrease by between half and one percent annually as a result of such politics. He emphasized that the AfD’s rise was not driven by rational economic arguments; rather, people in the region desired a retreat into an idealized past-“a perfect German world with only blue-eyed and blonde people on the streets, and the small corner shop in every village, and so on.”
The economist explained that current economic growth in Saxony-Anhalt is heavily reliant on immigration, as the number of native German workers is declining since more are retiring than succeeding them. He stressed that the value immigrants create can be categorized by specific jobs and industries, and that this added value would vanish if migration stopped. Gropp predicts that the currently slightly growing economy in Saxony-Anhalt would contract following an AfD electoral victory.
Many sectors would be impacted. Although the share of foreigners in care provision in Saxony-Anhalt is relatively low-as some might think-it is significantly higher in sectors such as food manufacturing, construction, hospitality, and logistics, where the share ranges from 33 to 40 percent. Furthermore, approximately 20 percent of all physicians in the region come from abroad.
To support his claims, Gropp’s institute studied the effect of anti-immigrant parties coming into power in various locations, including Sonneberg in Thuringia (where an AfD district head was elected), Britain following Brexit, and several northern Italian municipalities governed by the Lega Nord. The economic scientist noted that in those areas under study, immigration had decreased, a trend that could be expected to happen in Saxony-Anhalt as well.
