Paper warns about euroskeptics

Details of the strategy paper by members of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) were revealed Sunday by the news magazine Spiegel.

The writers of the strategy paper called on the party leadership to take the threat posed by the euroskeptic party Alternative for Germany (AfD) more seriously.

Founded this February, AfD has called for an "orderly dissolution" of the eurozone and a return to the Deutschmark.

The paper by the CDU's party leaders in the state parliaments of Hessen, Saxony and Thuringia - Christean Wagner, Steffen Flath und Mike Mohring respectively - warned that the AfD threatened to split the conservative vote in Germany's upcoming general election in September. This, would benefit the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens, they said.

Wagner, Flath and Mohring called upon the CDU leadership to take the threat posed by the AfD seriously, and to reassert its conservative credentials among voters disillusioned with the eurozone.

In the paper, the three claimed the CDU maintained its political authority in conservative politics. "However, the party must underline this with more confidence," they said, adding: "A significant loss of votes to the AfD would possibly help the SPD and Green Party to government."

rc/mkg (AFP, dpa, Reuters)