European Union and economic issues Weidel vigorously defends
economic liberalism and declares former UK Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher to be her role model. In terms of economic policy, Weidel argued against the abolition of cash. During the
euro area crisis, she called for economically weak states, such as Greece, Weidel expresses support for tax cuts and the abolition of
inheritance tax and opposes the
minimum wage. Weidel supports continued German membership in the
European Union; Leading economists consider this to be the economic worst-case scenario. In 2015, she also spoke out in favor of Germany leaving the euro/
Eurozone and called for a return to a
gold-backed currency. During the AfD party conference in June 2024, she said that it was in the interests of Germany and Europe that "Ukraine does not belong to the
European Union". Since 2025, the AfD has been working with
Hungary's nationalist and right-wing populist
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Weidel praised Hungary as a model for the AfD, saying that the AfD shares Hungary's opposition to illegal immigration and stance on the European Union. In February 2025, Weidel stated about the AfD's policy towards the European Union: "We should work together to reform the European Union at all costs. And that can only be done from within. We can achieve this by reducing the
competences of the European Union, by dismantling the entire bureaucratic, expensive — and, in my view, corrupt — superstructure."
Asylum and integration policy In December 2016, Weidel said that German chancellor
Angela Merkel was "of course" partly responsible for the
rape and murder of Maria Ladenburger. In 2017, Weidel criticized the immigration policies of Merkel, stating that "the country will be destroyed through this immigration policy.
Donald Trump said that Merkel is insane and I absolutely agree with that. It is a completely nonsensical form of politics that is being followed here." Weidel opposes health insurance for asylum seekers, criticises what she sees as a "naive approach" to radical Islamic preachers in Germany and has warned against excessive expectations regarding the integration of refugees into the labour market. According to her, "no important question of our time [...] can be separated from the migration question". Weidel wants to ban the
burqa and
niqāb and has also spoken out in favour of a
headscarf ban: the headscarf should be "banned from public spaces and the streets" because it is an "absolutely sexist symbol" and represents an "apartheid between men and women". She has called for the German government to invest in "special economic zones" in the
Middle East to encourage educated and skilled persons to remain in their home countries and avoid the possibility of
brain drain,
Foreign policy and international relations General stance In October 2022, she said that the AfD slogan "Our country first" (based on the "French first" of the
Front National under
Jean-Marie Le Pen) called for "not a values-based foreign policy", but "an interest-driven foreign policy for our country". Although advocating for economic relations with Russia, Weidel is not considered to be part of the
AfD pro-Russia movement; Weidel responded to the question why she – unlike her co-chair
Tino Chrupalla – did not attend the
Russian embassy's reception to celebrate
the anniversary of the victory over
Nazi Germany: "Celebrating the defeat of one's own country with a former occupying power is something I have personally decided – also with my
father's escape story – not to take part in." Weidel has also criticised Russian violations of NATO airspace and suggested that Putin had not made adequate concessions in
negotiations with the United States, warning that this could undermine U.S. President
Donald Trump's faith in the negotiations. Weidel also denounced plans by a group of her AfD colleagues to attend an international conference in
Sochi in November 2024, stating, "I myself would not travel there, nor would I recommend it to anyone" and agreed to change the party's procedures for approving travel.
Middle East In contrast to her AfD co-leader
Tino Chrupalla, Weidel expressed support for
Israel in context to the
Gaza war. During an interview with
Elon Musk she said she supported the state of Israel and its right to self-defense but expressed uncertainty on how to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
United States In early 2025, in an interview with
The American Conservative, she said regarding the demand of US president
Donald Trump that Germany had to increase its military spending, while allegedly having to stay under the political influence of the US, that the US could not have it both ways. She compared Germany with a slave and said that "slaves don’t fight. A slave who fights will invariably demand freedom as a reward." Weidel said that, if Germany has to take responsibility for its own security in the future, this comes with the price of independence from the US, especially regarding energy policy,
Nord Stream in particular.
COVID-19 pandemic During the
COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, Weidel's stance changed. In March 2020, she said that
COVID-19 could "spread unhindered" in Germany, while all EU countries were "practically shutting down public life." This would have "fatal consequences" for Germany, and the government must "finally take appropriate steps now." She spoke of a "negligent game with the lives and health of our citizens," because, according to everything we know, the virus "poses a higher risk of infection and a greater risk of mortality than the common flu." After the shutdown, however Weidel called for the economy to be restarted "immediately"; the "chaos policy of the federal government" was "disastrous." At the end of May 2020 she called the federal government's Corona policy "pre-democratic" and accused it of "a blanket restriction of basic rights and then distributing them again piecemeal as if by an act of mercy". After party leader
Jörg Meuthen had criticized the party for showing too much solidarity with the
COVID-19 protests in Germany, Weidel said that she could "recommend to anyone who tries to defame this movement to simply attend a demonstration. She described the Infection Protection Act as unconstitutional; therefore, they "were right to take to the streets". In July 2021, Weidel stated that she would not be vaccinated against COVID-19 for the foreseeable future and complained that healthy unvaccinated people in Germany were being discriminated against – she also did not believe in an implied vaccination requirement. In mid-November 2021, she contracted COVID-19 and had to go into quarantine at home. In an interview with journalist
Erhard Scherfer for the
Phoenix on 8 December 2021, Weidel emphatically denied his statement that the majority of hospital intensive care units were unvaccinated. When asked where she obtained the figures, Weidel cited the Federal Statistical Office as her source. The Federal Office itself, however, quickly clarified that it did not have such data at all, which triggered considerable media attention. At an AfD event in
Heilbronn in March 2024, Weidel asked who actually takes responsibility “for all the vaccine-damaged people, who are in wheelchairs, who have died.” She opposes legalization of
same-sex marriage, stating that she supports protection of the "traditional family". She has stated her opposition to discussion of sexuality prior to puberty saying that "I don't want anyone with their
gender idiocy or their early sexualisation classes coming near my children." Such statements were dismissed by the Catholic
German Bishops' Conference and the Evangelical Church as "polemics" and "derailment".
Global warming Weidel has expressed
doubts about
global warming; in 2019, Weidel expressed that she did not believe "that human influence on global warming is decisive." The AfD had previously modified its position on this during the election campaign for the 2019 European elections and spoke of signs of human influence. Weidel cited the Danish physicist
Henrik Svensmark, who believes that the influence of
carbon dioxide (CO2) on the climate is overestimated. Weidel's press officer named the geophysicist
Eigil Friis-Christensen, who worked at the NBI until 2006, as another source besides Svensmark. However, his research on this subject, which was taken up by Weidel and other climate skeptics, is unsubstantiated. With regard to the
Fridays for Future rallies, Weidel spoke of "this campaigning ability that is rolling towards us," and said: "The power of this cumulative stupidity is frightening." At the AfD party conference in
Riesa in January 2025, Weidel said that an AfD government would "naturally bring functioning nuclear power plants back online"; she called for longer operating times for coal-fired power plants. She also promised to restart Nord Stream to supply Russian gas through the
Baltic Sea. She also said that a government with her participation would "tear down all wind turbines," calling them "windmills of shame." ==Controversies==