Alternative for Germany (AfD) economic policy spokesman Mario Beger lashed out after EU Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger told Germany’s regions they should expect to receive significantly less money from Brussels after Brexit.
The Brussels official warned rural areas and agriculture would be hardest hit by the inevitable cutbacks of between 5 and 10 percent after 2020 when Britain finally stops contributing the EU budget.
But Mr Beger reacted with anger and said the time had come for the German taxpayer to stop funding cash-strapped member states.
He said: “Germany is by far the largest net contributor to the EU.
“It is transferring 13 billion euros more to Brussels than it gets back.
“Now this existing mismatch will be even less favourable – the German taxpayer will finally become the cash cow of Europe.
“This madness must finally stop.
“We can not let our rural areas bleed to death and watch the emigration of entire industrial sectors while, with German tax money from Brussels, these businesses are lured to Poland and the Czech Republic.”
He continued: “Germany must take the promotion of the economy, agriculture and structurally weak regions into its own hands.
“The payments to Brussels must be stopped because the EU has mutated into a redistribution machine and transfer union, in which Germany is increasingly losing out. “
Vice-Chancellor Olaf Schol said the new federal government would take a new course in its European policy in order to win back support for the bloc from voters.
Mr Scholz said that the Grand Coalition had already “taken a first important step” by being honest.
He said: “We have been frank: Germany knows that it has to pay more money into the EU budget as a result of Brexit.
“It’s all the more important now to speak true and clear.”
But he stressed Germany was not prepared to become the paymaster for the rest of Europe.
He said: “We do not want to and can not pay for everyone.”
Additional reporting by Monika Pallenberg