AfD: German spending package amounts to 'death knell for the euro'

The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Alice Weidel, has sharply criticized a multi-billion-euro spending package that passed the Bundestag earlier on Tuesday.

She said that lawmakers had approved "gigantic debt."

"The corks are popping among the election losers, the SPD and the Greens," Weidel said in Berlin after the package was passed in the outgoing lower house of parliament, just one week before the new parliament is set to convene following elections on February 23.

Weidel accused conservative leader Friedrich Merz, the country's likely next chancellor, of breaking all election promises.

"This is nothing less than the worst voter deception I have seen in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany," she charged.

Tuesday's decision will come back to haunt future generations, consumers and taxpayers, Weidel said, warning of upheaval in the credit markets, rising interest rates and a "spillover to the other eurozone countries."

"And accordingly, this is the death knell for the euro," she added.