BERLIN, March 11 (Xinhua) -- One in four German voters would back a political party that wants to quit the euro, an opinion poll published by Germany's Focus magazine said on Monday.
The poll, conducted by TSN-Emnid among 1,007 voters, showed that 26 percent of them would consider voting for a party that wants to leave the eurozone in the national election in September, while the number rises to 40 percent among 40 to 49-year-old voters.
The result suggested that there might be potential for a new protest party in Germany, Emnid chief Klaus Peter Schoeppner was quoted by Focus as saying.
Recently, an anti-euro political party Alternative fur Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) has started to take shape with the goal of "dissolution of the euro in favor of national currencies or smaller currency unions," demanding an end to aid payments and the dismantling of the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund.
The party's supporters includes many prominent university professors. One of its founders, economics professor Bernd Lucke, told local paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung recently that the current rescue policies are focused on short-term interests, primarily those of the banks.
A political party has to collect a minimum of 2,000 signatures in each of Germany's 16 states or 0.1 percent of each state's population so as to join federal election. It also has to win 5 percent of the vote to win seats in the lower house of the parliament.
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