German businesses warn of negative effects of election success by far-right party

The president of the German industry association (BDI), Dieter Kempf, on Thursday warned of negative effects for Germany as a business location by potential election successes of the German far-right party AfD.

Regarding the upcoming state elections in East Germany, Kempf said that the populist AfD would "take up concerns with anger campaigns and play out dissatisfied citizens against socially weaker people such as refugees".

"AfD successes damage the image of our country. The attractiveness of a location suffers from extremist parties," Kempf told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group, warned of "downturns and structural weakness".

According to Kempf, Germany must be "attractive and inviting" to attract skilled workers from all over the world.

The next state elections will take place in Brandenburg and Saxony at the beginning of September and in Thuringia at the end of October.

A recent survey by the opinion research institute Civey showed that if the state elections were held on next Sunday, the AfD in Brandenburg would become the strongest political force with 21 percent of the votes.

According to the survey, Germany's governing parties CDU and SPD as well as the German green party would all trail behind the AfD with less than 20 percent of votes.