The home of German culture and stereotype, Bavaria, has long had support for leaving the country they influenced, and a new poll published by Bild on Sunday shows that the idea of an independent Bavaria is seeing support grow to all new highs.
Opinion research group YouGov asked citizens across Germany a simple question: “Do you agree with the following idea… My state should be independent of Germany.” Across Germany, support for independence is growing with six of the states having support by at least one in five residents. Bavaria, to no surprise, had the largest with 32-percent supporting a breakup.
Bavaria has wanted an exit for some time now, and has even put into place their own Bavarian Party, a recognized political party that has independence from Germany as its core mission.
What are the odds of Germany facing an internal “Brexit” with states claiming their own independence? As it stands right now, a mass exit is extremely unlikely. The German constitutional court examined such a case earlier this year, brought on by “Freedom for Bavaria” initiative, and ruled that the Federal Republic of Germany is a nation-state based on the constitutional power of the German people, and therefore the individual states have no constitutional power to exit.