Far-right ID group expels Alternative for Germany

 

Far-right ID group expels Alternative for Germany

 

The AfD has been hit by scandals, including potential connections to China and Russia.

 

MAY 23, 2024 4:16 PM CET

BY PAULINE VON PEZOLD, EDDY WAX AND NICHOLAS VINOCUR

https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-identity-and-democracy-group-expels-alternative-for-germany/

 

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has been expelled from its pan-European group Identity and Democracy in the European Parliament following a series of scandals that have damaged its popularity and made it something of a pariah.

 

Long-simmering tensions between European far-right parties came to a boil this week when Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s lead candidate for the European election, told an Italian newspaper that members of the Nazi SS were not necessarily criminals.

 

Following those comments, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally party had belonged to the same grouping as the AfD, said she no longer wants to sit with the party.

 

The ID group’s leadership has now voted to expel the AfD, two weeks before millions of people head to the polls to vote in the European election.

 

“The AfD is going from one provocation to the next,” Le Pen said on French television following the vote. The party, she added, is “clearly controlled by radical groups.”

 

 

 

In recent months, French far-right leader Le Pen has repeatedly distanced herself from the AfD, a party that has grown increasingly radical in recent years — a move that appears to be part of a larger effort to transform her own party’s image at home and make it appear less radical to the French electorate.

 

The split largely began in January, after an investigation revealed that AfD politicians took part in a clandestine meeting of right-wing extremists in which so-called “remigration” plans to deport foreigners and “unassimilated” citizens were discussed. After news of the meeting broke, Le Pen said she was in “total disagreement” with the deportation plans.

 

But many of the scandals surrounding the AfD have revolved around Krah, the party’s lead candidate.

 

In April, German police arrested one of Krah’s parliamentary aides over allegations he spied for China. Soon after that, German public prosecutors initiated preliminary investigations over allegations that Krah had accepted payments from Russia and China “for his work as an MEP.”

 

Another AfD candidate has been embroiled in an alleged cash-for-influence scheme involving a pro-Russian propaganda outlet.

 

The repeated scandals have contributed to a slide in the AfD’s popularity. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows AfD on track to win 16 percent of votes, down from 22 percent in January.

 

Krah announced Wednesday that he would stop campaigning and step down from his party’s leadership board. But even though many AfD leaders now clearly view Krah as a liability, it was too late to remove him from the ballot as the party’s lead candidate.

 

In a last-ditch effort to avoid being ejected from the ID group, AfD MEPs requested that the ID group expel Krah — and not the whole AfD delegation — for “continued violation of the Group’s cohesion and reputation.” That effort ultimately failed.

 

Only the leaders of Austrian and Estonian far-right parties in the European parliament joined the AfD in voting to keep the party as part of the ID group.

 

“The AfD in the EU Parliament is thus paying the price for Maximilian Krah’s uncontrolled statements, which damage the AfD in Germany and isolate it in the EU,” said AfD MEPs Christine Anderson and Gunnar Beck.

 

Other AfD leaders expressed optimism that the party would be able to patch things up with Le Pen and other far-right parties following the European election.

 

“For the AfD, this is a veritable loss ahead of the election campaign finale,” said a spokesperson for Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders. “Nevertheless, we remain confident that we will be able to continue working with our partners in a joint parliamentary group after the European elections in Brussels.”

 

Le Pen’s party, he added, “has also shown great flexibility in the past when it came to finding a broad consensus for the formation of a parliamentary group.”

 

Jakob Hanke Vela, Victor Goury-Laffont and Louise Guillot contributed reporting.

 

This story has been updated.