The German far-right AfD, whose party congress this weekend asserted that the EU has “failed”, is “founded on hatred” and looks to “destroy what already exists”, French EU minister Laurence Boone said on Monday (7 August).
Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party members gathered over the course of two successive weekends (29-30 July and 5-6 August) to adopt a shared political platform ahead of the 2024 European elections. Leading Eurosceptic AfD MEP Maximilian Krah was voted in last week to lead the party’s campaign.
The congress’ conclusions, published on Sunday (6 August), described the EU project as a “failure”, instead calling for a “federation of EU nations”. The party did not, however, call for the “dissolution” of the EU – a radical position aired in an earlier draft.
The AfD is expected to perform particularly well in the upcoming 2024 EU elections, polling second right after the right-wing, conservative CDU, and far ahead of current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left SDP party.
Anti-EU stance part of German far right’s DNA, says researcher
Ahead of the EU elections next year, German far-right party AfD is firmly on an EU-sceptic path, with criticism of the European Union being among the only things the whole party can rally behind, researcher Uwe Jun told EURACTIV in an interview.
The congress conclusions, together with the party’s relatively strong position in the polls, triggered concern in France, with Minister Boone telling broadcaster LCI within hours of the conclusions’ publication that the German extreme right is “founded in hatred of a scapegoat”.
She criticised the party’s “pro-Russian, not pro-Ukrainian” stance: “Russia is ready to starve African countries to destabilise the world, [and AfD’s Kremlin support] is worrisome”, she said, adding on X (formerly Twitter) that the party is a “peril for European stability”.
The party has always been a sceptic of EU sanctions imposed against the Russian regime following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This stance is shared by their French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) counterparts, who were accused of holding “special ties” with Russia, in a French parliamentary report published in June.
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an NGO, revealed in February 2023 AfD members were considered by the Kremlin to be pro-Russian, and used to spread a positive narrative of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
AfD MEPs have been members of the European Parliament’s Identity & Democracy (ID) group since 2019, but the party as a whole was never an official member. The congress concluded it would formalise its ID membership in 2024.
The AfD is the “uncovered and radical face of the European extreme right” with one goal in mind, Boone told LCI: “Destroy the EU with no alternative project”.
Anti-EU rhetoric has always been part of the AfD’s “DNA”, Uwe Jun, a political scientist, told EURACTIV Germany in an interview on Friday (4 August). Its very creation in 2013 looked to criticise the EU’s handling of the then-euro crisis, before moving to larger issues such as immigration.
In opposition to a far-right agenda, it is down to member states to convince voters that the EU at it stands is working, the minister added, and shows solidarity on issues as wide as “wildfires, floods and vaccines”.
German far-right led into European elections by anti-EU hardliner
German far-right party AfD has decided on a hardliner advocating for a “Europe of nation states” as their lead candidate for the upcoming EU elections. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether the party will push for Germany to exit the EU.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
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German far-right party calls EU a “failed project”The German far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has called the EU a “failed project” and called for it to be re-established as a ‘Confederation of European Nations’, the party said in its EU election programme that was adopted on Sunday (6 August).
Source: euractiv.com
