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.

During the AfD congress this weekend (28-30 July), Maximilian Krah, one of nine current AfD MEPs, was elected for the top spot on the party’s voting list for the European election in June 2024, making it one of the first German parties to nominate their lead candidate.

Although relatively unknown prior to his nomination, Krah has been making headlines for his Eurosceptic views, and analysts have taken the AfD’s pick as a sign that the party is taking a firm anti-EU course for its election campaign.

In an interview with radio station Dlf on Monday morning, Krah acknowledged that some form of political coordination is needed on the European level but called for systemic reform of the EU with the aim of giving a significant amount of control back to nation-states.

“We want 80% less Europe and more national self-government,” he said, adding that “the Europe of the future must be a Europe of fatherlands and not a Europe of bureaucrats”.

Krah also said many of the EU’s agencies and institutions are “obsolete” since they set priorities that are “fundamentally wrong”, such as “the focus on climate, the focus on gender, the focus on immigration, the focus on the war in Ukraine”.

Extremist wing gains upper hand

Krah’s election “is a very clear signal that the AfD is finally positioning itself as right-wing in terms of European policy – and indeed as far-right,” David Begrich, a researcher focused on right-wing extremism, told public TV station ARD.

Meanwhile, Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BvF) told RND the weekend’s congress had “proven once more our assessment that there are strong anti-constitutional streams in the party, whose influence is growing further”.

The intelligence agency, which is tasked with defending Germany’s democratic constitutional order, had classed the AfD as a “suspected case” of right-wing extremism in March 2022.

Krah’s candidacy was also endorsed by Björn Höcke, the most prominent figure of the party’s extremist wing and parliamentary group leader of the AfD’s regional branch in Thuringia, which has been classed by the BvF as “verified right-wing extremists”.

“This EU needs to die in order for the true Europe to live,” Höcke said at the sidelines of the congress.

Thousands protest against Germany's far-right AfD party

Thousands took to the streets to protest against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Friday and Saturday (28 and 29 July) as the party held a convention to choose its candidates for European parliamentary elections next year.

‘Dexit’ or no ‘Dexit’?

Meanwhile, key decisions on the AfD’s election programme are still outstanding – including whether the party will advocate for an exit of Germany from the EU, dubbed “Dexit” (based on the country’s name in German, Deutschland).

The question was left unanswered as the party congress had to be suspended on Sunday evening due to time management issues. It is set to be resumed this coming weekend, when the delegates aim to decide on the content of the AfD election manifesto.

While the leaked main proposal for the manifesto includes the call for a “controlled dissolution of the EU”, the party leadership later backpedalled, saying the inclusion of the phrase was an “editorial oversight”.

This was also echoed by Krah, who told Dlf that the party advocates for a “systemic reform” of the EU, not its dissolution. Neither is the party in favour of a ‘Dexit’ if this means “Germany leaving and everybody else staying in”, he added.

However, Christine Anderson, another current AfD MEP who is now ranking fourth in the party’s voting list, reiterated her call for an immediate withdrawal of Germany from the EU during the weekend’s congress.

Germany: Far-right overtakes Scholz’s SPD in new poll

In Germany, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is gaining popularity, with a recent poll putting it in second place – ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD.

Bumpy cooperation with the ID group

Meanwhile, the AfD delegates also decided on Friday that the party should join the far-right ID group in the European Parliament. Currently, the party’s MEPs are members of ID’s parliamentary group, but the AfD as a whole is not part of the party family as a whole.

However, the relationship between the AfD lawmakers and their ID partners has not been without troubles in the past.

Newly-picked lead candidate Krah has already been suspended by the parliamentary group twice – once at the beginning of 2023 for allegedly manipulating a party document, and once in 2022 for supporting far-right candidate Eric Zemmour in the French elections over ID member Marine Le Pen.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]