Far-right ID group expels Alternative for Germany
The AfD has been hit by scandals, including potential connections to China and Russia.
Maximilian Krah, a senior AfD lawmaker, told an Italian newspaper that members of the Nazi SS were not necessarily criminals. | Jens Schlueter/AFP via Getty Images
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, according to two people working with the party.
Those tensions came to a boil this week when Maximilian Krah, a senior AfD lawmaker, told an Italian newspaper that members of the Nazi SS were not necessarily criminals. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally party belongs to the same grouping as the AfD, has 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.
“I voted to throw out Krah as he has been the problem in this case and also previously with several things like Russia-China questions,” Jaak Madison, an Estonian MEP in the ID group, told POLITICO. “But I did not support punishing all the Germans.”
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.
Tensions have been running high for months between the AfD and other ID parties in Parliament due to a series of scandals, many involving Krah. In April, German police arrested one of Krah’s parliamentary aides over allegations he spied for China.
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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 a cash-for-influence scandal involving a pro-Russian propaganda outlet.
Krah announced Wednesday that he would pause his campaign and step down from his party’s leadership board — while remaining the party’s top candidate ahead of the EU election.
AfD MEP Christine Anderson and Gunnar Beck said in a statement that the vote was “very close” and added that “only three delegations actively voted in favor of the exclusion” — and naming the three as National Rally, Italy’s League, and Flemish Interest.
“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,” Anderson and Beck said.
The repeated scandals appear to 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.
In recent months, French far-right leader Le Pen has repeatedly distanced herself from the AfD, which has grown increasingly radical in recent years, in an apparent attempt to help transform her party’s image and make it appear less radical to the French electorate.
Speaking after a debate among lead candidates in the EU election on Thursday, the Greens’ Terry Reintke said this was “a cheap maneuver to get rid of a toxic candidate like Maximilian Krah in a difficult electoral situation.”
French National Rally MEP Thierry Mariani said the move marked the “disapproval of certain ambiguous statements” coming from the AfD. “We’re in the last three weeks [of the campaign], the message that’s clear is that we don’t accept revisionist comments, and after that it’ll be up to the group to decide its future after the election.”
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, Le Pen said she was in “total disagreement.”
The news was first reported by German news agency dpa.
Jakob Hanke Vela and Louise Guillot contributed to this article.
