When the AfD selected candidates for the 2024 European elections, many applicants called for a radical departure from the European Union and isolation from migration. On Saturday in Magdeburg, the right-wing party awarded further places on its electoral list in a very lengthy process. The delegates decided to fill not just 30 but 35 places on the list. About half an hour before midnight, all 35 candidates for the next year were determined. The European election program can thus be discussed on Sunday.
A draft published in June sets the goal of an “orderly dissolution of the EU” and the establishment of a “new European economic community and community of interests”. Some AfD representatives are calling for Germany to leave the EU, the so-called Dexit. Party leader Tino Chrupalla said work was underway on a new draft that could serve as a “compromise.” According to information from party circles, the draft from June should be defused.
“We want to have the Dexit”
In the rounds of introductions, however, both the dissolution of the EU and Dexit found support. “Let’s end the EU together,” said applicant Thomas Schmidt. Competitor Peter Ditges said: “I want to compete to end this farce in Brussels.” Competitor Elisabeth Becker emphasized: “We want to have the Dexit.” Her party colleague Jurij Christopher Kofner said he was “declaring war on the woken ideology” by peaceful means. “We have to reclaim our homeland.” Germany is a country “occupied” by the US and the EU.
The party, classified by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist, had already started nominating candidates last weekend. The top candidate was MEP Maximilian Krah, who is also not without controversy internally.
Weidel: “Debate on question of guilt in Ukraine war much too short”
However, party leader Alice Weidel rejected the interpretation on the “Welt” station that the AfD had moved further to the right. “Mr. Krah is a candidate that the various camps and currents of this party have agreed on beforehand,” said Weidel. The two-thirds of the delegate votes achieved by Krah are a “very, very solid result”.
The AfD MEP Sylvia Limmer, on the other hand, sees successes in the extreme right-wing camp around the Thuringian state leader Björn Höcke. In the AfD, too, “good behavior and conformity” now count, Limmer told the “Welt” and the ARD. She had failed with applications for promising list places and had blamed the “tight Höcke squad”.
Party leader Weidel also commented on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and said: “Basically, we think the debate about who is to blame for the Ukraine war is far too short.” The Ukraine war has a history that is being hidden, she said, referring to NATO.
However, Weidel opposed leaving NATO, as some AfD politicians are debating. “You can only reform a structure from within,” said Weidel. The European pillar of the alliance must be strengthened because the US has other security interests.
The head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution criticized “right-wing extremist conspiracy theories”
According to the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, some “right-wing extremist conspiracy theories” were spread last weekend. The AfD defended itself against Haldenwang’s statements with an urgent application before the Cologne Administrative Court. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution undertook in a “standstill agreement” to refrain from making critical statements this weekend.
The federal government’s anti-Semitism commissioner, Felix Klein, was concerned about the AfD’s poll high. “The AfD tolerates anti-Semitism and leading forces that put the Holocaust into perspective; they want to make Jewish life more difficult with proposals to ban kosher slaughter,” Klein told the “Welt am Sonntag”. The AfD is a legal party that takes part in democratic competition. “Nevertheless, there are signs that anti-democratic forces are at work there.”
