German far-right lead candidate excluded from future AfD delegation

The newly-formed AfD EU delegation has decided not to include controversial leader Maximilian Krah, implicated in several scandals, in a bid to rejoin the far-right ID group that expelled it last month.

On Monday (10. June), Krah announced the decision made by the future AfD delegation in front of several journalists.

“I was not voted in. Eight people were against voting me in,” Krah said, adding that he believes “it sends the wrong signal.”

“You shouldn’t let a foreign party dictate who you run with.”

AfD Co-Leader Alice Weidel confirmed on Sunday evening that it was up to the elected MEPs of the party to form their delegation and who to take on.

Krah and Petr Bystron, the number two on the election list, have both been accused of taking money from Russia via an alleged propaganda network, while Krah himself is additionally under preliminary investigation for his relations with China.

Bystron, however, did not suffer any consequences from the allegations and will be part of the EU delegation.

In addition, a former assistant of Krah has been separately accused of working for a Chinese intelligence service and was arrested, while the Belgian police raided Krah’s offices in the European Parliament on 7 May.

These escapades escalated in a controversial interview Krah gave to Italian La Repubblica, where he stated that not each member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) during the Third Reich was “automatically a criminal”.

Fearing that such extremist views could cost valuable votes, the members of the AfD’s common parliamentary group, the Identity & Democracy (ID), excluded the whole German far-right delegation from their group in the European Parliament, just two weeks before the elections.

Meanwhile, French far-right leader Le Pen has her eyes set on the presidential elections and Macron’s announcement to call for re-elections only accelerated her plans.

The AfD hopes that the expulsion of Krah would open the doors to rejoin the ID again.

“We will resume contact tomorrow,” René Aust, who was voted as the new delegation leader, told German public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday.

The AfD already secured the support of the Austrian far-right FPÖ, who has long been considered a close ally of the German far-right party.

Harald Vilimsky, who led the FPÖ into the election, stressed that he would meet with Le Pen next Wednesday to strategise about how to expand the number of MEPs of the ID group, which is currently expected to get 58 lawmakers, to a three-digit number.

However, others are less confident that the plan will work.

“There is absolutely zero chance of being admitted to the ID now,” a confidant of Krah told Euractiv.

According to him, “nothing will happen before [the French presidential elections]” and “after that you will be told that unfortunately it still won’t happen.”

“The people who lure and whistle from the ID every now and then know this, of course, and play a funny game with the new MPs called ‘how do we bamboozle the Germans’.”

[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Alice Taylor]

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