The far-right Alternative for Germany party, which came in second place in the European elections in Germany, excluded its list leader, Maximilian Krah, from the delegation of members of the European Parliament on Monday, due to several disagreements.
Krah announced this information himself, in a video clip he posted on his account on the social network X.
“I wish my fellow newly elected MPs every success in their attempt to return to the Parliamentary Group for Identity and Democracy without me,” the official said, referring to his expulsion from the European Group a few weeks ago, in the wake of the controversial controversy. Hate statements.
He added: “I think this is the wrong way to go and a disastrous signal for our voters, especially young people.”
Krah stated that the members of the European Parliament elected from the Alternative for Germany party intend to negotiate with the French National Union led by Marine Le Pen to readmit them to the identity seat.
In his response to the press, he admitted that eight of his party colleagues voted against accepting him into his party’s delegation, while four voted in favor and three abstained from voting.
Krah also criticized the fact that a party that operates with the declared aim of defending the interests of Germans allows itself to be “dictated” by a foreign party – a reference to the French far-right party.
On May 23, the domestic intelligence service decided to expel the entire AfD delegation due to the scandals involving Krahe, even though it had already been announced that after the elections, Germans would no longer be welcomed into the far-right group.
After Krahe stated that “not everyone in the Nazi SS organization was a criminal”, the French National Union and the League of Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini indicated that they would not continue to share the parliamentary group with the Germans.
At the end of April, an AfD official was arrested in Brussels on suspicion of spying for China, and the public prosecutor’s office in Dresden (eastern Germany) opened preliminary proceedings to determine whether Krahe had also received payments from Beijing.
Krah, along with his second-in-command, Peter Bystrom, is also suspected of receiving money from Moscow in exchange for publishing certain pro-Russian views, for example, through the Voice of Europe platform.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won six out of nine parliamentary seats on Sunday, coming in second place in Germany with 15.9% of the vote, behind the Christian Democrats (30%).
The Social Democratic Party, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, received 13.9%, its worst result ever in a national election.
Participation in the European elections in Germany was 64.8%, an unprecedented number since reunification.
Some 361 million voters from the 27 EU countries were called to choose the composition of the next European Parliament, with 720 MEPs elected, 15 more than the previous legislature.
Portugal has 21 seats in the European cycle.
