After an assembly held by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party last weekend, the Interior Intelligence Service of this country warned about the unconstitutionality of the ethnically tinged proclamations made by the formation and assured that they put into question of judgment the “respect for the dignity of certain population groups”. The AfD also calls the European Union a “failure” and proposes its refounding as a “Federation of Nations”.
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The assembly of the far-right group, held on the first weekend of August 2023, was intended to define the candidates and the party’s electoral strategy for the European parliamentary elections that will take place next June 2024. However , during the event, the delegates carried out a series of racist and discriminatory interventions.
“In successive statements by the party, an ethnic concept of the people is observed and respect for the dignity of certain population groups is questioned,” said Thomas Haldenwang, head of the German Internal Intelligence Service (also known as the Department for the Protection of the Constitution). ).
Although the Intelligence Service has already warned the political association on more than one occasion about making unconstitutional statements, the AfD has given it little importance. On the contrary, a few days ago the far-right group resorted to Justice considering that the secret services seek to influence and manipulate national politics, after the institution formulated a series of formal warnings against the party.
Now, the Department for the Protection of the Constitution warned about the anti-European nature of the political association during the weekend assembly.
Moderate ‘Dexit’: does the AfD want the end of the EU?
The far-right political association has branded the figure of the European Union as useless and “failed” to tackle problems related, for example, to irregular immigration. The AfD has also branded the EU as corrupt and “poison” for the states that make it up, as it constitutes a figure of “usurping” integration of national sovereign powers.
As part of the activities of the ‘European assembly’ of the party, the electoral program was approved, in which it is proposed to return to the countries some sovereign powers through the substitution of the figure of the European Union for one of the “Federation of Nations ”.
The anti-European idea present in the upper echelons of the German far-right has been gaining increasing importance in recent months under the name of ‘Dexit’ —a word made up, on the one hand, of the name of the country in German and ‘exit’ (exit in English). — and is alluding to the recent Brexit, the process in which the United Kingdom left the EU.
In the draft of the electoral program of the conservative group, issued in June 2023, the ‘Dexit’ was posed as the search for an orderly dissolution of the EU, to which are added the comments made by some representatives, who made public their intentions to withdraw Germany from the European bloc.
However, the revised version of the electoral strategy agreed in August seeks a more moderate version of such intentions, announcing that the AfD supports “a Europe of homelands, a European community of Sovereign States”. The German extreme right now advocates a sovereign “Federation of European Nations” that allows the devolution of powers to the Member States.
According to the party’s plan, the main functions of the federation would consist of: the protection of the external borders against immigration, the search for strategic autonomy in security policies and the preservation of the different “European identities”.
The AfD is part of the European Identity and Democracy group, of which the French National Group of Marine Le Pen, the Italian League and the Austrian FPÖ are also members.
The political victories of the AfD
Already a month ago, the most far-reaching political victory of the far-right party made numerous headlines: the AfD won its first mayoralty. A symbolic and resounding victory, since the party managed to prevail in municipal elections on July 2, 2023, a week after having obtained their first district victory.
From that moment, it seems that the group has been strengthened: in the last general elections of the European country they obtained 10% of the votes, while now in the polls it covers between 19% and 22% of the intention to vote nationally.
So the AfD is emerging as the second political force in the country, just below the Conservative Party and in direct competition with the Social Democratic party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The candidate selected during the party assembly this August, with 65.7% of the vote, was Maximilian Krah, a member of the European Parliament since 2019.
With AP and EFE
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