Germany’s AfD expelled from far-right group in EU parliament | News

Weeks before the elections, the ID group says it does not want to be associated with incidents involving the AfD’s Maximilian Krah.

The far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament says it decided to expel the Alternative for Germany (AfD) delegation weeks before the assembly elections.

The decision follows comments that Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s main candidate in the elections, made to an Italian newspaper over the weekend that members of the Nazi SS paramilitary force “were not all criminals”.

“The Bureau of the Identity and Democracy Group in the European Parliament today decided to exclude the German delegation, AfD, with immediate effect,” ID said in a statement on Thursday.

“The ID Group no longer wants to be associated with the incidents involving Maximilian Krah, head of the AfD list for the European elections,” the statement said.

Krah, 47, whose adviser was accused of spying for China, has already had to resign from the AfD leadership council and has promised not to make any further campaign appearances, although he is still seeking re-election to the European Parliament.

The far-right parties in the assembly are currently divided between the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), whose de facto leader is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and the ID group, led by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

It is the latest blow to the AfD in a chaotic few months. France’s Le Pen abandoned the party as an unsuitable partner as she faced adverse court rulings and concerns about her links to China and Russia.

‘Clean break’

“It is time to completely break with this movement, which is unmanaged and which is obviously under the influence of internal radical groups,” Le Pen said.

National Rally lawmaker Jean-Paul Garraud, who is part of the ID leadership cabinet, confirmed that his party was behind the initiative to expel its German partner.

He told the France-Presse news agency that Krah’s party as a whole was responsible for his “inadmissible” comments as a main candidate – “and therefore we decided to exclude the AfD.”

The AfD said in response on Thursday that it had “taken note of the ID Group’s decision” but insisted it remained optimistic about the June 6-9 elections.

The party insisted that it would “continue to have trusted partners at our side in the new legislature”.

The AfD’s exclusion came a day after Krah said, following talks with the party’s top brass, that he would leave the federal steering committee.

The lawmaker is at the center of a deepening crisis after one of his advisers in the European Parliament was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.

Krah and another leading AfD candidate, Petr Bystron, were also forced to deny allegations that they accepted money to publicize pro-Russian positions on a Moscow-funded news website.

Bystron, who is second on the AfD’s European Union electoral list, said on Wednesday that he would also stop appearing at campaign events, attributing this to “family reasons”.

The ID group was made up of 59 European legislators from eight countries, with the largest delegations being Italy’s League party, with 23 legislators, and France’s National Rally, with 18.