The thousands of protesters who flooded the western German city of Essen on Saturday chanting “Nazis out!” virtually disappeared on Sunday, allowing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to finish its controversial congress without further incident. The two presidents were confirmed in their posts, resolutions on foreign policy were voted on confirming the pro-Russian stance and the party took the opportunity to boast about its results in the European elections, which have pushed it into second place with 15.9% of the vote, and it is even exploring leading its own group in the European Parliament. The German ultras look strong ahead of the elections in three countries from the east in September. They want to start touching power and they believe they will be able to achieve it. To do this, they propose to break the cordon sanitaire that until now has prevented any type of alliance with other parties.
Polls predict that the AfD can obtain more than 30% of the votes in the elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, which would make them the first force. The party could finally “see the sun rise in the responsibility of Government,” said Tino Chrupalla, co-president of the party. “We want to govern. First in the east, then in the west and then in the federal government,” he added, to the applause of the almost 600 delegates who this weekend traveled to a city shielded by the authorities in response to the call for dozens of marches and protests. against the extreme right.
The other co-chair, Alice Weidel, described as one of the central tasks of her renewed mandate – for two years – “to tear down those unconstitutional firewalls” that the other parties use to distance themselves from AfD. Germany is one of the few countries in which the cordon sanitaire (in German) brandmauer, firewalls) against the extreme right is still maintained. The rest of the formations do not forge coalitions, nor negotiate or maintain any type of collaboration with the AfD, which is completely isolated.
Not just internally; The German ultras are pariahs in Europe too. Too radical even for the rest of the extreme European continent. In May the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, led by Frenchwoman Marine Le Pen, expelled the party after its head of the European list, Maximilian Krah, whitewashed the Nazi SS in an interview. In Germany, the party is under formal suspicion by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the internal secret services, for its extremism.
Meanwhile, the AfD is seeking its place in the constellation of groups that are being created after the June 9 elections. Chrupalla did not hide that “personally” he would have wanted to remain in ID until there was another alternative. The party is exploring leading its own group, as confirmed by both presidents, but in parallel it is negotiating to join another alliance already formed.
A new populist right-wing group
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In the middle of the congress, on Sunday morning, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced in Vienna the creation of a new far-right group in the European Parliament. Orbán’s party, Fidesz, has allied itself with the main nationalist and populist parties in Austria and the Czech Republic. The Austrian FPÖ, with which the AfD has a good relationship, won the European elections and is the favorite in the legislative elections next September. Adding the seats of the Czech opposition party Alliance of Disgruntled Citizens (ANO for its acronym in Czech), the alliance would have the minimum number of members to establish itself as a group, but not the number of countries represented, which must be at least seven.
Orbán, FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl and ANO leader and former Czech prime minister Andrej Babis presented their alliance – called Patriots for Europe – at a press conference without questions and did not specify which other parties they were negotiating with. If this group were to succeed, there would be three radical right-wing factions in the European Parliament, together with ID and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which includes the party of Italian Giorgia Meloni. Or four, if the Germans of AfD manage to lead their own, although it seems difficult for all of them to find partners from at least seven countries.
In foreign policy, the AfD clarified its stance on Russia this weekend. A resolution, backed by Weidel, stating that Germany must “emancipate” itself from American foreign policy passed. The text also calls for the country to end the supply of weapons to Ukraine and speaks out against isolating Russia with sanctions.
On Sunday, the massive protests that accompanied the start of the event, with tens of thousands of people marching through Essen to the Grugahalle, the congress palace where the AfD met, were reduced to a small demonstration of about 150. They continued chanting slogans against the extreme right and making noise in front of the building, although the police cordon kept them so far away that nothing could be heard from inside.
According to the Essen Police, a total of 32 protest events have been recorded since Friday night. For the most part, peaceful. Only some groups tried to prevent the entry of the delegates on Saturday with violent behavior and confrontations with the agents, who dispersed them with batons and pepper spray. Police had to escort some delegates on foot through an angry crowd. In total, 28 officers were injured, one of them seriously. Initially, two serious injuries had been reported after the attack by a group of people who kicked their heads and then fled. Police are analyzing video footage and looking for witnesses to the incident.
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