The move comes as a Greens politician told Brussels reporters EU’s far-right parties are a risk to the Continent’s cohesion.
European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy (ID) political group has made a request to expel the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), according to German news agency dpa.
It comes as local news reports suggest that the AfD had plans to expel one of it’s most controversial members, Maximillian Krah, to avoid being booted out of ID.
Yesterday the AfD banned Krah, its top European election candidate, from campaigning in the upcoming EU election. He subsequently stepped down from the leadership role following internal party pressure.
Krah recently copped backlash after he told an Italian newspaper not all members of the Nazis’ elite SS unit, which was involved in major war crimes during World War II, were war criminals.
Krah responded by writing on X, formerly Twitter, that “actual and differentiated statements” were being “misused” to hurt the party that right now needed “unity”.
“For this reason, I will refrain from making any further campaign appearances with immediate effect and resign as a member of the federal executive board,” he said.
Assistant arrested last month
The 47-year-old was already in hot water after Brussels authorities searched his European Parliament offices in connection with an arrested assistant.
The scandal comes at an inconvenient time for the party, as the AfD was hoping to make big gains at the European elections in June.
German media have alleged that Krah had ties to China and Russia. His colleague, AfD’s Petr Bystron, last month separately denied allegations in a Czech daily that he may have received money from a pro-Russian network.
AfD’s top party board recently said there had been “massive damage to the party in the current election campaign, for which the lead candidate had provided the pretext.”
Greens candidate criticises far-right presence in EU
European Greens’ lead candidate Terry Reintke told reporters at the European Parliament today in Brussels that right-wing “extremists”, especially the AfD, are Putin’s “extended arm in the European Union”.
This is a “major risk for the European Union,” she said.
“We are very clear that the far-right not only want to destroy the European Union, but our democracy. That is why we will not build majorities together with them and will also try everything we can to have as weak a far-right presence as possible in the next European Parliament.”
