German party AfD wants to set up a third ultras group in Brussels with Elvis Perez forming | International

In addition to the groups led by Italian Giorgia Meloni and French Marine Le Pen, the European Parliament could have a third far-right parliamentary group. The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) wants to create a new group that would integrate smaller far-right formations from several countries, including the Spanish party Over (SALF), led by agitator Elvis Pérez. ..

In addition to the groups led by Italian Giorgia Meloni and French Marine Le Pen, the European Parliament could have a third far-right parliamentary group. The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) wants to create a new group in which it would integrate smaller far-right groups from several countries, including the Spanish party Over (SALF) led by activist Elvis Perez, reports German magazine. Der Spiegel,

The AfD belonged to the Identity and Democracy (ID) group led by Le Pen until it was expelled a few weeks before the European elections following statements by its candidate Maximilian Krah, in which he said that not all members of the Nazi SS were criminals. The German party expelled Krah just hours after voting ended for siding with French politics and trying to re-enter the ID, but the strategy did not work.

The party now intends to form and lead its own parliamentary group, which will be called Los Soberanistas, according to the magazine. The AfD has emerged very strong from the European elections held on June 9. It received 15.9% of the vote and became the second political force in the country, only after the Christian Democrats of the CDU-CSU and ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.

The AfD has 15 seats in the European Parliament. To form a parliamentary group you need at least 23 people from seven different countries. Members of the new group could come mainly from signatories of the so-called Sofia Declaration, launched in April this year by the Bulgarian Vazrazhden (Renaissance) party to demand, among other things, peace talks in Ukraine and an end to what is described as the EU’s “unbridled bureaucracy.” The declaration also states that European civilization is “threatened by the aggression of globalist ideologies.”

AFD’s potential partners in the new group include SALF from Spain, SOS Romania; Slovak Hnuty Republika (Republican Movement); NIH from Greece; Mi Hazank Mozgalom (Our Motherland) from Hungary, and Confederation from Poland.

Therefore, the creation of this new group would change the distribution of populist right-wing forces in the European Parliament. By placing themselves on the far right, the other two groups could be presented as more moderate by comparison. Indeed, Marine Le Pen and her party, the National Rally, have been trying to adopt a strategy of moderation towards the outside world for months. Next Saturday will be the first round of parliamentary elections in France, in which Le Pen’s party is the favorite.

Other far-right groups, the European Reformists and Conservatives (ECR), including the Spanish militants of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party with neo-fascist roots, the Brothers of Italy, or Vox, have also tried to tone down their radicalism. To the point that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has drawn up a low cordon sanitaire, differentiating between the acceptable extreme right, such as Meloni and other parties within the ECR, and another undesirable one, which she considers “friends” of Putin, including the AfD.

The German party has not commented publicly on the creation of the new group. Der Spiegel It has been able to confirm that this is being carried out due to a leaked email in which a member of the party requests the European Parliament to use a room for 100 people to hold a “constitutional meeting of a new parliamentary group” on 27 June. The email requested the service food and drink For a two-hour meeting: “Water, coffee, something to eat.”

The AfD will discuss its plans for Europe during its annual congress in the western German city of Essen this weekend. In late May, after the ID group decided to exclude them, the leaders of the political formation, Alice Weidel and Tino Krupalla, assured in a statement that the party “will certainly strive to guarantee a powerful parliamentary group in the European Parliament with a large delegation.” The party co-chairs claimed to be “confident” that they can “count on reliable partners in the new legislature.”

The AfD is the only party in the German Bundestag that advocates abolishing the European Union in its current form. The preamble to its electoral program states, “We believe that the European Union cannot be reformed and we consider it a failed project.” Instead, they defend a “union of European nations” in which the sovereignty of member states is of greater importance. In immigration policy, the party advocates protecting external borders to prevent illegal immigration and encouraging deportations to create a “fortress Europe”. A few months earlier, AfD members had attended a secret meeting with well-known neo-Nazis to discuss the “re-emigration” plan, according to which millions of people of foreign origin would be expelled from Germany. The leak of this news caused a major scandal and demonstrations in several cities in Germany.

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