Wadephul: AfD success would weaken Germany and isolate it in Europe
Foreign Minister Wadephul warns against a further rise of the AfD. He calls the AfD-BSW resolution against Russia sanctions in Saxony-Anhalt “against German interests”.
Archive image · Photo: Olaf Kosinsky / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de (cropped and resized)
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) has warned that a further rise of the AfD would damage Germany's standing in the world. “If something like that happened across Germany, we would be weaker,” he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, referring to the Saxony-Anhalt state election in which the AfD came a clear first. He said the AfD was isolated even among Europe's right-wing populist parties.
“Nobody wants anything to do with them any more,” Wadephul said, pointing to Viktor Orbán being voted out in Hungary. In his assessment, the AfD's stance on Russia would isolate Germany “in Europe as well”. The occasion is a motion by the AfD and BSW, passed by the state parliament in Magdeburg, calling for an end to sanctions against Russia and a halt to arms deliveries to Ukraine.
The resolution has no legal consequences, Wadephul stressed, since under the Basic Law foreign relations are a federal matter: “Nothing follows from it.” He said he had only skimmed the text, but that its content was wrong: “It is wrong and it is against German interests.” According to ZDFheute, Wadephul also said in the interview: “My party, the CDU, could also campaign more regularly and more assertively for supporting Ukraine.”