FPÖ-AfD friendship

ÖVP and SPÖ demand consequences after SS slogan

Herbert Kickl at a joint appearance with AfD leader Alice Weidel in 2023

(Bild: APA/EVA MANHART)

The AfD's top EU candidate, Maximilian Krah, has told an Italian newspaper that not all members of the SS were criminals. French right-wing populist Marine Le Pen wants a "clear break" with the party. The SPÖ and ÖVP are now calling on the FPÖ to do the same.

The ÖVP and SPÖ sharply criticized the statements of the German AfD's top EU candidate, Maximilian Krah, on Wednesday. ÖVP EU lead candidate Reinhold Lopatka and SPÖ Federal Managing Director Klaus Seltenheim called on the FPÖ to immediately end its cooperation with the AfD in the Identity and Democracy (ID) parliamentary group.

Le Pen keeps her distance
The French right-wing populist Marine Le Pen and her party Rassemblement National (RN) had previously announced their intention to do so. "Now is no longer the time to distance ourselves, it is time to make a clear break with this movement, which is not led and is clearly under the influence of radical groups within the movement," Le Pen said on Wednesday.

Le Pen had previously sharply criticized possible plans to deport migrants from Germany. The contacts of Krah and other AfD politicians to Russia and China are also controversial.

AfD pulls emergency brake
The AfD is now doing damage limitation. A good two weeks before the European elections, the party leadership is breaking with its lead candidate. A party spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday that the federal executive had banned Krah from appearing. Krah himself declared on X that he would refrain from further campaign appearances and would resign as a member of the federal executive.

His statement can be read here:

"Following the AfD's unconstitutional demand for remigration and the AfD EU lead candidate's SS statements", Le Pen is ending cooperation with the AfD, Lopatka said in a statement on Wednesday. "Kickl thus remains the only ally of the AfD, which is classified as a suspected right-wing extremist by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution."

ÖVP sees connection to Putin
What welds the AfD and FPÖ together is their complicity with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "The Kickl FPÖ is called upon to avert further damage and show where it really stands. On the side of Austria or on the side of their far-right German friends who want to destroy Europe," said the ÖVP EU lead candidate.

"The fact that the FPÖ has still not ended its cooperation with the AfD after the AfD's numerous far-right affairs and the intolerable statements made by its top candidate on the SS shows that the FPÖ wants to lead Austria into isolation. The FPÖ's adherence to the AfD and their shared closeness to Putin endanger Austria's neutrality," emphasized Seltenheim in a press release.

SPÖ also shoots against ÖVP
Seltenheim called Lopatka's statements "completely implausible". "On the one hand, the ÖVP criticizes the behaviour of the FPÖ, on the other hand, neither the ÖVP in Austria nor the EPP in Europe rule out cooperation with right-wing populists. The conservatives would do anything to retain power."