Lawmakers from Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party are facing accusations from political rivals that they have used their position to spy for Russia, France-Presse reported on 22 October.
Politicians from the Alternative for Germany party have filed numerous parliamentary requests demanding details about critical infrastructure, security and military matters, especially in eastern Thuringia.
“Almost inevitably one gets the impression that Alternative for Germany is working to the Kremlin’s order list in its investigations,” Thuringian Interior Minister Georg Meier told the Handelsblatt newspaper.
The party rejects the allegations as unfounded. But several leading figures in the political force maintain close and often controversial ties with Russia and have criticised Germany’s support for Ukraine in its fight against Moscow.
In the Bundestag, AfD lawmakers have also filed numerous “very problematic requests,” apparently at the request of “authoritarian states,” according to Greens lawmaker and deputy chairman of the legislature’s intelligence oversight committee, Konstantin von Notz.
After a record result in the lute national elections, where the party came second behind the centre-right CDU/CSU bloc, the AfD’s ratings continue to rise and many polls now consider it the largest party in Germany.
AfD lawmakers have categorically denied spying.
AfD deputy in the German parliament Bernd Baumann told AFP that his colleagues had tried to uncover details about Germany’s abandoned infrastructure and abandoned security plans.
“There is nothing secret about the facts revealed. They form the basis of the public, democratic work of the opposition,” Baumann said.
Germany’s foreign intelligence service BND declined to comment on the allegations. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency BfV did not immediately respond to an AFP request.
A government spokesman said it had been informed of the allegations against AfD but would not comment.