A far-right party’s stunning election win has sparked fears it could hand Germany’s secrets straight to Moscow.
Adrian Zorzut
Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) could leak sensitive information to Russia, politicians have warned.
The AfD, known for its friendly stance towards Moscow, scored a stunning victory in a regional election this week, becoming the largest party in Saxony-Anhalt in the first far-right election win of its kind since World War II.
Exit polls showed the AfD securing at least 44 per cent of the vote on Sunday, more than doubling its support since the last state election in 2021 and comfortably defeating Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right CDU, which plunged to 18.5 per cent.
The result could give the AfD as many as 39 of the state parliament’s 83 seats, leaving it just short of an outright majority.
Whether it can actually take power remains uncertain. Germany’s major political parties have maintained a “firewall” against the AfD, refusing to form coalitions with the party.
But the party’s astounding victory could have sinister repercussions for Germany’s national security and the stability of the EU.
Georg Maier, the interior minister for Thuringia, a landlocked region in Germany, warned an AfD-run state security service could hand over sensitive information to Russia, which Moscow could use to destabilise the central European country.
He told the Handelsblatt the Kremlin “makes no secret of the fact that the AfD is the most important instrument for destabilising Germany for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
“In light of the current attacks on our critical infrastructure, it would be disastrous if the findings of security authorities were to leak to Russia,” he said.
Marc Henrichmann, a CDU politician in the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, and chair of the Parliamentary Control Committee, shared Mr Maier’s concerns.
“The AfD is a security risk because of its pandering to Putin’s aggressive regime,” he said.
Mr Henrichmann said like-minded right-wing parties are distancing themselves from the AfD because of its lack of distancing itself from the Kremlin.
Irene Mihalic, from the Green Party, said she believed the AfD was a “willing instrument” of Putin’s hybrid, large-scale attacks on the country.
“We must assume that the AfD would pass on top-secret information and access without batting an eye,” she said.
Last week, Germany blamed Moscow for an attempted “hybrid attack” involving an explosive-laden drone at Leipzig Airport in August.
Mr Putin in televised comments later branded those moves “another mistake, a serious one”, saying it “clearly runs counter to the interests of the German people”.
German media reported Wednesday that police had identified two Russian suspects linked to the attempt.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) daily and the regional public broadcasters NDR and WDR said the first suspect was a Belarusian national who also held a Russian passport.
The second held Latvian and Russian passports and was believed to have acted as logistics coordinator and instructor for the attack.
The European Union expressed “full solidarity” with Germany while NATO assured that it would defend its members. Countries including Britain, France and Poland offered strong backing.
Germany will close Russia’s consulate in the former capital Bonn, later this month, and cancel the contract for the Russian House, a cultural centre in Berlin, said Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.
“We are tightening entry controls for Russian nationals” and Germany would propose the listing of more Russian individuals for European Union sanctions, he added, as the Russian ambassador to Berlin was summoned.
In March, three EU diplomats and four German lawmakers told Politico they feared access to confidential EU documents by Russia-friendly AfD could be shared with Moscow.
German MPs, including AfD pollies, have access to a databank of thousands of EU files. Those include confidential notes from meetings of ambassadors where the bloc’s diplomats hash out their countries’ positions on geopolitical issues like funding Ukraine and freezing Russian assets.
“The problem is that we have a party, the AfD, of which there are justified suspicions of information leaking to China or Russia,” said Greens lawmaker Anton Hofreiter, chair of the Bundestag’s EU affairs committee.
