Berlin —
The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday said Germany should reconsider its membership of NATO if the U.S.-led military alliance did not consider the interests of all European countries, including Russia. “Europe has been forced to implement America’s interests. We reject that,” the AfD’s Tino Chrupalla told German daily Welt. “NATO is currently not a defense alliance. A defense community must accept and respect the interests of all European countries — including Russia’s interests,” Chrupalla said. “If NATO cannot ensure that, Germany must consider to what extent this alliance is still useful for us,” he added. The far-right AfD is polling at around 18-19% ahead of snap elections on February 23, following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government last month. The score puts the party ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats at 16-17% and behind only the conservative CDU-CSU bloc, which is polling around 31-32%. The AfD has little chance of forming a government because other parties have ruled out cooperation with the far-right group. But it could continue a streak of strong electoral showings, after a landmark win in Thuringia, one of the regions in Germany’s formerly communist east. The far-right party has been a vocal critic of Germany’s military support for Ukraine and has argued for a swift end to the war prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. “The German government must finally get to the point of wanting to end the war,” said Chrupalla, whose colleague, Alice Weidel, will lead the AfD into the election as the party’s candidate for chancellor. “Russia has won this war. Reality has caught up with those who claim to want to enable Ukraine to win the war,” he said. The conflict in Ukraine is set to be one of the major themes of the campaign, which will culminate on the eve of the third anniversary of the invasion. Scholz has pledged sustained support for Ukraine but has counseled prudence, as he hopes to tap into pacifist currents among voters, which are particularly strong in the east. The chancellor has resisted calls to send long-range missiles that Kyiv could use to strike Russian territory for fear of being drawn into the conflict, and recently reinitiated direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
