European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen mocked the launch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s European Parliament election campaign, which was overshadowed by spying scandals and suspicions of buying up foreign influence.
The AfD’s leading candidate Maximilian Krahsat at the campaign’s launch event on Saturday, less than a week after a top aide to Krah was arrested on charges of spying for China.
Krah himself is currently the subject of a preliminary investigation by German prosecutors into possible payments from Russia and China, and whether any payments could have affected his work in the European Parliament.
“First hidden by the board of directors, then hidden by the board of directors – what about when the AfD finally comes out with the truth?” Von der Leyen said on Sunday at an event for the youth wing of her centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in the western German city of Aachen.
AfD leaders decided to stick with Krah despite the scandal, but removed him from the program for the party’s campaign launch on Saturday.
Von der Leyen also hammered home proposals from the Eurosceptic AfD that Germany should break away from the European Union.
This would entail huge costs for the German economy, von der Leyen said, citing a study by the German Economic Institute (IW).
The IW calculated that a so-called “Dexit” (or Deutschland Exit) would cost Germany about 10% of its economic output, von der Leyen said.
No member state benefits more from the EU’s single market than Germany, von der Leyen said, noting that 55% of German exports go to other countries in the single market.
Leaving the EU would mean a loss of prosperity of 400 to 500 billion euros per year for Germany and the loss of 2.2 million jobs.
“The AfD’s European program is a job destruction programme,” said Von der Leyen.
