Germany’s possible next prime minister warned that Europe no longer relies on the United States to defend it unconditionally, on the eve of the election where the country’s far-right pro-Russian party will achieve its best in its history.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic League, said in a vote on Friday that the country’s Democratic League will receive the highest vote on Friday, but Berlin seeks two Western Europe A deeper security assurance for the United Kingdom and France of nuclear weapons.
He commented when he expressed doubts that the United States under Donald Trump would fully accept its NATO treaty obligations, the cornerstone of the Transatlantic Alliance.
Asked if he would “bet everything” and the U.S. president abides by NATO’s common defense commitments, Melz said: “We must be for Donald Trump to no longer fully accept the NATO Treaty.” Be prepared for the commitment to assistance. Transparent
The center-right leader called on Europeans to “do whatever it takes to at least be able to defend themselves. . When he himself raised a discussion with London and Paris “about nuclear sharing or at least nuclear security from Britain and France may also apply to us).
The frank remarks underlined the European capital’s deep concern about Washington’s commitment to the security of the continent in the week of U.S.’s healing ties to Russia, and blamed the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion.
On Friday, the German interior ministry warned that Russia’s disinformation actions have affected the campaign with fake videos spreading on social media in Hamburg and Leipzig.
Security agencies in Leipzig and Hamburg have identified multiple pseudo-media websites and social media accounts as part of the network, adding to concerns about Russia’s intervention in the democratic process.
Melz’s comments were also posted in the poll, which showed that the far-right alternative to the rebellious German party is expected to win one-fifth of the vote, doubled in the last game.
The surge in AFD is amid the background of a campaign about immigration dominated by a fierce political debate.
Police said Friday night that a man was injured after being stabbed at a Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. They said the attackers were searching.
Mainstream German politicians were shocked last week, when U.S. Vice President JD Vance seemed to suggest that unless Europe cooperates with far-right parties in political mainstream, “the United States can do nothing about you.”
Vance then met with Alice Weidel, co-led AFD at the Munich Security Conference, but did not meet with Olaf Scholz, the country’s centre-left prime minister.
Green candidate Robert Habeck, the outgoing economy minister, portrays the election and the government it will lead to, perhaps Germany’s last chance to postpone the far right. “If we don’t solve the problem for the next four years, right-wing populism will not be able to stop it,” he said Friday.
On Friday, a Forsa poll put CDUs in 29%, AFDs in 21%, and Scholz’s SPD in 15%, the worst failure since 1887 and the lineup.
The strong performance of the AFD will make Merz’s mission to form the government more difficult, and he vows not to work with it.
It would be a challenge if smaller parties, such as liberals, left-wing Link and new parties led by left-wing left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht.
To demonstrate the growing confidence of the AFD, Weidel released a compilation with senior international support on Friday, which recently won the party’s victory. The video features Vance, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump’s confidant, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Austrian far-right Liberal Party leader He Herbert Kickl.
By contrast, the former leader of the party once regarded the Nazi era as just “bird shit” in a grand plan for 1,000 years of German history. He was previously even by the French Marine Le Pen Wait for distant politicians to avoid.
The surge in AFD will mark a sharp swing of rights in the eurozone’s largest economy, which has struggled to cope with high energy prices and competition from higher Chinese manufacturers, due to anxiety about immigration and deep dissatisfaction with the Scholz administration.
“Markets and election polls feel calm about the election,” said Tomasz Wieladek, chief European economist at asset manager T Rowe Price.
Merz, 69, left political ten years after losing power with partisan rival Angela Merkel, also stressed the scale of the economic challenge on Friday. “The most important bet in the future is that we will increase the power of this economic growth again,” the former Blackstone German president said.
Merz also expressed his concern this week, though he hopes the United States is “still a democracy and will not slip into an authoritarian populist system. . The United States may enter a longer period of instability, such Populism, the autocratic behavior of the head of state, will continue.”
Other reports by Ian Smith
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