Peter Boehringer: Is Germany's far right in a powerful position?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Germany, Europe’s most powerful economy, will hold elections in February after the collapse of Chancellor Scholz's ruling coalition. Stephen Sackur speaks to Peter Boehringer, who is a senior MP for the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party. Is his party too extreme to be a serious contender for national power?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:04.7 | My guest today, Peter Buringer, is a senior figure in a German political party that was founded |
| 0:11.1 | a little over a decade ago and has established significant momentum. |
| 0:16.1 | Alternative for Deutschland is routinely described as far right. It is a nationalist populist party with a strident |
| 0:25.0 | anti-immigration message at the heart of its platform. Add to that, a deep skepticism about the European |
| 0:31.9 | Union and a promise to halt military and financial assistance to Ukraine whilst re-establishing warm economic ties with Russia, |
| 0:40.4 | and the AFD has found a formula that resonates especially strongly in Germany's eastern regions |
| 0:47.1 | and more economically deprived communities. But the AFD remains deeply controversial. |
| 1:00.1 | One prominent leader has been convicted for his use of language, banned for its Nazi connotations. |
| 1:03.8 | Others have faced allegations of taking covert funds from Russia. |
| 1:09.8 | While wrongdoing has been denied, the German courts have upheld the right of German Federal Intelligence Services to monitor the |
| 1:12.2 | AFD as a potentially extremist organisation. Amid these continued controversies, the party performed |
| 1:19.1 | well in last summer's elections to the European Parliament, coming second to the Christian Democrats. |
| 1:24.5 | But now it faces a bigger test, a national election in February |
| 1:28.8 | following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Schultz's ruling coalition. Is the AFD ready to make |
| 1:35.4 | new advances, or is it too extreme to get close to national power? Well, Peter Buringer joins me |
| 1:42.7 | now on the line from Berlin. Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:46.6 | Hello, Stephen, and thank you for having me again. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Now, |
| 1:50.9 | it seems almost certain, not quite official yet, but almost certain that Germans will vote in |
| 1:55.9 | national elections in February 2025. That poses a challenge for your AFD party. How ambitious are you? What are your |
| 2:04.9 | expectations for your performance in this national election? The official polling numbers are |
| 2:10.2 | 18 to 19 percent on a federal level, obviously very different in the east compared to the |
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