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AfD parliamentary group leadership in the plenum of the German Bundestag
Photo: CLEMENS BILAN / EPA-EFE / REX
The FDP would like to move.
She no longer wants to sit next to the AfD parliamentary group in the German Bundestag.
It is said that you simply feel uncomfortable with such neighbors.
"We don't just hear what the AfD says into the microphones," said the Liberals' First Parliamentary Managing Director, Marco Buschmann.
“We also hear the whispering and hissing of the MPs.
It's hard to take these sayings. "
AfD MP Beatrix von Storch, for example, already insulted him as a terrorist. According to bad rumors, the AfD block smells of long-expired social plans and hard-to-digest home cooking. The risk of corona infection is also exponentially greater on the right wing of parliament because the gentlemen (and the few women) are probably not properly vaccinated and use their masks as chin warmer, if at all. One can understand the desire of the Liberals for a transfer.
I know the phenomenon from school. In my class there was a boy (let's call him Bernd) who nobody wanted to sit next to. The problem was that Bernd obviously didn't like people. In any case, he belched and farted demonstratively in our presence, and our horror gave him great pleasure. Bernd was always in a bad mood. And when he was in a terribly bad mood, he was quickly violent. Here in the Rhineland there is a nice expression for guys like him: nasty Möpp. Nobody wanted to sit next to Bernd and still someone had to sit there. Usually the place next to Bernd was the penalty for other misconduct. Our teacher was consistent with that.
The FDP had also earned its place next to the AfD, on the right edge of parliament. When the refugee crisis helped the AfD to recover, the chief liberal Christian Linder also blinked sharply to the right, called Merkel's “policy of unlimited reception” as “irresponsible” and accused her of “plunging Europe into chaos”. He gave right-wing media interviews and at least gave the impression that he wanted to collect votes from the right wing. In the 2017 election campaign, the FDP sometimes looked like an AfD light - although the light product is usually just as toxic as the original. You know that from cigarettes. And then the FDP man Thomas Kemmerich was also elected by the AfD as Prime Minister of Thuringia.
Apparently the shame of Thuringia has changed something.
Since then, it has to be said, the liberals have consistently stopped any flirtation with the right.
The transfer away from the AfD would not be entirely undeserved.
The only question is who should sit next to Alice Weidel and Co. instead.
In any case, nobody wants to swap voluntarily.
The problem with Bernd took care of itself. He left school at some point.
For the Bundestag, too, leaving the AfD would be the most elegant solution.
Until then, in four years at the earliest, you should think about Plexiglas panes.
