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AfD man Fest: resignation after internal party dispute
Photo: Christoph Soeder / dpa
After a dispute in the AfD delegation of the European Parliament, the head of the delegation, MEP Nicolaus Fest, resigned.
"I no longer had confidence in the delegation," the 60-year-old told the German Press Agency in Brussels on Wednesday.
This was preceded by a dispute in the AfD group about Fest's allegations against his parliamentary group and party colleague Maximilian Krah.
It was about the allegation that Krah should have manipulated the award of a PR contract for the parliamentary group.
The head of the right-wing National Identity and Democracy Group (ID), to which the AfD belongs in the European Parliament, therefore decided on Wednesday to exclude Krah from the group for three months.
Krah, who is a member of the federal executive board of the AfD and is a member of the Saxon state association, ran unsuccessfully for the office of mayor of Dresden last year.
The ID faction had suspended his membership in the 2022 faction for several months.
At the time, he was accused of publicly supporting the party of right-wing extremist Éric Zemmour, rather than Marine Le Pen of the ID-member Rassemblement National party, in the French presidential election campaign.
In the AfD delegation, on the other hand, there was displeasure that Fest had pushed for Krah's exclusion.
This, in turn, prompted Fest to resign.
Joachim Kuhs is acting as head of the German delegation in the ID parliamentary group.
AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla welcomed Fest's resignation on Wednesday.
"I am pleased that the delegation is now calm again." Now the parliamentary group can prepare the European elections with the other partners.
"So the step was logical and only consistent."
Fest has been in the European Parliament for the AfD since 2019.
He had been head of the AfD deputies in the right-wing national parliamentary group Identity and Democracy (ID) for a good year.
fin/dpa/AFX
