Germany’s far-right AfD party holds congress despite virus curbs

BERLIN — Around 600 delegates from Germany’s far-right AfD gather for a congress that the authorities have warned could become a coronavirus hotspot, as the party increasingly aligns itself with militants protesting anti-COVID restrictions.

Alternative for Germany co-leader Tino Chrupalla opens the event by attacking the “state of emergency” policy introduced by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to tackle the health crisis.

“Lives have been broken, there’s a wave of bankruptcies… lots of people have lost their jobs,” he tells the congress being held in a vast hall in a former nuclear plant in the western city of Kalkar.

To win approval for the huge gathering at a time when Germans are asked to limit their contacts to just two households at a time, the AfD had to sign up to stringent rules including compulsory mask wearing and social distancing.

Outside the venue — now a hotel and leisure complex — about 500 people demonstrate against the staging of the conference following a call by the “Stand up to Racism” coalition.

Kalkar’s mayor Britta Schulz had said it was “irresponsible” to hold such a big event and warned it could “become a (virus) hotspot,” but acknowledged that the gathering could not be banned.

In contrast, Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union has twice postponed its congress to elect a new leader because of the risks of coronavirus contagion.

The Green party last weekend held its meeting online.

Shrugging off possible risks, the AfD’s health policy spokesman Detlev Spangenberg claims: “The coronavirus is comparable to the influenza in terms of the course taken by the illness as well as in terms of its lethality. So the serious measures (taken to fight it) are not proportionate.”

Germany has recorded more than one million coronavirus infections and close to 16,000 people have died, according to official data.

— AFP