Germany rebuked the Secretary of State Marco Rubio after criticizing the country’s intelligence agency to classify the alternative of the extreme right -wing political party for Germany, an “proven extremist organization of the right.”
“We have learned from our history that right -wing extremism must stop,” wrote the Foreign Ministry of Germany in X, in direct response to Rubio.
AFD, whose firm supporters include vice president JD Vance and billionaire Elon Musk, was already under surveillance for the alleged extremism for the intelligence services of Germany, which on Friday qualified for the party as an “extremist organization of the right proven right.”
Rubio, who on Friday became the interim national security advisor of President Donald Trump, withdrew the designation, calling the measure “disguised tyranny”, in a publication on X Friday. “Germany has just given its spy agency new powers to examine the opposition.”
“That is not democracy,” said Rubio.
To that, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied: “This is democracy.”
The rise of AFD, which achieved great profits in Germany’s general elections in February and ended in second place, has been part of a wave of the extreme right in Europe, whose proponents have forged close ties with Trump’s White House.
The Co-leader of the AFD, Alice Weidel, described the electoral of his party, acquires a “glorious success”, alarming great stripes of a country deeply aware of his Nazi past.
Bundesamt Für Verfassungsschutz, the country’s intelligence agency, said the party “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society.” AFD also does not consider German citizens with a history of migration from Muslim countries as equal to the German people, the agency said in their Friday statement.
Weidel’s response to the designation was aligned with Rubio’s criticism, accusing the agency to advance the political interests of the ruling government.
“Since the AFD is the strongest game in surveys now, they want to suppress opposition and freedom of expression,” he said in an X publication.
The German Foreign Ministry said the classification was the result of an “thorough and independent investigation to protect our constitution and the rule of law.”
Under Weidel, AFD has moved from the stripes to a rapid movement that won his first regional elections and obtained the support of the Trump administration.
The party promotes a populist economy policy of large tax cuts and public expenses, encourages strong anti -immigrant feelings and defends traditional family values, including the opposite gay marriage, although Weidel herself breeds two children with her female partner born in Sri Lanka, Sarah Bossard.
Weidel has been able to take advantage of a nationalist and anti-EU feeling together with hostilities against Muslims and foreigners, to build a strength for the party in the regions that once formed Eastern Germany, where the skeptic for the support of NATO and Germany to Ukraine are among the strongest in the country.
Vance and Musk followed Rubio in their criticism, with the vice president saying that the AFD was the “most popular party in Germany and, with much, the most representative of Eastern Germany.”
“West broke the Berlin wall together. And it has been rebuilt, not by the Soviet or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” Vance said in an X publication.
Prohibiting AFD “would be an extreme attack against democracy,” Musk said in a position on X, calling the “centrist” party and repeating Vance’s claims that was the “most popular party” in Germany.
AFD, and Weidel herself, have denied accusations of extremism, although the co -founder of the Alexander Gauland party, once, dismissed Hitler’s dictatorship as a “bird peanut motorcycle” and its main candidate, Maximilian Krah, said the SS, the main paramilitary force of the Nazis, were not all of the criminals. ”
