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US vice president JD Vance has said he will implore Berlin to work with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to curb migration, despite an unofficial ban on collaborating with the group.
Mr Vance is speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday against the backdrop of president Donald Trump blindsiding Europe and Kyiv by organising a one-to-one with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal ahead of his address, he criticised European leaders for their handling of migration issues, after Mr Trump’s hardline stance propelled him back into the White House.
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“It’s really about censorship and about migration, about this fear that President Trump and I have, that European leaders are kind of terrified of their own people,” Mr Vance said. “I think, unfortunately, the will of voters has been ignored by a lot of our European friends.”
Mr Vance also said he thought that Russian interference in western democracy was overplayed and that migration was a greater threat.
“If your democratic society can be taken down by $200,000 of social media ads, then you should think seriously about how strong your grip on or how strong your understanding of the will of the people actually is,” he said.
During his visit to Munich Mr Vance is expected to tell the European leaders in attendance that the continent must embrace the rise of antiestablishment politics, stop mass migration and halt progressive policies.
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He told the WSJ he will tell German politicians to end the country’s longstanding firewall around the AfD, known as “Brandmaeur”, which prevents all parties from working with the far-right group.
The AfD has come under fierce criticism over the years for its use of Nazi terminology, its hardline anti-immigration stance and its affinity to Mr Putin’s Russia. It is also under surveillance by German security services for far-right extremism.
The group has been buoyed by a recent endorsement by tech billionaire Elon Musk, now a close confidante of Mr Trump, who described the far-right organisation as the only party that could “save Europe”. The group’s co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, was subsequently invited to Mr Trump’s inauguration.
Mr Musk also made a surprise appearance at the AfD’s campaign event via video link and said the Germans should not be guilty of their parents’ sins and should be proud of their culture.
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Mr Vance will back Mr Musk during his speech at the MSC, with the billionaire owner of X expected to be in the crowd, before claiming that the firewall, as well as the wider European opposition to the far right on the continent, is curtailing the will of the people.
Freidrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and who is expected to win the chancellorship during elections on 23 February, recently broke the firewall when he used the AfD’s votes to pass a motion calling on the government to reintroduce permanent border controls and prioritise the deportation of those legally required to leave.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), branded the move an “unforgivable mistake” that undoes the longstanding principle of opposition to far-right movements in Germany.
Mr Scholz will be among the European leaders present at the MSC during Mr Vance’s speech.
