Normalisation in the Bundestag – a firewall?

The dispatch of AfD members of parliament as official parliamentary representatives of the German Bundestag to transnational conferences and working meetings has now become completely normal. Neither their delegation colleagues nor the Bundestag committees or the Bundestag administration seem to be asking themselves what understanding of democracy the members of this party are actually supposed to convey abroad. Nor do the media.

Here are a few recent examples:

- The German Bundestag is participating in the 32nd Annual Meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly from 29 June to 3 July in Porto (Portugal) with a ten-member delegation led by Tobias Winkler (CDU/CSU). The delegation also included AfD MPs Malte Kaufmann and Stefan Keuter.

- The German Bundestag sent Stephan Meyer (CDU/CSU) and – of all people – AfD MP Maximilian Krah to the ‘Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean’ in Malaga on 26 and 27 June 2025. The theme of the assembly was migration issues and opportunities for increased cooperation in the Mediterranean region. Here is the Bundestag's press release.

- At the beginning of June, Keuter and Kaufmann attended an OECD meeting in Rome (Italy) on the subject of organised crime, at which the Italian right-wing politician Matteo Salvini also presented his successes in the fight against the Mafia.

- The German Bundestag sent a delegation led by Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker (CDU/CSU) to the 150th Assembly of the IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, from 5 to 9 April 2025, once again with AfD MPs Malte Kaufmann and Stefan Keuter. See this report by the MPs.

The legislative period has only just begun. Nothing is known yet about the composition of the international parliamentary groups in the 21st legislative period, which, like the regular parliamentary committees, carry out regular delegation trips. It is unclear whether AfD MPs also took part in the NATO spring meeting in Dayton (USA).

Redacción: Ulli Jentsch