German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union leaders condemned attacks on politicians in Germany.
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In Dresden on May 4, Member of the European Parliament Matthias Ecke was brutally beaten; he is in hospital with serious injuries.
Ecke, 41, a member of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), was attacked by a group of four people, police said. They started beating him while he was putting up posters in Dresden, the capital of the eastern state of Saxony. The SPD said he would require surgery.
According to police, a 28-year-old Green Party activist who was also putting up posters was allegedly attacked by the same men shortly before, although his injuries were not as serious.
“Such events threaten democracy,” Scholz said at the congress of European socialists in Berlin.
It is not yet known who exactly attacked the members of the SPD and the Green Party.
But the beatings came amid a widespread rise in violence in Germany, which is often blamed on the far right. Moreover, the targets of attacks are often left-wing politicians.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, says far-right extremism is the biggest threat to democracy in Germany.
Conservative Prime Minister of Saxony Michael Kretschmer said that such aggression and attempts at intimidation are reminiscent of the darkest era of German history, referring to the years of Nazi rule.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a former German Conservative minister, and the head of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, condemned the attack on Ecke. “The culprits must be brought to justice,” von der Leyen said on social media X.
The SPD blamed supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party for the attack on Ecke.
“Their fans are now completely disillusioned and are apparently treating us Democrats as fair game,” the statement said.
Saxony is one of the AfD’s political strongholds.
According to Saxony’s interior ministry, 51 politically motivated crimes against election posters were reported to police in the first week of the European election campaign.
Since the beginning of the year, 112 politically motivated crimes have been registered in connection with the elections in Saxony, 30 of which are against officials or elected officials.
Background
In addition to the European Parliament elections, some German states will hold local elections in 2024.
Elections to the Bundestag are scheduled for autumn 2025, but in 2024 there will be elections to the European Parliament in Germany and in three East German states – Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony.
The results will affect the overall political situation in the country, because the government coalition parties (Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals) are now supported by only a third of voters. A December infratest-dimap poll showed that only 17% of voters were satisfied with Olaf Scholz’s government.
Against the backdrop of rising costs of living, a 0.3% decline in GDP in 2023, protests by farmers and a strike by railway workers, and pessimistic sentiment among the population, the popularity of radical political parties, primarily the far-right Alternative for Germany, is growing.
In the East German states, she could come first with more than 30% of the vote in elections to local state parliaments in September. And it will be difficult to form local governments without the participation of this party. Recently, the popularity of forming a coalition between the opposition CDU-CSU and the Alternative has been growing, although the Christian Democrats reject this.
Source: Racurs
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.