Ein geheimes Abendessen bringt das Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht in Erklärungsnot: Fünf BSW-Abgeordnete speisen mit der AfD und dem rechtsextremen Publizisten Jürgen Elsässer. Während die BSW-Spitze tobt, wittert die AfD ihre Chance für die Ministerpräsidentenwahl in Sachsen-Anhalt. Wie ein raffinierter CDU-Plan den AfD-Kandidaten Ulrich Siegmund stoppen soll, offenbart einen beispiellosen Machtkampf.

Abseits der Ränkespiele eskaliert ein Streit um das Gedenken an den Terroranschlag von Halle. Jüdische Studenten verwehren dem Landtagsvizepräsidenten Hans-Thomas Tillschneider den Zutritt zur Synagoge – ein Eklat, der den AfD-Umgang mit Antisemitismusvorwürfen offenlegt. Zugleich spürt die Partei wirtschaftlichen Gegenwind, als BMW dem Landtagspräsidenten Tobias Rausch den Dienstwagen verweigert.

Auch beim Parteinachwuchs rumort es gewaltig: Im Bundesvorstand der „Generation Deutschland“ wirft Helmut Strauß nach wenigen Monaten hin. Der Grund sind Großmachtfantasien und eine gepostete Landkarte, die selbst in AfD-Kreisen als zu radikal gilt. Ein tiefer Einblick in die ideologischen Grabenkämpfe der Parteijugend, der zeigt, wo die rote Linie der AfD verläuft.

„Inside AfD“ ist der POLITICO-Podcast über die umstrittenste Partei des Landes. Trotz Radikalisierung und Beobachtung durch den Verfassungsschutz wächst die AfD weiter. Wie ist das möglich? Was treibt ihre Anhänger, Strategen und Gegner an? Wie funktioniert das Innenleben der Partei? Und was bedeutet ihr Aufstieg für das politische System Deutschlands?

Antworten liefern immer mittwochs Pauline von Pezold von POLITICO und Frederik Schindler von WELT — unaufgeregt, aber kritisch.

Fragen und Feedback gern an insideafd@politico.eu.

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BRUSSELS — Three of the European Parliament’s biggest political groups say they will fight an EU proposal to relax carbon pricing rules, opening a rift that could push conservative lawmakers to side with the far right to weaken the bloc’s climate ambition.

The center-left Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew Europe and the Greens all said in recent days that they would try to preserve an ambitious path to net zero under the Emissions Trading System, forcing heavy industry to cut planet-warming emissions faster than Brussels proposes.

That puts them at odds with the center-right European People’s Party, Parliament’s biggest group, which broadly supports the European Commission’s proposal.

For years, those four groups have worked together in Parliament to pass legislation that strikes a political middle ground, shunning collaboration with the far right. The sometimes uneasy alliance has ensured consistent, bipartisan support for the ETS, Europe’s most powerful tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But now, a reform of the landmark cap-and-trade scheme, unveiled by the EU executive in July, looks set to become a bellwether in an era when, increasingly, the center no longer holds.

The EPP is steering Parliament’s work on the proposed ETS revision through veteran German lawmaker Peter Liese, who wants to find a deal that satisfies everyone.

“I don’t want the Venezuelan majority. It’s against my convictions, but it is also not possible because nobody would see [Marine] Le Pen, the Austrian far-right FPÖ or the German extreme-far-right AfD voting for any ETS proposal,” he told POLITICO in September, using the informal term for a controversial alliance of center-right and far-right groups.

Instead, Liese, who maintains close ties with Dutch S&D lawmaker Mohammed Chahim, said he wanted “the broadest possible coalition,” including the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists as well as “the Greens, The Left, if they want.”

But new amendments filed last week by the S&D, the second-largest group in Parliament, as well as the Greens and Renew, point to major schisms over key aspects of the ETS reform. The biggest divide concerns the so-called linear reduction factor, the mechanism that determines how quickly the supply of pollution permits shrinks each year. 

Under the current trajectory, the total cap on carbon emissions for all sectors covered by the ETS falls slightly each year, and would reach zero around 2039 or 2040. At that point, ETS sectors — which include power generators, steelmakers and chemical manufacturers — would no longer be able to emit any carbon dioxide at all. 

Liese’s proposal would push that date into the 2040s, in line with the Commission’s original pitch in the summer. But the three other centrist or left-leaning groups oppose the plan and have tabled nearly identical amendments that would keep the rates high until the end of next decade and bring about quicker industrial decarbonization across Europe. 

Though the percentages between the warring groups appear tiny, they translate into millions of additional tons of CO₂ emissions and expose a growing political gulf. S&D, the Greens and Renew are fighting to preserve Europe’s climate ambitions, while the EPP is increasingly sympathetic to the concerns of the chemicals and metals industries, both of which have been vocally critical of the ETS. 

But just as the chances for a centrist compromise dim, Liese has another possible route.

Memories of fascism in the early twentieth century once discouraged mainstream political groups from working with the far right. That firewall appeared to erode when talks with centrist allies collapsed in 2025 over the first omnibus package governing certain environmental reporting rules. The EPP turned to the right-wing ECR and the far-right Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations to secure a deal, paving the way for similar alliances in the future.

On the ETS, there is a growing risk that it could happen all over again.

Czech lawmaker Alexandr Vondra of the ECR recently floated the possibility of working with Liese to secure a deal backed by his right-wing group during a parliamentary debate on the ETS.

“I would address here specifically EPP because it holds the key to the success of the reform of the ETS system,” he said, before laying out a list of industry-friendly demands that included a much looser trajectory to zero emissions. “If so, count me and my group in.”

Amendments tabled by Vondra this week and seen by POLITICO reflected a similar willingness to work with the EPP and limited regard for emissions reductions. If Liese does decide to shift his compromise to the right and cashes in on ECR votes, it could also quell problems within his own party.

The Polish, Spanish and Italian branches of the EPP are all unhappy with what they see as Liese’s overly climate-friendly proposal, according to three parliamentary insiders. Recent votes in Parliament on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the bloc’s carbon levy on imports that works in tandem with the ETS, exposed fractures within the group, with portions of the EPP supporting right-wing groups or abstaining on a key provision of the legislation.

But how willing far-right groups will be to play ball with the EPP remains to be seen. 

The Europe of Sovereign Nations group — whose members include Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland — is hostile to the ETS and wants it totally abolished. But the Patriots — whose members include France’s National Rally — might provide Liese with an opening: the group generally calls for the policy to be slowed to a halt, especially the upcoming ETS2, as it does all Green Deal legislation. French far-right lawmaker and rising political star Jordan Bardella said as much in a speech to Parliament in May.

“ETS: three letters, an acronym that reeks of detached bureaucracy, with one question that keeps coming up: who’s going to pay?” he said.

PARIS — Raphaël Glucksmann won France’s center-left primary on Sunday, securing the backing of the Socialist Party and its allies for next year’s presidential election, organizers said.

Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament, won the contest outright with over 66% of votes, beating Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure and three other candidates in the first round. More than 120,000 people voted Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The leader of the small center-left Place Publique party entered the contest as one of the favorites. He now emerges strengthened from the primary, with access to Socialist Party funds and having built a broader base for his candidacy.

“This result expresses something strong: that a left that is faithful to its values can unite, govern and win,” the MEP wrote online.

“We are here to win the presidential election: Turn the page on Macronism, stop the far right and change our lives,” he added.

But Glucksmann, a staunch supporter of Ukraine and a critic of China, now faces a much greater challenge: how to beat the far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The head of the France Unbowed party is surging in the polls, with the latest Ifop survey giving him 14% to 17% support, compared to 11% for Glucksmann.

In recent weeks, Glucksmann campaigned against forming an alliance with the far-left leader.

Three other candidates ran in the primary, including former minister Ségolène Royal and lawmakers Jérôme Guedj and Emmanuel Maurel.

Some 140,000 people were registered to vote in the primary — including, 80,000 who paid €15 to take part but weren’t members of any of the parties whose candidates were running — raising uncertainty over the outcome.

The online voting platform was also targeted by a cyberattack shortly after opening, organizers said in a statement on Friday, but “was never disrupted” and “the integrity of the recorded votes has not been compromised.”

The growing popularity of far-right parties across Europe is sparking worries in NATO that they could weaken public support for rearmament and military aid to Ukraine as risks grow of a confrontation with Russia.

In France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Romania, these parties are looking to turn voters’ cost-of-living concerns into opposition to aid for Kyiv, and rejection of higher national defense budgets and a greater role for the EU in defense — although each party has often sharply diverging views on those issues.

France’s National Rally leader Marine Le Pen last month called for limiting aid to Ukraine, saying: “financially, we can’t do it anymore.”

Roberto Vannacci, a former general and MEP who leads the far-right National Future party, which is increasingly challenging Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, called for a rethink of defense spending. “Let’s evaluate whether this military spending is justified: in my opinion, it isn’t, especially at a time when commodity prices are hitting record highs,” he said last week.

The challenge for Europe’s mainstream parties is how to sustain support for higher defense budgets even if that means competing with welfare and other priorities.

“People are struggling with the rising cost of living across the board … so there’s room for populistic rhetoric about how much should we support Ukraine financially, or how much should we invest in defense,” said Janne Kuusela, permanent secretary at Finland’s defense ministry.

The dilemma is sharpening as several large NATO members, including France, Italy and Poland, face elections in 2027, when far-right parties stand a real chance of coming to power. Many countries are also beginning talks on next year’s budgets.

For NATO, a spending slowdown would complicate efforts to meet the alliance’s target of spending 5% of GDP on defense and security by 2035. Four NATO diplomats, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the risk is a growing concern, though some said its effects may not be clear until next year’s budget cycle.

“We’re already in a situation where we need to catch up” with Russia, said a NATO military official. “So far, we’re on a positive trajectory — if someone closes the faucet, there’s a risk of losing capabilities.”

Turning the tide

European countries and Canada are expected to spend $634 billion on core defense needs this year, an 11% hike relative to 2025. But public support has limits.

In eight European countries, an average of 46.2% of respondents said they would not back higher defense spending if it meant higher taxes, while 35.5% were in favor, according to an August poll assessed by the European Council on Foreign Relations and shared with POLITICO. More people were opposed to increasing taxes to finance military spending in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland. Respondents in the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K. were more likely to accept higher taxes for military spending.

Protests against higher defense spending have taken place in Rome, Brussels and Madrid this year, with demonstrators criticizing cuts to funding for hospitals, universities and social services.

Support for Ukraine is declining as well, according to NATO’s internal polling from this spring, falling from 59% in 2025 to 55% this year, with lethal aid the least popular form of support.

Far-right pushback on defense varies across Europe and falls broadly into three categories: opposition to military aid for Ukraine; rejection of EU-level defense projects; and criticism of defense spending more broadly. Yet all threaten to halt the continent’s effort to rearm rapidly and jointly — and limit Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

France’s National Rally and Romania’s Alliance for the Union of Romanians oppose aid to Kyiv. Poland’s Law and Justice and the Dutch Party for Freedom resist EU-level defense projects. Alternative for Germany and Italy’s National Future criticize increased spending more broadly.

The right’s political foes warn that opposition plays into the Kremlin’s hands. “The pressure from the right doesn’t actually come from the right, but largely from Moscow,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. Parties such as National Rally and the AfD have longstanding ties with Russia, though they have sought to shake off their links in recent years.

Defense spending pressure

The political risk varies by country. Le Pen is a front-runner to become French president, while the AfD has made gains at the regional level but is unlikely to take national office soon.

Far-right gains are putting centrist parties under pressure to defend higher spending or consider cuts to retain public support.

“There is a risk that the formally pro-European mainstream across Europe might be too timid to spend … as would be necessary on defence,” said Paweł Zerka, senior policy fellow at the ECFR.

While Le Pen’s National Rally has indicated that she would respect France’s current trajectory of increasing military spending, Italy’s Meloni last week proposed spending €8 billion less on defense than the government’s initial proposal amid pressure from her far-right coalition partner, the League. Meloni last week proposed spending €8 billion less on defense than the government’s initial proposal amid pressure from her far-right coalition partner, the League.

“You can’t spend on weapons what you can’t spend on pensions, excise tax relief, or utility bills,” Claudio Borghi, a League senator, said last week.

In Poland, President Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party, tried but failed to block access to nearly €44 billion in EU SAFE defense loans, saying the scheme risked making Poland dependent on Brussels and saddling future generations with debt.

Pressure to rethink defense spending could make it harder for NATO members to fund the capabilities officials say are needed to deter Russia, as capitals begin talks this month on determining the alliance’s war plans, which are due by 2029.

A slowdown by larger members such as France and Italy would have broader effects because they account for a greater share of defense investment and aid to Kyiv, one of the NATO diplomats said.

“If bigger countries stop making progress, then NATO will stop making progress,” the diplomat said. “You weaken NATO, you weaken Europe’s ability to defend itself, and you make Ukraine … more vulnerable.” 

It could also affect the sum earmarked for defense in the EU’s next long-term budget if talks stretch on into next year, said Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow and defense economics analyst at the Bruegel think tank.

“Nationalists are all only interested in their country, they don’t want to work together with other European countries,” said German lawmaker Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who chairs the European Parliament’s defense committee.

This article has been updated.

Die Brandmauer bröckelt weiter und bringt Friedrich Merz in Bedrängnis. Nach der Wahl von Tobias Rausch von der AfD zum Landtagspräsidenten in Sachsen-Anhalt womöglich mit CDU-Stimmen wächst die parteiinterne Nervosität. Rasmus Buchsteiner analysiert, warum der CDU-Chef die Kontrolle über die Debatte verliert und wie SPD-Verteidigungsminister Boris Pistorius die Situation mit seinem historischen Vergleich anheizt.

Außenpolitisch sucht der Kanzler den Schulterschluss mit dem noch recht neuen britischen Premierminister Andy Burnham. Während er wie ein Auslaufmodell wirkt, reitet der Labour-Politiker auf einer Popularitätswelle und stellt den Brexit offen infrage. Hans von der Burchard ordnet ein, was das Treffen für die europäische Sicherheitsarchitektur und eine mögliche Wiederbelebung des E3-Formats bedeutet.

Im 200-Sekunden-Interview steht die europäische Luftverteidigung auf dem Prüfstand. Nach dem Scheitern des deutsch-französischen Kampfjet-Projekts FCAS sucht die Bundesregierung nach Alternativen. Die grüne Verteidigungspolitikerin Jeanne Dillschneider erklärt, ob ein Einstieg in das Konkurrenzmodell GCAP die Lösung ist und warum die Zeit für eine europäische Eigenständigkeit drängt.

Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Rixa Fürsen, Maximilian Stascheit und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig.

Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.

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MADRID — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has finally done something the far right approves of — calling a snap election on Nov. 29 that the anti-immigrant Vox party is hailing as “Spain’s last chance to be Spain again.”

Polling third in the race, Vox is Spain’s leading nationalist, euroskeptic force and it sees next month’s contest as its prime opportunity to remold the country after eight years of Sánchez’s socialist premiership by getting its people into top ministerial jobs.

Party leader Santiago Abascal greeted Monday’s election announcement as “excellent news.” His delight is hardly surprising given that polls suggest Vox is on track to make the biggest gains of any major party.

While the center-right People’s Party is expected to come first — with about 33% of the vote, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls — it will almost certainly have to team up with Vox, which commands support of about 18%, to build a stable coalition.

Abascal will then be able to demand the inclusion of key elements of Vox’s agenda as its price for that partnership. Its goals include deportations of undocumented migrants, a benefits preference for Spaniards over foreign nationals, slashing EU health and safety rules in the farming sector and rolling back support for gender equality and the LGBTQ+ community.

Vox secured 33 of the 350 seats in Congress in 2023, but is now set to double that. Under the PP’s coalition leadership, it should be able to form part of a comfortable majority.

“This time round, Vox is much stronger,” José Antonio Fúster, spokesperson for the party and a member of the Madrid regional parliament, said. “We are going into a very important election, not so much for us, as for Spaniards … This is the last hope for Spain to be Spain again.”

Fúster would not be drawn on which ministries his party has set its sights on, warning against “selling the bearskin before it has been hunted.”

Pointing to talks with the PP in recent months in four regions where the two parties now govern in coalition, he said the shaping of policy was being prioritized ahead of institutional power. “That is the last thing we negotiate because it is the least important,” he said.

Pet portfolios

In August, Vox MEP Jorge Buxadé told POLITICO that forming part of the government was not the only option open to his party, but that in a hypothetical coalition with the PP, his party would seek a number of ministries “in proportion to our vote share.”

That would amount to a significant percentage. If current polls translate into results in November, Vox would be in a position to claim about a third of ministerial posts.

Analysts expect Vox to press for portfolios that focus on its pet policies, such as agriculture, domestic policy, immigration and industry. The culture and education portfolios could also be of interest to the party, given their relevance in the hard right’s campaign against so-called wokeism.

The regions where the PP and Vox currently govern together — Andalusia, Aragón, Castile and León, and Extremadura — offer clues: The government departments that Vox controls are mainly linked to agriculture, welfare benefits and the family.

The party is heading into the election campaign espousing three main ideas: the concept of “national priority” — ensuring that Spaniards have access to public services and benefits ahead of foreign nationals — a clampdown on immigration and broad deregulation.

Although Vox’s rise to prominence was driven by its fierce stance against Catalan nationalism nearly a decade ago, that debate has faded from the political arena. Now, its focus is, like its European far-right counterparts, more firmly on immigration-related matters.

“Before, Vox talked about immigration, but it wasn’t the nuclear issue it has become,” said Guillermo Fernández Vázquez, a political scientist at Carlos III University and author of a book about the European far right. “Now, when Vox talks about social security payments, it talks about immigration; when it talks about the economy, it talks about immigration. Immigration is the issue that dictates everything.”

Vox also subscribes to the “remigration” policy being touted by many far-right parties, under which undocumented migrants and those who commit crimes would be deported. The PP has appeared to respond to Vox’s hard line by toughening its own stance, calling for the expulsion of foreign criminals and opposing a government migrant legalization program.

In each of the regions where the two parties are in coalition, Vox has ensured that its senior partner agreed to formally include the national priority principle in their governing agreement.

“But when it comes to national priority, the PP has added the caveat that it has to be implemented in line with the law,” said Miguel González, a journalist at the El País daily newspaper and author of a book about Vox. Legislation prevents discrimination against foreign nationals when it comes to accessing public benefits and services, meaning the policy is currently little more than symbolic in those regions. 

“In reality, in order to implement this properly, you’d have to change the immigration law,” González added.

Vox is eyeing an overhaul of that legislation to make it a workable policy.

“It’s very possible to change laws that are bad for Spaniards, so we have to roll them back and introduce new laws, making sure that Spaniards are not last in line,” Fúster said.

Deregulation nation

Deregulation also offers a platform from which to attack EU health-and-safety norms that are reviled by the farming sector, one of Vox’s main voter bases.

Fúster accepted that this could lead to clashes with the European Commission, but insisted that pressure from what he described as a rising tide of European parties sharing Vox’s values would “make sure that Brussels returns to the path of common sense.”

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has criticized phytosanitary restrictions on farmers but has shown little appetite for conflict with European institutions.

In social policy, González said Vox might use the broader notion of deregulation to dismantle funding for gender equality and LGBTQ+ departments and projects, as it has done on a local level. Fúster was reluctant to be drawn on this: “We believe in the equality of Spaniards,” he said. “We don’t believe that anyone should have privileges above others.”

Fernández Vázquez of Carlos III University said that the origins of Vox suggest a bumpy ride for the PP. Vox would be the first far-right party to enter government in half a century since the death of Francisco Franco in 1975 — and there would likely be clashes.

The far-right party formed in 2013 as a breakaway from the conservatives in frustration at what its founders saw as the pusillanimity of the PP in the face of Catalan separatism. 

“I think the relationship between Vox and PP [in government] will be a bad one,” the researcher said. “Abascal and his colleagues are going to enjoy showing up Feijóo whenever they can, portraying him as lukewarm and weak.”

Fúster accepted “it could be a difficult relationship,” adding that the PP “don’t see things the way we do and we don’t share their vision.”

“We’re not willing to make concessions, we’re willing to have a frank, open and reasonable negotiation.”

But for now, the priority is simply to remove the Socialists. In his traditionally combative style, Abascal insisted the election was a chance to hold on to “the peace, prosperity and freedom that a mafioso government wants to snatch from us forever.”

Max Griera contributed to this article.

LUXEMBOURG — The European Parliament can’t review the secret ballot votes that blocked the far right from key positions, its lawyers told a court in Luxembourg today.

In court, the Parliament’s lawyer, Niklas Görlitz, said: “The results of the vote are definitive. There’s no mechanism in our rules to redo the vote.”

The EU’s General Court was hearing a case brought by the Patriots for Europe group, which is challenging the long-standing firewall set up by Europe’s centrist forces — the European People’s Party, the Socialists and Democrats, the liberals of Renew, and the Greens — to keep the far right away from decision-making. 

Specifically, the Patriots are contesting elections in which the chairs and vice-chairs of parliamentary committees were selected after the 2024 EU election. Those jobs were filled through voting in secret ballots. The group is also questioning the composition of the Parliament’s international delegations, saying its lawmakers were kept away from key roles.

Lawyers for the Patriots — home of France’s National Rally, Spain’s Vox and Hungary’s Fidesz, among others — said its MEPs being kept from top committee jobs was a “categorical exclusion” and it was “not acceptable” for the Parliament’s third-largest party to be locked out of these positions.

The Patriots have 85 lawmakers in the 720-strong chamber. Top jobs in Parliament come up for grabs again in January 2027, giving the Patriots another chance to try to get into powerful positions. 

Hungarian lawmaker Kinga Gál, the Patriots’ first vice-president, has previously called the mainstream parties’ actions “outrageous” and “against the rule of law.”

The Patriots’ lawyer, Azelio Fulmini, referred to the EU institution’s own description of representation.

“This proportional distribution of leadership positions within Parliament prevents the dominance of political life by just one or two large political groups, ensuring that smaller political groups also have a say in setting the political agenda,” he read.

“I don’t know if there’s a clearer declaration than that,” he said, adding that he was reading directly “from the European Parliament’s website.”

Görlitz told the court that all groups can nominate candidates for key jobs, adding: “Not getting the votes … doesn’t justify your tribunal getting involved in our affairs.”

The Patriots’ lawyer accused the Parliament of going beyond the neutral administration of committee elections, arguing that officials helped implement a political agreement designed to keep the group out of leadership posts.

EPP chief Manfred Weber told POLITICO in May 2025 that giving the far right access to executive posts was a red line. Over the past two years, his group has repeatedly passed legislation with the far right’s support.

The presiding judge, the court’s new president Savvas Papasavvas, did not give a date for the court’s decision.