Germany’s Pistorius derides Vance’s remarks – DW – 02/14/2025

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock criticized comments reportedly made by US Vice President JD Vance regarding the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party.

Vance, who is in Germany to attend the Munich Security Conference (MSC), reportedly urged German established parties to cooperate with the AfD.

“The only person who decides the German parliamentary election, as in any democracy, is and will be the German voters,” Baerbock said from  the MSC on Friday.

“Fortunately, we live in a democracy,” the German top diplomat added. “This cannot be emphasized often enough these days, when we are seeing people around the world giving their lives to be able to vote freely.”

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published on Friday, Vance said he intended to tell European leaders attending the MSC they must embrace the rise of anti-establishment politics and that he would urge German politicians to work with all parties including the anti-immigration AfD.

At a press conference on Friday, German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said outsiders should not be “meddling in the internal affairs of a friendly country” and that they “may not have a full overview of the political debate” in Germany.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service (BfV) is monitoring the AfD party as a suspected right-wing extremist group, while several state-level party organizations have already classified it as such. 

The far-right party is currently second in most national polls at roughly 20% support, ahead of the February 23 elections.

Earlier in January, the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) controversially secured a majority for an anti-immigration motion with the support of AfD votes.

The move was seen as breaking a conventional “firewall” in German politics whereby traditional, democratic parties refuse to cooperate with the extreme right. 

It has since seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in protests in various cities.