US vice-president JD Vance has waded into Germany’s election campaign by urging the country’s politicians to engage with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The US vice-president, who will address the Munich Security Conference on Friday, said he would encourage European leaders to embrace anti-establishment parties, and more specifically the pro-Russian, anti-immigration AfD, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“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,” Vance was quoted as saying.
The AfD is predicted to come second in the election with 20 per cent of the votes, behind the Christian Democratic party of Friedrich Merz.
A spokesman for Merz reiterated that the CDU would “never” collaborate with the AfD.