Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj has given his first speech in person in the Bundestag. The majority of the Sahra Wagenknecht coalition and the AfD stayed away from the speech. The other parties reacted with indignation.
The majority of the AfD parliamentary group and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) demonstratively stayed away from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj’s speech in the Bundestag on Tuesday. The AfD parliamentary group executive had previously recommended this. Only 4 of the 77 AfD MPs were present in the plenary session for Selenskyj’s speech. None of the ten BSW MPs were present. Representatives of other parties sharply criticized this.
“We refuse to listen to a speaker in camouflage,” said the parliamentary group leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla. “The federal government should not give him a platform to beg for reconstruction. The citizens pay more than enough for military aid, EU aid and citizens’ allowances for Ukrainians.” Ukraine needs a peace president who is willing to negotiate. The BSW said: “Unfortunately, President Selenskyj is currently helping to promote a highly dangerous spiral of escalation and is accepting the risk of a nuclear conflict with devastating consequences for the whole of Europe (…) Therefore, he should not be honored with a special event in the German Bundestag (…)”.
SPD: rarely experienced such disrespect
Other parties were sharply critical. SPD parliamentary group vice-chair Dirk Wiese told the “Rheinische Post”: “The Kremlin probably ordered the absence. I have rarely experienced such disrespect.” The first parliamentary manager of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei (CDU), said: “With this, the AfD and BSW are once again underlining their contempt for the victims of the Russian war of aggression.” Left-wing politician Dietmar Bartsch criticized his former parliamentary group colleague Wagenknecht and called the behavior “absurd”: Whatever one’s position on Selenskyj or on arms deliveries, in a democracy it is about at least listening, not about attracting attention, he told the DPA.
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The four AfD MPs Norbert Kleinwächter, Joachim Wundrak, Albrecht Glaser and Rainer Kraft were the only AfD representatives in the plenary hall and some of them also applauded. “For us, it is a matter of course to listen to other heads of state when they are here on a state visit, even if we may not share their opinion,” Kleinwächter told the DPA afterwards. “The applause was calm, in the places where one can support it,” but one could not read any euphoric enthusiasm from it, said Wundrak.
Source: Stern
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