AfD's new EU foundation secures €1.1M despite Germany's funding crackdown
Berlin. Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is pushing ahead with plans to establish a European foundation. According to Der Spiegel, the so-called Sovereignty Foundation is set to receive €1.1 million in EU Parliament grants by 2026, with €275,000 already disbursed.
The foundation, registered last September under the name Souveränisten-Stiftung, is closely linked to the EU party Alliance of Sovereign Nations (ESN), which the AfD joined in 2024 alongside Poland's Nowa Nadzieja (New Hope) and France's Reconquête. The foundation's president is AfD politician Alexander Sell.
Sell stated that the EU funds are currently being used to build the foundation's organizational structures. "Through conferences, fellowships, and publications, we aim to foster academic and cultural exchange with experts from across Europe," he told Der Spiegel. Plans also include a "student essay competition on European issues" to support young researchers.
In Germany, the AfD has so far failed in its efforts to secure public funding for its Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, modeled after those of other political parties. Under the 2023 Foundation Financing Act—passed by the center-right Union, the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the Free Democrats (FDP)—no funds may be allocated to party-affiliated foundations if their core political movement is deemed "hostile to the constitution." The Federal Interior Ministry has been reviewing the AfD's case for months.
Read also:
- American teenagers taking up farming roles previously filled by immigrants, a concept revisited from 1965's labor market shift.
- Weekly affairs in the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag)
- Landslide claims seven lives, injures six individuals while they work to restore a water channel in the northern region of Pakistan
- Escalating conflict in Sudan has prompted the United Nations to announce a critical gender crisis, highlighting the disproportionate impact of the ongoing violence on women and girls.
