AfD donations scandal: Weidels district association received 150,000 euros from Belgium – remittances

Stand: 04:08 am | Reading time: 4 minutes

reIn addition to the important donation made to Switzerland to celebrate, he received another sum of 150,000 euros from Belgium. It was an ambiguity about the origin but it was referred back, said AfD on Wednesday night in Berlin. The money was received on February 13 by the Bodenseekreis district with the shipper "Stichting Identiteit Europa" and was returned after an examination on May 9.

The new process was communicated to the national leadership on Tuesday by representatives of the Regional Council. Hans-Holger Malcomeß, managing director of AfD Federal, informed the Bundestag administration the same day.

The donation may have been accepted in the party's opinion. "However, the district badociation of AfD, Bodenseekreis, could not determine the identity of the donor nor his motivation, that's why he finally decided not to not accept the money from "Stichting Identiteit Europa". For this reason, there was no notification under Article 25, paragraph 3, sentence 2 of the Law on Parties policies, but the 09.05.2018, a remittance of the full amount to the sender, "said the party.

Read also

The paragraph of this paragraph governs the conditions under which parties may accept donations from abroad, such as donations of property from a German citizen or another EU citizen.

With the announcement of another transfer of money to AFD from Belgium, the party has obviously anticipated a report in the media. According to the portal ARD "tagesschau.de", WDR, NDR and "Süddeutsche Zeitung", who had already revealed the major gift from Switzerland, had already learned this weekend that the district badociation of Alice Constance, the leader of the parliamentary group Alice Weidel, had been transferred Belgium had received. On Wednesday, they asked Weidel for an opinion. In the evening, the federal party released the process.

Determined prosecutor's office

In the case of the first major donation from Switzerland, the prosecutor had previously announced that he wanted to open an investigation into the leader of the AFD faction for violation of the party law. Letters have been sent to the Bundestag for the necessary annulment of their parliamentary immunity.

The authority was due to the media coverage of the party's donation and to a criminal complaint required to investigate the allegations. However, it was not clear if there was actually an offense. An inquiry can only be opened if the immunity of the members of the Bundestag is waived. There is a 48 hour delay, which ends on Friday.

"The donation of the campaign, Alice Weidel", was clarified, the authority told Constance in a press release issued on Wednesday.The Swiss donation had been transferred by the Zurich-based company PWS Pharmawholesale International AG, "in trust for a friend of business", whose board members had communicated a research team consisting of WDR, NDR and "Süddeutsche Zeitung." According to "tagesschau.de", Weidels Kreisverband would have paid 16 000 euros d & At the end of 2017, there were only 107,000 euros left on the district account – too little to repay the Swiss donation.The money from the country of the 39 EU, Belgium – from where a donation to a party is not illegal, but 50,000 euros should be reported to the Bundestag – was transferred to AfD data in February 2018 According to Weidel's information, the Swiss sum was transferred in April In May, according to the AfD the Belgian transfer had been repaid.

The name of the donor, who had sent the money from Switzerland to Weidels Kreisverband am Bodensee, remains in the dark. The treasurer of the district badociation, Brigitte Hinger, told the German press agency that she had in the spring the repayment of about 130,000 euros, paid the year last in individual tranches of Switzerland. Prior to that, doubts about legality had arisen within the district badociation's board of directors. In payment, she had "apparently missed a donation". The fact that these 8,000 euros have not been returned so far, it was only at the beginning of the week because of the media coverage of the issue.

FDP: Check the complete financial management of the AfD

Important AfD officials from Baden-Württemberg do not want to know about the money coming from Belgium. According to Landesschatzmeister Frank Kral and Landesparteichef Ralf Özkara expressed according to "tagesschau.de". Kral stated that he had not participated in any judicial review.

The FDP asks Wolfgang Schäuble, president of the Bundestag, to have the financial behavior of the AfD fully verified. "This concerns, in addition to the misdemeanors of Switzerland and the violations of the obligation to notify after the donation of Belgium, other aspects," said the spokesman of the FDP parliamentary group on the national plan, Konstantin Kuhle, in Berlin. "The activities of the" Association for the Preservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties "based in Stuttgart, which provides mbadive support to the AfD in election campaigns, are under scrutiny. "

Donations of more than € 1000 a year and donors from non-EU countries are illegal. Unless the donor is German. Weidel is the leader of the AFD parliamentary group, member of the federal party executive and vice president of the district badociation. The federal executive wants to give its opinion on Friday. According to the law on political parties, a party that has received donations illegally and has not forwarded them to the President of the Bundestag is liable to a fine three times higher.