Germany's far-right AfD appoints new European Parliament delegation leader

Political scientist Dr Antonios Souris says part of the AfD's success can be attributed to their successful social media campaign.

Transcript

00:00Top European AFD candidate Maximilian Krah has been ousted from the newly elected European

00:05Parliament delegation, which is now to be led by René Aust.

00:10Krah has been excluded as the AFD seeks to rejoin the ID group in Brussels, after Marine

00:15Le Pen suggested expelling the AFD for being too extreme.

00:19The location of Germany is eroding in international comparison. We are no longer viable. People

00:26are afraid of their future, because politics can no longer answer the most urgent questions

00:36of this time.

00:37CDU emerged as the winning party on Sunday night, but the AFD performed particularly

00:42well amongst young voters. Political scientist Dr Antonio Souros says part of the AFD's success

00:48can be attributed to their successful social media campaign.

00:52What the government, the governing parties could change is that they try to not compete

00:59with each other in the media and in public. I mean, this is something Germans in general

01:04don't like. They don't like this competition in the media or fighting in the media, what

01:09the parties did. And also they must think about policy solutions to problems, I think.

01:17It's getting to be more important, it's getting more important for them to explain their policies,

01:21especially for the Chancellor himself, to explain policies to the Germans and to explain

01:27his stances. But of course, it will be very tough, because you have the state elections

01:31coming up, don't look that good for the governing parties.

01:37Despite the Social Democrat's historic defeat at the European elections, German Chancellor

01:43Olaf Scholz has ruled out calling an early snap election. AFD co-chair Alice Weidel said

01:50the party has set its sights on becoming the new ruling government at the 2025 federal

01:57elections next year. Liv Stroud, in Berlin, for Euronews.