Austria’s “Ibiza affair” and a massive campaign against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) were in part to blame for its weaker-than-expected performance in the European Parliament elections, the party’s spokesman said Monday.
“I suspect — although we have no empirical evidence to prove it — that the effect [of the Austrian video scandal] was not very strong. But we can’t claim there was no impact at all. It must have swallowed a few votes”, Joerg Meuten admitted at a press briefing in Berlin.
Speaking at another event in Berlin, Meuten promised that AfD would join forces with other European parties to “debureaucratize” the European Union. He named Austria’s Freedom Party as one of the desired allies, despite it crashing out of the governing coalition after its leader was filmed at an Ibiza villa apparently promising to fix public contracts for money.