The unwelcome guests at Europe’s top security summit

For the global defence industry, the Munich Security Conference is a chance to mingle with world leaders and pick up the odd intelligence titbit.

But attendees at Europe’s most important defence summit – at a critical time for the continent’s security – may be looking nervously over their shoulders amid the grand decor of Hotel Bayerischer Hof on Friday.

For the first time in two years, and following a ban for its pro-Kremlin views, the hard-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is on the guest list.

The AfD delegation will be able to meet heads of state and listen to sensitive security briefings – not to mention gossip – about global affairs.

The party’s attendance has caused a furore among its rivals in German politics, who fear it will use the summit as an opportunity to spy.

Sara Nanni, the security spokesman for the centrist Greens, said she was concerned about AfD MPs leaking sensitive information they pick up in Munich to Moscow.

There are also strong suspicions in Munich that the AfD was only invited after pressure from the Trump administration, which is sympathetic towards Russia and has openly campaigned for the AfD to rule Germany.

Ms Nanni told the Tagesspiegel newspaper: “[Previously] it was known that we were all pro-Nato. In the future, we will have to be more vigilant. We will only ask security-related questions if we can be certain that the answers will not end up in Russia.”

She has also said that “we simply cannot rely on the AfD’s loyalty to German interests”.

Her fears were echoed by the ruling Social Democrat party (SPD) and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU), which both claimed that the AfD’s presence at Munich would be a “security risk”.

Sergej Sumlenny, the co-founder of the European Resilience Initiative Centre, a security think tank, has urged guests to keep quiet about state secrets in the presence of AfD members.

He told The Telegraph: “The Munich Security Conference is a place where deals are made and key conversations are had that can and do impact political decisions.”

Mr Sumlenny has organised a panel at this year’s conference on methods of transferring Russia’s frozen assets to Ukraine.

He said that “sensitive topics” would be under discussion and added: “If an AfD delegate is there, you can never be sure that you’re just talking to them – as whatever you say certainly stands a chance of making it back to Moscow.”

Extremist views on migrants

The AfD’s pro-Russian views have long been a source of concern to Germany’s centrist political parties, which deem it to be a far-Right extremist group because of its views on migrants.

Tino Chrupalla, the AfD co-leader, claimed last November that “I don’t see any danger to Germany from Russia at the moment”, and his party is in favour of resuming cheap Russian gas imports and normalising ties with Moscow.

In May 2024, German police raided the Bundestag offices of Petr Bystron, an AfD MP, over allegations that he received payments from Russia in return for influence, a charge he denies.

Also in 2024, Maximilian Krah, a senior AfD figure, was placed under investigation over alleged payments from Russia and China linked to his work as a member of the European Parliament. He denies any wrongdoing.

Last September, Jian Guo, a German-Chinese citizen, was jailed for five years for being an agent for the Chinese intelligence services while employed by Mr Krah as a European Parliament aide.

Mr Krah, who has since become an AfD MP in Germany, has said he considers himself to be one of his aide’s victims.

Last October, the party faced broader allegations of using parliamentary privilege to file requests for sensitive information on German critical infrastructure, so that it could be passed on to Moscow.

The charge was levelled by the interior minister of Thuringia state, an eastern AfD stronghold, who disclosed that 12 AfD politicians had lodged 47 questions about critical infrastructure and similar topics in just 12 months.

“The impression is almost unavoidable that the AfD is working through a Kremlin order list with its inquiries,” claimed Georg Maier, the state interior minister, who is an SPD politician.

The AfD dismissed those charges – and the wider suspicions of being Kremlin puppets – as “bizarre conspiracy theories” cooked up by their opponents to halt the rise of the party’s popularity.

The AfD is popular in Germany – having won an unprecedented 20 per cent of the vote in last year’s federal elections – and is considered an existential threat by its centrist rivals.

At the same time, it has been designated as a far-Right extremist group by Germany’s domestic intelligence services, because of its harsh rhetoric on migrants and its Russian sympathies.

This has not gone unnoticed in Washington, where JD Vance, the vice-president, has cited Germany as a key example of free speech being on the retreat in Europe.

Mr Vance gave a speech at last year’s Munich conference in which he said Washington was gravely concerned about free speech and free elections in Germany.

To ram home his point, he snubbed Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor at the time, and instead met Alice Weidel, the AfD co-leader, on the sidelines of the conference, days before the February 2025 federal elections.

He later accused the “German establishment” of erecting a new Berlin Wall against the hard-Right populist party.

Now, as this year’s Munich Security Conference approaches, it is widely suspected that the AfD delegation is only on the guest list because of Mr Vance’s rebuke.

The delegation consists of three AfD MPs – Rüdiger Lucassen, the defence policy spokesman, Anna Rathert and Heinrich Koch.

Co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla have not received invitations, and the delegation has reportedly been excluded from speaking on panel events.

One suspects that means their presence at this year’s summit will merely be tolerated.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]