AfD party leader Meuthen: AfD threatens further payment of 280,000 euros

The AfD does not come to rest because of dubious and allegedly illegal campaigning by the Swiss Goal AG. For example, the party may face another fine of € 280,000 from the Bundestag administration.

The latest amount of 280,000 euros, about which the ZDF had initially reported, the SPIEGEL was confirmed on Monday from AfD party circles. The sum mentioned in the letter was initially a preliminary decision of the Bundestag administration and not yet a formal decision, it became known. The party now has around four weeks to appeal. So far, it was said from the AfD, that the party wants to defend, if necessary, with a lawsuit against the impending fines. An official statement of Meuthen and the party is still pending. Also by the Bundestag administration was to receive no opinion on the latest process until the publication of this article on Monday evening.

Case Meuthen in sight for months

The case of AfD leader Jörg Meuthen, who leads the party together with Alexander Gauland, has been employing the Bundestag administration for several months. The background is the activities of the Swiss PR agency Goal AG. The agency had in the past in Switzerland for the right-wing populist "Swiss People's Party" (SVP) issued a free newspaper, with the advent of the AfD she was also active in Germany. For example, Goal AG had financed advertisements and posters for Meuthen in 2016 in the state election campaign in Baden-Württemberg after researching the ZDF magazine Frontal 21; Meuthen's website was also designed by her.

Meuthen himself had initially remained silent on the allegations, in August 2017 then in conversation with the "Heilbronner Stimme" admitted that he maintains a friendly relationship with the head of Goal AG, the German PR consultant Alexander Segert. At the same time, however, Meuthen protested against the impression that it was an illegal election campaign. "There was no assignment from me - so it was not a donation, I did not do anything wrong," he said at the time.

On its own initiative, in August 2018, the AfD transferred to the Bundestag administration the equivalent of the election campaign from Goal AG - totaling 5352.25 euros. Apparently for the then in the Baden-Württemberg election campaign switched newspaper ads. A speaker of the Bundestag administration told SPIEGEL at that time that the party had transferred the money "without recognition of a legal obligation" and purely "as a precautionary measure".

Goal AG is also behind the "Association for the Preservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties", which has been campaigning for the AfD in several provincial election campaigns since 2016, including posters and free newspapers. In the summer of 2018, after repeatedly reported in the media about the events, the AfD Federal Board had the club and the Goal AG prohibited to use the logo and corporate design of the party and calling the name of the party name for the election of AfD.

Another case: MEP Guido Reil

In addition to Meuthen, the Bundestag administration also deals with the connections of Goal AG to AfD politician Guido Reil, who is running for second place behind Meuthen in the European list. In 2017, through the research service "Correctiv" and the ZDF magazine "Frontal21" public, that the Swiss agency had helped the AfD newcomer - he was formerly in the SPD - in the North Rhine-Westphalian election campaign, including election posters in his hometown Essen , Reil estimated the value of the campaign itself at "around 50,000 euros". Since then, this sum is in the room.

DPA

Guido Reil, European candidate of the AfD

Recently, "NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung" reported that Reil must count on a fine of 100,000 euros for the Bundestag. The responsible department for party financing in the Bundestag assumes that Reil has benefited from the illegal party funding in the NRW state election campaign - through advertising posters and flyers, ie benefits in kind.

As the report of the Bundestag administration is to show, the administration has informed the AfD in a letter in advance about the imminent penalty in the case of Reil. However, the letter is not yet a formal decision but a request for a final hearing. The Bundestag had made no official statement in the case of Reil, a spokesman said only that the process was "not yet completed".

Further in the exam: Donations to the district association of Alice Weidel

The Meuthen and Reil cases are not the only ones. Most recently, it was announced by a report of SPIEGEL that the AfD had the Bundestag in the affair of controversial campaign donations amounting to 130,000 euros for the district association of AfD parliamentary leader Alice Weidel from Switzerland apparently transmitted an at least partially incorrect donor list.

The AfD Federal Board takes the events more seriously than it could initially suspect public statements from the party. At the end of February, the panel also met on the subject of finance and issued an official statement stating that the party was cooperating "cooperatively" with the Bundestag administration in all questions of financing to be clarified. All inquiries of the Bundestag administration would continue to be answered in full, on time and on the basis of the information available to the party. "It is in the best interest of our party that all currently open issues are fully clarified," said the announcement of the AFD Federal Executive.