DThe FDP calls for state subsidies for the AfD-related Desiderius Erasmus Foundation to be prevented by law. No money from federal funds should be used to “promote right-wing cadres,” said the parliamentary director of the FDP parliamentary group, Stephan Thomae, the editorial network Germany.
Unlike other party-affiliated foundations, the Desiderius Erasmus Foundation is not subsidized by the state. The AfD has therefore filed an organ dispute with the Federal Constitutional Court, it sees its right to equal opportunities violated. Oral negotiations will be held on the AfD lawsuit this Tuesday in Karlsruhe. (Az. 2 BvE 3/19)
Thomae said it was “not communicable to the citizens if taxpayers’ money supports forces that are torpedoing our free and democratic basic order”. The FDP politician called for “a foundation law with fixed criteria”. This should “verifiably bind the work of the political foundations to the free-democratic basic order”.
Money should only flow from the fourth electoral term
Thomae also called for the law to stipulate that a foundation only receives funding if the party close to it has been represented in the Bundestag for at least three full electoral periods. The foundations close to the Greens and Left only received state funds twelve or 15 years after they first entered the Bundestag, said the FDP politician. The AfD has been a member of the Bundestag for five years.
The Bundestag decides on grants to the political foundations as part of the budget deliberations. According to the 2022 budget law, only those who advocate the maintenance of the free-democratic basic order should be funded. However, there is no precise legal regulation for the financing of party-affiliated foundations.
In August, the AfD failed with an urgent application in Karlsruhe, with which they wanted to obtain immediate grants for the Desiderius Erasmus Foundation before the final decision was made.