01:18 GMT +321 April 2019

Frauke Petry appears on a large screen after being elected as leader of the eurosceptic party Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) while former leader Bernd Lucke wathces at the AfD's party congress in Essen, western Germany, July 4, 2015

Alternative for Germany's New Leader Promises Closer Ties With Russia

© REUTERS / Wolfgang Rattay

17:35 05.07.2015(updated 17:37 05.07.2015) Get short URL

Frauke Petry has been elected leader of Germany's Eurosceptic and conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on promises to make every effort to convince Berlin to strengthen ties with Russia and toughen its immigration policy.

Nearly 60 percent of AfD members present at the party conference in Essen voted for Petry, a member of AfD's conservative wing, Deutsche Welle reported. She replaced the party's founder and Eurosceptic leader Bernd Lucke.

Congratulations to @FraukePetry: for winning the leadership of German #AfD party. A positive choice for the future pic.twitter.com/8VnzSEHS1k
— Steven Woolfe MEP (@Steven_Woolfe) 5 июля 2015

The change in leadership signals a possible shift in policies, with a lesser focus on resistance to the euro and greater emphasis on immigration, as well as the perceived cultural intrusion of Islam. During the conference, Petry referred to Islam as a religion which "conveys a vision of the state that is totally foreign to that which we know in Europe."

Flags of Germany, Russia and the EU

© Sputnik / Sergey Guneev

Anti-Russian Sanctions Are Killing Businesses in Germany - Lawmaker

The Alternative for Germany, established in 2013, has so far enjoyed modest electoral success. The party received 4.7 percent of the vote in the latest national elections. Failing to meet the 5-percent threshold, the party was not eligible for seats in the Bundestag.

The AfD fared better in the 2014 European elections, securing 7.1 percent of the German vote. As a result it sent seven members to the European Parliament as part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group.

Nevertheless, the party's support base is increasing. It has more than 20,000 members, attracting voters from Germany's leading parties, Deutsche Welle said, citing recent surveys.

Related:: Lavrov: We Should Maintain Partnership Between Russia, Germany

: Here to Stay? German Firms Fear Russia's Pivot to Asia May Be Permanent

: German Right-Wing Eurosceptic Party Restructures, Touts 'Professionalism'

: Grexit to Have Positive Effect on Greece, Eurozone - German MEP

Tags:

politics, Alternative for Germany (AfD), Frauke Petry, Russia, Germany

Community standardsDiscussion

Comment via FacebookComment via Sputnik

Сomment
Thank you! Your comment will be reviewed by the moderator for compliance with the Rules
Add more
Post limit reached. Please try again in a minute.
Your comment contains a link, so it can't be published on our site

Сomment

Community standards

The fact of registration and authorization of users on Sputnik websites via users’ account or accounts on social networks indicates acceptance of these rules.

Users are obliged abide by national and international laws. Users are obliged to speak respectfully to the other participants in the discussion, readers and individuals referenced in the posts.

The websites’ administration has the right to delete comments made in languages other than the language of the majority of the websites’ content.

In all language versions of the sputniknews.com websites any comments posted can be edited.

A user comment will be deleted if it:

does not correspond with the subject of the post;
promotes hatred and discrimination on racial, ethnic, sexual, religious or social basis or violates the rights of minorities;
violates the rights of minors, causing them harm in any form, including moral damage;
contains ideas of extremist nature or calls for other illegal activities;
contains insults, threats to other users, individuals or specific organizations, denigrates dignity or undermines business reputations;
contains insults or messages expressing disrespect to Sputnik;
violates privacy, distributes personal data of third parties without their consent or violates privacy of correspondence;
describes or references scenes of violence, cruelty to animals;
contains information about methods of suicide, incites to commit suicide;
pursues commercial objectives, contains improper advertising, unlawful political advertisement or links to other online resources containing such information;
promotes products or services of third parties without proper authorization;
contains offensive language or profanity and its derivatives, as well as hints of the use of lexical items falling within this definition;
contains spam, advertises spamming, mass mailing services and promotes get-rich-quick schemes;
promotes the use of narcotic / psychotropic substances, provides information on their production and use;
contains links to viruses and malicious software;
is part of an organized action involving large volumes of comments with identical or similar content ("flash mob");
“floods” the discussion thread with a large number of incoherent or irrelevant messages;
violates etiquette, exhibiting any form of aggressive, humiliating or abusive behavior ("trolling");
doesn’t follow standard rules of the English language, for example, is typed fully or mostly in capital letters or isn’t broken down into sentences.

The administration has the right to block a user’s access to the page or delete a user’s account without notice if the user is in violation of these rules or if behavior indicating said violation is detected.

Users can initiate the recovery of their account / unlock access by contacting the moderators at moderator@sputniknews.com

The letter must contain:

Subject - the restoration of account / unlock access
User ID
An explanation of the actions which were in violation of the rules above and resulted in the lock.

If the moderators deem it possible to restore the account / unlock access, it will be done.

In the case of repeated violations of the rules above resulting in a second block of a user’s account, access cannot be restored.

To contact the team of moderators, write to moderator@sputniknews.com