Christian Dürr, a candidate for the FDP party chairmanship, has criticized the discussion about clearly defining a distance from the AfD. “I have little to do with this wall-building debate, which the Union and others are currently conducting” he said to the newspapers of the Funke Media Group. “This has little to do with the everyday reality of people in Germany. I do not define the FDP position as a distance measurement from other parties.” The Free Democrats are “neither right nor left, but a separate political camp.”
Following the constitutional protection assessment that the entire AfD is considered as reliably right-extremist, Dürr warned against a ban proposal at the Federal Constitutional Court. “I do not believe in a banning procedure, anyway, it failed with the NPD” he said. “The signal to voters who made the AfD the second strongest force in the Bundestag election would be fatal.”
Dürr demanded: “We must politically shrink the AfD by finally solving concrete problems. The new government should clear up this debate, because the AfD is staging itself as the victim and benefits from it.”
When asked if the AfD should also be represented in the Bundestag presidency and lead parliamentary committees, the former FDP faction chief replied: “We do not participate in debates of center-left parties, to which I also count the Union after the de facto abolition of the debt brake. We should focus on reform concepts for Germany instead of debating the handling of the AfD.”
When asked if he excludes cooperation with the AfD, Dürr answered: “Yes, with a party that rejects global trade and openness to the world, I cannot cooperate. But once again: I do not define my position based on distance measurements from others, but act according to my values and convictions.