New York [US], February 21: The US political strategist Steve Bannon hopes that Germany's parliamentary election this weekend will fire a starting gun for a right-wing advance across European countries.
Sunday's vote marks the start of a "campaign to take over Europe," the former strategist for US President Donald Trump told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper in comments published on Thursday. "Our allies will gain a clear and significant victory," Bannon said, in clear reference to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has received support from members of the Trump administration, despite Germany's mainstream parties ruling out cooperation with it after the election.
The AfD is currently polling in second place at around 20%, well behind the conservative alliance of the Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union on around 30%, but far higher than the 10.4% it secured in the 2021 election.
Bannon added that the Europe campaign "will not focus on the continent in general but on individual states with a view to taking them over one after the other at the ballot box." The effects would then alter Europe's entire political direction, he predicted. Bannon, who worked as a media executive before serving as Trump's chief strategist for the initial months of his first administration, has previously tried to boost European populist and eurosceptic parties with his Brussels-based populist organization called Movement.
In the interview, he praised Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has led a coalition of three right-wing and conservative parties in Rome for more than two years. "I think that since she took office, she has faced the pressure of the responsibility to lead the country. But I do not believe that the positions that united us have changed," Bannon said. (DPA)
Source: Qatar Tribune