“I see the AfD as a victim here,” said FPÖ delegation leader Harald Vilimsky on Sunday in the ORF press hour, referring to the time of the arrest of Krah’s employee, who is said to have spied for China, a few weeks before the European elections. “This story stinks incredibly here,” said Vilimsky.
The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been following the employee “for years”. “Why doesn’t the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution inform the AfD MP? Why aren’t people like me informed?” asked the FPÖ’s top EU candidate rhetorically. At the same time, Vilimsky put the Krah employee who was arrested in Germany last week on espionage charges on a par with the tens of thousands of registered lobbyists in Brussels. “He’s one of many.”
At the same time, Vilimsky questioned China’s motivation for recruiting the staff of a MEP like Krah, once morest whom the other political groups had formed a “cordon sanitaire” and “where no involvement at all in the decision-making process can take place.” Nevertheless, the FPÖ MEP praised the AfD. It is a “reform force” for Germany and is being “fought to the death by the traditional parties.”
While at the AfD “some small employee may have collected information for someone,” there are “two dinosaur, two elephant scandals” at the two dominant European parties, Vilimsky said, outraged by the corruption scandal surrounding the deposed socialist Greek European Parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili as well as the vaccine procurement allegations once morest EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. He described the latter as a “political joke” and “a person I don’t want at the head of the European Union.”
When asked regarding his frequent verbal outbursts and whether he should be a role model in this regard as a politician, Vilimsky answered “yes and no.” In this regard, he passed the ball to the media. At journalist briefings in the European Parliament, he “takes a stand on all issues, but no one is interested in that, it’s not even written down.” That’s why he deliberately overreaches and provokes in order to “get in touch with the voters.”
Family reunification only in the country of origin
Vilimsky has advocated removing illegal immigrants from the country based on the British Rwanda model. “This is remigration,” said Vilimsky, who once more campaigned for his own EU commissioner for remigration and the dismantling of the EU. Even if someone gets asylum, it is only temporary protection, he emphasized. Family reunification should therefore only take place in the country of origin.
Vienna. The long-time EU parliamentarian did not see any legal restrictions on his deportation plans. “Where there is a will, there is a way,” he also referred to the establishment of Italian refugee camps in Albania, from where people taken on board by the Italian authorities on the high seas are to be quickly repatriated if they receive a negative asylum decision.
Given the tense situation in Europe, where there are neither jobs nor infrastructure for these people, no one from outside is allowed to enter the continent. Instead, if necessary, there should be protection and help outside Europe. Asylum procedures should be awaited outside Europe; he called agreements such as the one between Great Britain and Rwanda a role model. With appropriate financial compensation, finding partner states might not be a problem for the EU, whose recently adopted migration pact for Vilimsky in no way solves the challenges.
The EU institutions would have to be dismantled in the interests of taxpayers. The EU Commission must be halved, as should the number of members in the EU Parliament, which is hardly able to work due to the large number.
If Austria no longer had an EU commissioner, the country would lose nothing and the large number of commissioners would fuel over-regulation in the EU because everyone wants to show that they are working anyway. In the interest of the taxpayer, there needs to be a slimming down, said Vilimsky, who once once more criticized the division of the meetings between the Brussels and Strasbourg locations.
Vilimsky criticized the EU Parliament resolution passed this week, which criticized Russian influence in the European Parliament – with reference, among other things, to the “friendship treaty” between the FPÖ and Putin’s “United Russia” party and the Egisto Ott espionage affair – as election campaign skirmishes – “because they are all once morest us”. The FPÖ’s “Memorandum of Understanding” with Putin’s party had long since expired and was signed at a time when Austrian politicians, from the Federal President down, maintained good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. At that time, the Russians were simply the only ones “who spoke to us,” and now there are also the best contacts in the USA, for example.
Vilimsky defended the FPÖ’s EU election poster, which accused EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of “warmongering”. Zelensky is a “puppet of the Americans.”
There is no justification for Russia’s war of aggression once morest Ukraine, but Ukraine’s plans to join NATO were a provocation. “The reaction to the provocation was excessive,” he admitted.
According to Vilimsky, Austria should return to its role as a mediator in the Ukraine war. He accused Europe of not once actively offering peace negotiations. Instead, weapons for Ukraine would be procured through the peace facility and military material would be brought through Austria, which is not at all compatible with neutrality.
The same applies to the Skyshield project, which is intended to create a protective shield once morest attacks from drones and missiles. He doesn’t want to pump more than two billion euros into a NATO-dominated project where no one knows what will happen with it. The money would be better off with the Austrian armed forces. As a neutral state, one is not the target of international attacks anyway and he does not want to make it a target through such partnerships.
