Germany’s right wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is expected to win its first election since the party was formed in 2013, as anti-mass immigration sentiment sends voters to the polls.

Exit polls on Sunday showed AfD securing a winning 33.5% share of the vote in Thuringia and 31.5% in Saxony. Meanwhile, the center-left Social Democratic Party – to which Chancellor Olaf Scholz belongs – brought in less than 8% of the vote in both states, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The election follows a wider trend of success for conservative groups across Europe in recent months. French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron’s government narrowly quashed a conservative takeover of the French parliament earlier this year.

Analysts say the ultimate impact that AfD and other party politicians can have will be determined by how willing centrists are to work with them.

GERMAN RIGHT WING CANDIDATE STABBED IN LATEST ATTACK AHEAD OF ELECTIONS

“The center-right will decide to what extent an AfD win would be a turning point: So far, they have been relatively consistent in excluding cooperation — more so than in other Western European countries,” Manès Weisskircher, a political scientist at the Dresden University of Technology, told the Journal.

The German elections this weekend come just days after a Syrian immigrant killed three people in a stabbing spree in Solingen, Germany. ISIS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack shortly after.

Emergency services and police are deployed near the scene where three people were killed and injured in an attack at a festival in Solingen, western Germany, the German dpa news agency reported, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024.  (Gianni Gattus/dpa via AP)

Federal prosecutors in Germany identified the suspect as Issa Al H., omitting his family name because of German privacy laws.

GERMAN TERROR ATTACK SUSPECT IDENTIFIED AS A SYRIAN REFUGEE, CHANCELLOR VOWS TO IMPLEMENT STRICT IMMIGRATION

ISIS said the attacker targeted Christians “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”

Der Spiegel magazine, citing unidentified security sources, said that the suspect had moved to Germany late in 2022, and sought asylum.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing a surge in right-wing sentiment across Germany. (John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images)

Similar attacks by Muslim migrants across Europe have spurred anti-immigration sentiment. Even the left-leaning Scholz called for strengthening immigration laws and ramping up deportations in the wake of the attack.

“We will have to do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and are not allowed to stay in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Scholz said while visiting the sight where the stabbing happened.

“This was terrorism, terrorism against us all,” he said.

Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report

Three years after creating a huge fund to stimulate post-pandemic recovery, EU member states have used under a third of the €724bn in grants and loans, EU auditors said in a report published today (2 September). 

By the end of 2023, Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden had not received any post-Covid money at all, the EU Court of Auditors said.  

Almost all member states have experienced delays in submitting payment requests, whether due to political turmoil, uncertainty over the rules, or national administrative capacity, the report said.  

The Netherlands and Hungary did not sign operational agreements, the first step required to access EU funds, while Sweden did not submit a payment application, it added – while others such as the Netherlands were held back by protracted coalition negotiations.  

“For the Recovery and Resilience Plan you really need political consensus and support and that the government stands behind the plan, and the Netherlands was waiting for that stability,” Ivana Maletić, senior auditor at the Luxembourg-based EU agency, told Euronews in an interview. 

In the more complex case of Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s government has to meet 27 milestones intended to fight corruption and safeguard judicial independence, which he hasn’t yet done.  

The other four countries — Belgium, Finland, Ireland and Poland — submitted payment requests later than others, so they were still being assessed by the European Commission, which directly manages and implements the fund, at the end of 2023.   

One quarter not completed on time

Unlike cohesion funds, the normal vehicle for EU regional spending, post-pandemic financial support is tied to progress on meeting commitments, and member states are behind schedule in meeting these targets and absorbing funds.  

“Timely absorption of the RRF is essential: it helps to avoid bottlenecks in carrying out the measures towards the end of the Facility’s lifespan, and reduces the risk of inefficient and erroneous spending,” said Maletić, who led the audit. 

Halfway through the six-year implementation plan for the post-pandemic funds, 24% of the planned reforms and investments have not been completed on time — meaning that a significant number of the trickiest promises have yet to be fulfilled, the ECA found. 

With the RRF due to expire in August 2026 and no extension expected, EU auditors are recommending the Commission provide further support to strengthen how similar funds are designed in future.  

“It can happen that for some actions, member states receive substantial amounts of funds without finalising them at all because it will not be possible to finalise them within the given time,” a senior auditor told a press conference on Monday (2 September) — though Brussels then doesn’t have the power to claw back money.  

The EU executive however rejected auditors’ recommendations to stop funding incomplete actions and recover transfers. 

“The Commission does not consider that payments based on progress is a risk and has no legal basis to recover funds already disbursed in relation to milestones and targets already and still fulfilled,” said its response.