The head of the Munich Security Conference, Heusgen, wants to exclude the AfD from the international meeting. The same applies to the Values Union and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – as well as to the Russian and Iranian governments.
The Munich Security Conference begins in just under two weeks. But as last year, conference leader Christoph Heusgen does not want to allow all parties represented in the Bundestag to the international meeting. Heusgen took over the chairmanship of the security conference in 2022 and used this practice for the first time last year – with the exclusion of the AfD.
“I said back then that I didn’t want to roll out the red carpet for a right-wing extremist party,” said Heusgen in an interview with the dpa news agency. “There was some wrinkling of the nose. But I believe that my decision last year was the right one – especially after the recent revelations. I will therefore not be inviting the AfD this year either.”
Heusgen was alluding to a meeting between right-wing extremists and politicians in Potsdam, in which individual AfD and CDU politicians as well as members of the Values Union also took part.
ValuesUnion and BSW also excluded
In addition to the AfD, the Values Union was also excluded from the security conference. In January, members of the association voted to found a party of the same name. According to the association’s chairman and former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, this should happen before the state elections in three German federal states in the fall. The ValuesUnion association was founded in 2017. He saw himself as a rallying point for CDU and CSU members who found the course of then CDU leader Angela Merkel not conservative enough.
And the newly founded Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) should also not be invited to the security conference, von Heußgen continued. He justified this by saying that the BSW members represented in the Bundestag were not elected to parliament as representatives of this party, but of the Left Party. With regard to both the BSW and the Values Union, he wants to “first see how things continue.”
Only NGOs from Russia and Iran
According to Heusgen, not only parties but also governments should be excluded from the meeting at the Bayerischer Hof in Munich. As was the case last year, this affects the Russian and Iranian governments.
Heusgen justified Russia’s exclusion to the dpa with the war of aggression against Ukraine and the unwillingness of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government to negotiate. “And that’s why we said on our own initiative that we’re not inviting the Russian government, but rather we’re inviting Russians from non-governmental organizations, exiled politicians,” announced Heusgen.
“When it comes to Iran, we hear from the federal government and also from the Americans that there is no interest in talks,” said the head of the security conference, justifying the government’s exclusion from Tehran. That is why representatives of Iranian non-governmental organizations should also take part in the discussions in Munich.
Around 50 heads of state and government and around 100 ministers are expected at the Munich Security Conference this year. It takes place from February 16th to 18th. For a long time it was common practice for politicians from all parties represented in the Bundestag to be invited to the conference.