In April 2023, the AfD requested that its Berlin MEP Nicolaus Fest be excluded. He had not paid contributions to the party. An arbitration court has now approved the exclusion. Fest wants to defend himself.
An AfD arbitration tribunal has approved the exclusion of Berlin MEP Nicolaus Fest from the party, as requested by the party leadership. The decision of the Berlin State Arbitration Court was made last Friday, a party spokesman said.
The decision was based on the non-payment of elected officials’ fees. The “Welt” first reported on the decision. It is not final yet. Fest told the newspaper that he would submit an application for a review of the decision to the AfD Federal Arbitration Court.
Fest has been a member of the European Union Parliament since 2019. The AfD party executive committee unanimously decided in April last year to initiate party expulsion proceedings against him. As a elected official, he has to make contributions to the AfD according to the party statutes. Fest is said to have withheld this since July 2022. According to the “Welt” report, the arbitration tribunal of the Berlin regional association, to which Fest is a member, met in mid-February of this year.
According to “Welt”, Fest justified the cessation of contribution payments in January 2023 with a leak from an internal chat group of the AfD delegation in the European Parliament. On the anniversary of the death of the then EU Parliament President David Sassoli in January 2022, Fest is said to have made obscene comments about Sassoli in a group chat. Fest claims that Weidel leaked a screenshot to the media. A spokesman for Weidel called the speculation “baseless.”