Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at King’s College London spoke to CGTN Europe.
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00:00Dr. Georgios Samaras is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at King's College London.
00:07I'm convinced that the tragedy, like you also mentioned, will provide German and more broadly
00:12European politicians from the far right with another opportunity to exploit this whole
00:17situation. And this is the only way to advance the most vile Islamophobic sentiment. It doesn't
00:24matter who the murderer is. It doesn't matter what happened. It's a trend that is evident
00:31in the rise of neo-Nazi parties like the AfD and the emergence of other far right parties
00:37who capitalise on anything that is related to Islam.
00:41And Dr. Samaras, you are an expert on how far right movements like the Alternative
00:46for Deutschland Party formulate their communications strategies. How might this strategy shift
00:54with what we're hearing from the AfD party in light of what's happened in Magdeburg?
01:01These attacks will significantly boost its electoral chances in the upcoming 2025 election.
01:07So Germans are rallying behind a neo-Nazi party that is using its communication practices
01:14to attack anything progressive, anything non-European, anything non-Christian. So this scapegoat
01:22migration like Germans used to do back during World War II. And it's a movement that has
01:28used its communication strategy to bring back old fears. And with the backing, for example,
01:38from far right investors like Elon Musk, who has become one of the most vocal supporters
01:43of far right movements in Europe right now, they will try to communicatively, of course,
01:48capitalise on this incident and potentially emerge as a dominant political force.
01:53I don't think that the rhetoric right now resonates with the majority of the population,
01:59but it will certainly get that boost that will bring it closer to the Union. And the
02:04normalisation of this extremist viewpoint within mainstream, of course, politics is
02:10a development that could steer Europe towards a more divided and intolerant future.
02:16And so in Germany, Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor, he was met with real anger when he visited
02:21Magdeburg yesterday, real anger about security lapses, but also at the German political establishment,
02:28it seems more broadly. How could we see this playing out, do you think, in the upcoming
02:32elections there?
02:36I think that, like I said, the trend is likely to become more widespread across Europe. Olaf
02:45Scholz is losing popularity. There is no effective leadership to address the underlying
02:51causes also of social unrest that they serve, of course, to deepen divisions. There is not
02:58a clear effort from the current government to deal with the ongoing problems and the
03:03rise of the far right. The far right is promising deportations. The central left is repositioning
03:08itself in the centre. It's a last minute effort to, I guess, save themselves. And like
03:15I said, it's the lack of effective leadership and the failure to address all of those causes.
03:21So technically, Olaf Scholz is also trying to normalise some extremist ideas within a
03:27democracy which threatens the stability and the cohesion of a whole society. While they're
03:33pushing the centre to the far right, we have the snowball effect. Only the right-wing parties,
03:41the offending right-wing parties, are poised to benefit from the situation. And when the
03:45central left pushes them towards the far right, the voters will, of course, choose the original,
03:51the real far right.