Join us for another episode of Hearts of Oak Podcast, where we're honoured to have the return of Petr Bystron, a Member of the European Parliament representing the Alternative for Germany (AfD), as our guest. In this insightful conversation, Petr delves into the transformative currents sweeping through European politics, sparked by the AfD's significant electoral achievements. We'll explore how the AfD's strategic alliances are influencing European policy, the media's portrayal of populist movements, and the party's dedication to tackling critical i...
Join us for another episode of Hearts of Oak Podcast, where we're honoured to have the return of Petr Bystron, a Member of the European Parliament representing the Alternative for Germany (AfD), as our guest.
In this insightful conversation, Petr delves into the transformative currents sweeping through European politics, sparked by the AfD's significant electoral achievements.
We'll explore how the AfD's strategic alliances are influencing European policy, the media's portrayal of populist movements, and the party's dedication to tackling critical issues like immigration and national sovereignty head-on. Petr provides a unique perspective on the shifting dynamics within the EU, where traditional political alignments are giving way to a resurgence of nationalist sentiments.
Expect a candid discussion that goes beyond the headlines, examining the core values and political philosophies at play in today's Europe. Tune in as we navigate these complex waters with one of the key figures shaping the continent's future.
Petr Bystron is the highest-ranking foreign politician of the AfD: He has been Chairman of the AfD in the Foreign Committee of the German Bundestag since 2017. Since 2021 he has been the foreign policy spokesman for his party and its representative in the Council of Europe and the Interparliamentary Union (IPU).
He was the first AfD politician to be officially received by an incumbent president (Milos Zeman) and the first European to receive the „Eagle Award “ from the conservative US Phyllis Schlafly Foundation.
He was born in the CSSR, from which he fled to Germany at the age of 16, where he received political asylum.
Thirty years later, he faced similar persecution in Bavaria: during the 2017 election campaign, he was subjected to an illegal house search and it was announced that he was being monitored by the Bavarian secret service.
In addition to these state reprisals, he is always the target of attacks by left-wing extremists.
Bystron is actively committed to supporting politically persecuted people. In 2018, with the help of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, he was able to free journalist Billy Six from Venezuelan detention.
Petr Bystron is one of the founding members of the AfD. From 2015 to 2017 he was the state leader of the party in Bavaria. He took over the party in a crisis and led it from 3.5% of the vote to the best election result of all western federal states in the 2017 federal election with 12.7%.
He founded and headed his party's National Committee for European and Foreign Policy (2013-2015).
Bystron studied political science at the University of Politics and the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich and has been working as a journalist for years. His articles on business and politics have been published in renowned daily newspapers and magazines in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
He has won several creative competitions, including an EU essay competition on the future of Europe.
His current book 'MEGA – Make Europe Great Again' contains portraits of leading conservative politicians such as Viktor Orbán, Marine Le Penn and Nigel Farage.
Petr is married, has two children and has lived in his constituency of Munich North for more than 30 years. He has been an entrepreneur for over thirty years.
Connect with Petr and The AfD...
𝕏 x.com/PetrBystronAfD
x.com/AfDimBundestag
INSTAGRAM instagram.com/petr.bystron
WEBSITE petrbystron.de
Interview recorded 6.9.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...
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WEBSITE heartsofoak.org/
PODCASTS heartsofoak.podbean.com/
SOCIAL MEDIA heartsofoak.org/connect/
SHOP heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on 𝕏 x.com/TheBoschFawstin
Transcript
And hello, Hearts of Oak.
I'm delighted to have Petr Bystron joining us once again, this time not as a member of the Bundestag, but as a member of the European Parliament.
Petr, thank you so much for giving us your time today.
Hello, Peter.
Welcome and nice regards to everybody who is watching this podcast.
No, thank you. And you were, what, seven years in the Bundestag with AfD Alternative for Deutschland, and you have just taken up the position there in Brussels, the elections obviously a few months ago, and you're now there in Brussels.
Tell, maybe ask you about the European elections because AfD came second. It was at 16 percent of the vote and actually you came first in five of the 14 regions in Germany and that seems to be just going up and up and up.
Thee vote share that AfD are getting, but maybe Let us know your thoughts as an AfD politician in Europe, as an MEP.
What are your thoughts for the year ahead? And obviously, you'll be there for five years.
Yeah, well, firstly, yes, it was a win.
It was a big success for AfD, but this is just a part of all European movement.
As you can see, in all European countries, the populistic movements, the right-wing, the conservatives, they won.
We are much stronger than in the former European Parliament.
What is the result?
The result is that now there are three right-wing conservative groups.
Viktor Orban established one big group.
They are the third biggest group in the European parliament the ECR is there and we as AfD we established a new group; Europe of Sovereign Nation in addition to that there is the old EPP.
Which contains parties which officially are claiming that they are conservative, like the German CDU, and you are laughing too, because that's the problem.
They are big, they are the biggest group, in fact.
Ursula von der Leyen is from this group, and she was elected for president. But what is happening?
They are working together with communists, socialists, greens.
They are collecting their majorities on the left part of the spectrum in spite of they have the majority with us, with the right-wing conservatives.
So, those guys, they are the betrayals of their voters, and this is what will I think determine, the next five years in the European parliament.
How will behave this EPP group?
Will they still liaise with the left extremists or will they remain themselves what is the origin of their parties what their voters really want and will they do a right-wing conservative politics again.
It's going to be interesting and I'm assuming that some of the Conservatives stay within the EPP, because it gives them position, maybe voting rights in certain areas, committees.
The European Parliament set up is a curious set up.
So, that's why I'm assuming Conservatives has stayed in that group and not joined, not joined Viktor Orban's group or not joined the ECR or not joined the Europe of Sovereign Nations.
Well, this is a really good point.
It was showed, displayed even in the first voting.
The EPP members together with the left and socialism greens, they kind of avoided that that members of Orbán's new group were elected for chairs they should receive in many committees, you know, in spite of that this group is the third biggest.
So, it will be difficult, yeah.
Tell me what I remember back in the UKIP days and the difficulties that UKIP had in the European Parliament.
They were rejected, ignored. And it's kind of a similar position to where the AfD find themselves as a party that is maligned and attacked and ridiculed and et cetera, et cetera.
UKIP exactly was the same for UKIP.
And then they had a grouping that came together and obviously UKIP were extremely successful in terms of actually getting a Brexit vote.
Give us an idea for our UK or US viewers, the warring posse that may not understand kind of where the AfD will fit into a European parliament.
What can you do and will you be allowed actually to be a proper political party there?
Well, for first, yeah, this is a good comparison with UKIP.
It's really the same treatment we are receiving here.
And also what is different is maybe the treatment at home.
We got a heavy, really heavy fire from all the state-owned media in Germany before the election, from the Secret Service, which is led by the government and is used to oppress all opposition, not only opposition parties, but also the opposition on the streets.
You know, they put the leader of the opposition, Michael Baalbeck, for nine months in the jail, a week of the trial.
And after the nine months, they said, OK, we don't have anything against you.
You can go.
But the guy was nine months in jail.
You know, it's incredible.
And they also did a really insane campaign against us, against my friend Max Kau, who was the number one on the list for the European Parliament, against me.
I was the number two on the list.
They said we are agents of China, of Russia.
I was confronted with the same accusations like Donald Trump.
You know, Donald Trump was hearing for two years that he has a Russian collusion, Russian collusion.
They did the same with me.
They said I was paid by Russians for my behavior in the German Bundestag, which is quite stupid.
You know, you must just imagine why should somebody pay an MP to behave as he would behave anyway?
Because this was our party program. program, you know.
All our ATA deputies were against the war in Ukraine, against weapons, and so on and so on.
So, if you want to pay somebody, you have to pay him, to behave in a different way, but not the same.
But it was a campaign.
They wanted to make this Russian narrative.
They played this scenario, and even in other countries, it happened the same to our friends in Austria.
They were accused also to be Russian spies and all.
So, this narrative was the same, and what is really terrible, after the election, the state-owned public television, they displayed the graphics which was saying, well, our campaigns did work. Look, we pushed the AfD down from 21% to 16%, and they named the campaigns.
They named the Wannsee campaign, the Potsdam campaign, then Max Krad, the China campaign, Peter Weiss from the Russian campaign.
So, they showed how they produce fake news, how they push the biggest opposition party from 21% down to 16%.
In spite of it, we were very successful, but we could be more successful. So this is how it works.
Now, in the European Parliament, a new game starts.
Many parties from other countries join us as AfD.
They said, okay, we would like to be with you in the group.
So, we have now a true AfD group together with six or seven partners from other countries.
And let's see how things will develop.
I'm watching closely, certainly.
Yeah, it would be nice if the result would be as successful as UKIP, but this was a really historical success.
Nigel Farage is a big guy, a great guy.
So, not big, not big one, a great guy.
And so, let's see.
We will go in his footsteps.
Well nothing in politics happens quickly and Nigel worked 25 years to actually get that Brexit vote.
Can I ask you about regional elections because we've just had regional elections there into the the areas in Germany AfD won the most seats and this is just going back a week and a half ago AfD won the most seats in the election in and I can't even say it right Thuringian you can correct me a third of the parliament.
So, 32 33 percent of the vote chair and you very nearly came first in Saxony with 30 huge results and I've seen some of the headlines in the media they're panicking they are so scared of this AfD rise tell us about that because you're having success in different areas, European parliamentary elections, very well in that second place.
And these local, these regional elections, that happened just a week and a half ago.
Tell us about that result and what that means for the rise of AfD in Germany.
Yeah, well, you name it, Thuringia, we are the number one.
And the funny situation is we have so many seats that the others must stick all together.
From the left extreme communists, who work together with the spin-off of the communists, together with the CDU, so-called conservative.
And if they all together, if they stick all together, they have exactly so much, so many seats as we.
So, they don't have a majority.
Sorry, then they would have a majority then, but only then. It would be very difficult to make a coalition with the communists and CDU, because there are members of the CDU in Western Germany.
Germany, they are protesting against it because they say, we cannot make a coalition with former communists.
You know, those people were in the GDR. They were those who shoot on the border on their own people if they wanted to escape to the West.
So, this is the current situation there.
In Saxony, it's similar. We nearly won the election.
We are very, very close to the number one.
The difference is just 1%, and it's a really historical success.
What connects it to the European election?
All those successes have the same reason.
The people are sick.
The people are sick of the current government.
It doesn't matter who rules, who from the other parties, from the old parties is on power, because they are all globalistic parties.
And this is the difference. We are the only true populistic power.
We are the only party which really wants to do what the people need.
And what is it?
You know, the people want to have good schools for their kids.
They want to have safe ways.
They don't want their wife or their daughters being raped in the evening if they go out of their homes.
They want to have a good infrastructure.
They don't want to be involved in some wars somewhere, you know, thousands of kilometers away of Germany.
They don't want to be enforced to believe that there are 58 sexes.
They want a policy which is based on support of normal families and the family should contain a mother, father and kids.
Kids that's the normal family you know and this is what the norm ordinary normal people wants and we are the only party which is offering this all other parties are promising to do such things, and immediately after election they start to do sometimes even opposite of it, you know.
And people are sick of it and therefore they are they are voting more and more for the AfD they are voting for us and this trend will continue in the next election for sure, because the old parties they don't change their policies you know you see what they are doing now they really thinking about to creating those coalitions as as I described it before they are really now talking make a coalition with the Christians social union Christian democratic union together with communists, with former communists from the GDR.
It's a similar situation in France with Marine Le Pen, in that all the parties are coming together.
It's a stop Marine Le Pen ticket. In Germany, it seems to be a stop AfD ticket.
These parties, the ruling parties, whether it's the coalition in Germany, whether it's Macron in France, they're not standing for anything.
All they are is against this rise of populism.
Is that how you see it in Germany?
Exactly.
They're standing only for their wish to stay on power, on any price, and standing to be against the populistic parties.
But it says, in fact, they are against the people.
This is the main news.
They are against the people.
They are against their own voters.
Look at the last two elections in Thuringia and Saxony.
I mean, what do you think the people want, which elected the CDU? They wanted a strong coalition between AfD and CDU.
They want conservative politics. They want exactly everything I named just two minutes ago. And what will they get?
They will get a coalition of CDU with the communists.
They will get exactly the opposite of what they wanted.
This is creating immense tensions in the society.
And this is really not good for the future.
Tell us how immigration fits into it, because there's a huge backlash against mass immigration here in the UK.
And that's why Nigel Farage's new party reform did well in the European Parliament.
That's why populist parties are doing well.
It fits into President Trump in November.
And that's why huge support for him.
What is the kind of situation in Germany?
Because it was Angela Merkel that said, come, come, and tried to open the borders of Europe.
What is the current situation, the feeling towards how mass immigration is affecting Germany?
Well, one of the former Innenminister said migration is the mother of all our problems.
And he was even not from the AfD.
But in this sentence and this one, he was absolutely right.
Our society is facing enormous problems. I will just shortly name it, because you know everything the same is happening in UK even on the broader scale you know we have, rapes we have killings by knives we have a huge problem in the social sector you know, it's really incredible and those things happened didn't happen before.
This is something our Western European society doesn't know in this quality.
And again, the old parties are not willing to change it.
Why are they not willing?
Because they established a system which is profiting from migration.
We call it the asylum industry.
This is an industry which is taking more than 50 billion euro per year from taxpayers money and spending it on migrants.
And you have just imagine the dimensions, you know, I guess who is the biggest private employer in Germany?
And just imagine, we have companies who are on the stock exchange like Allianz, BMW, BASF, you name it.
And the biggest employer is the Catholic Caritas.
The biggest owner of real estate is the Catholic Church.
You know, and this is going so on.
We have, of course, it's not just Catholics, but Protestants, and there is Arbaid Avolfat, which is connected to the socialists.
So they all have their organizations.
They are earning so much money.
This is a really huge business.
So in their interest is more migrants and possibly as complicated as possible.
So, they don't want the motivated, good educated migrants, which would quickly, start to work and be part of our society.
They need cases, they can give them tutorials, you know, teach them how to speak German, how to work, and so on, and so on.
And this is the true reason why they are not changing anything.
Tell me, the European Conservative had a great headline that you may have sent it to me earlier saying the Germans say, 'enough'.
And that's to do with immigration.
What are the other, as you have talked to voters during the many elections you've been involved in, immigration certainly is there.
You touched on some of the other areas.
What are the other concerns and what do AfD offer apart from closing borders and stopping the mass immigration?
What else do you offer to the voters as AfD when you're kind of knocking doors at rallies and talking to the public?
It's similar what, for example, Viktor Orban offered to the people of Hungary.
Viktor Orban is the most successful politician in the whole Europe.
He was elected three times after each other. and every time he got 5% more. It's the opposite of Angela Merkel.
She was elected also three times after each other, but I think she got every time 4-5% less.
And what Orban said, he just said, I put the Hungarian people in the focus of my politics.
And again, this is really very easy.
Just take care for the families, support people to have kids, make their life easy.
That's the key message.
Don't take care mainly for minorities, you know, for people with physical problems, Muslims, men who are thinking they are women, and women they are thinking they are men, You know, focus on the 98% of population and try to make their life, better.
That's, that's the message.
Exactly. It's a simple message, which we're seeing across nearly every European country.
And then, then you can say, lower taxation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Inner security, higher inner security, better schools, more money for schools, and so on and so on.
Not a key message.
In The Guardian, the far left paper that we have on the left, although most of them are on the left, we have AfD success in German elections piles pressure on a fragmented EU. And they talk about the European project facing a rocky few years if the AfD's ascent continues.
How does...
Europe has kind of been driven for decades by a French-German axis and now you've got that void with Merkel stepping down, this strange coalition.
We've got Macron, little Macron, not being able to do anything and being neutered by Marine Le Pen.
What does that mean for Europe going forward?
Because there doesn't seem to be a drive, a direction that there used to be whenever there was a strong French government and actually a strong leader in Germany.
That's gone.
So what are your thoughts, kind of the future for Europe, especially now you're in the European Parliament?
Well, this is an interesting question because there is a change of paradigm within the European politics.
At the beginning, the whole project of European Union was, of course, industrial cooperation, the coal and steel union.
Union, and on the political level, it was a kind of, well, they wanted to abandon the possibility of a new war.
So therefore, the friendship between France and Germany was so heavily in focus.
To be honest, I think it was never a friendship, a true friendship.
The French, they don't like the Germans still today.
They don't like anyone, the French.
Well, the British as well, I know.
Yeah, well, but it was enforced and cultivated, let's name it as you want.
But this was the nucleus of the European Union, like a peace project, yes?
And it was successful in this matter.
It was successful.
But now we have a change of paradigm because the EU is turning into a tool of.
How to say just get through some globalist agenda it has nothing to do anymore with with peace and with with a friendship between France and Germany or any other country now.
It's about about regulations about trying to transform this European union into a kind of state you know to take a lot of rights from the national states to this supranational organization.
And this is, again, creating a lot of tension. Just look at what is happening, how the European Union is behaving towards independent states.
They were trying to punish the sovereign state of Poland for years, as long as they had a conservative government under PiS.
They immediately stopped all the punishments when the government changed.
So, it is showing that they had nothing, nothing to do with the reasons they named.
It was just, they just tried to get one specific government down.
And the same is happening to Hungary under Viktor Orban.
And it will be similar with Slovakia.
And also, this is really a big danger.
We as AfD, of course, we are trying to strengthen the rights of the sovereign national states.
This is our main task.
And this is also the reason why our group is called Europe of Sovereign Nations.
Tell me, finishing off, Ursula von der Leyen is a name that any citizen of Europe knows, obviously, as President of the Parliament, or the European Commission.
We'll not even get into the complexities, but, yeah, President, and the most well-known figure. And obviously, she was part of the EPP they voted her in.
Is her role, her position on the European project, Is it going to have a rougher ride?
Is she going to get more pushback, more scrutiny because of the new parties and the larger parties in the European Parliament?
Because for the five years she's done what she wanted to do.
This seems to be pulling her back a little bit.
What are your thoughts on kind of how the five years will move forward?
Sure, she will, because the structure of the plenum of the parliament changed.
You cannot deny that the majorities changed, simply.
Suddenly it will move towards more back to normality I would say, but sadly the process is slow this is what you said on the beginning.
Nigel Farage had to fight more than 20 years and the processes are really slow, slow, slow, and this is what Max Weber wrote already, I think, 100 years ago, politics, it's drilling of a hard piece of wood and slow drilling.
Yeah, that's our job.
In spite of all of us would wish, it goes quickly.
Well see how it develops.
Peter I do appreciate your time.
I know you've got a lot on your plate there in the European parliament trying to bring common sense to that chamber so I appreciate your time today.
Peter, you're always welcome thank you very much for your job you are doing a tremendous job and one more time nice regards to everybody who is watching this, support this blog, support all independent media.
This will be for sure one of the biggest fights in the European Union to save the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression.
The globalist circles are trying to oppress it.
You see it everywhere. Where they are trying to censor X.
They're trying to censor all the social media. They're trying to censor independent media.
So, this will be the fight for the next five years.
And I'm looking forward to many good speeches from you.
We had Rob Bruce on two months ago when he gave some great speeches in the Parliament.
So, we're looking forward to watching those clips of you, speaking in the European Parliament and causing frustration and anger amongst the establishment.
So, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Bye, bye.
