Brussels, 08/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - The lead candidate for the European elections of May of the Austrian extreme right-wing party FPÖ announced on Tuesday 8 April that he was to withdraw from the list, over his racist comments and comparisons of the European Union to the Third Reich. MEP Andreas Mölzer explained his decision was made because of the “loss of confidence” on the part of the general public in his party following his comments (see EUROPE 11046).
According to the German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), he said in February that the EU may become “a conglomerate of Negroes, absolute chaos”, in which “the Germans and the Austrians” would be “the only ones who started work at 9.00am rather than 11.00am”. He also said that, in comparison to the European Union, “the Third Reich was probably informal and liberal”. On Tuesday, he said his decision was solely “not to harm” his party. The comments which caused the row, he stressed, were wrong only in that they were “the non-politically correct expression of non-conformist thoughts”. The other Austrian parties had called for Mölzer to step down. His party is the third largest in Austria and is expected to consolidate its position in the European elections of 25 May, achieving around 20% of the votes. (LC)