Germany's far-right AfD demands government relief amid fuel crunch

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday accused the government of inaction over high fuel prices and called on Chancellor Friedrich Merz's coalition to pull together on emergency measures.

Fuel prices have skyrocketed, said the party, which in a poll by INSA last month ranked neck-and-neck with Merz's conservative CDU/CSU alliance, with 26% support among the electorate.

"What is the government doing? It is standing idly by," said party and parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel on the sidelines of a closed-door AfD meeting in the eastern city of Cottbus.  

Weidel demanded an immediate cut in energy tax and the abolition of the CO2 levy on fuel.

As in many countries, prices at the pump have soared in Germany  after the Iran war all but halted the passage of oil tankers through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

On Saturday, coalition leaders met in Berlin for talks on the energy price crisis, government sources said.

Demands for action on fuel prices were echoed by the German Farmers' Association in view of the burden on its members amid soaring fuel and fertilizer costs.

AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla on Sunday also slammed plans of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) - a member of Merz's coalition - for what he denounced as excess profits taxation of oil companies.

"The state is currently collecting those excess profits," Chrupalla said, stressing that Germany's finance ministry must return that to the public.

At Sunday's meeting, the AfD members of the lower house of Parliament adopted papers on economy and energy, pensions and social affairs, while reiterating their core demands.

These include calls for tax cuts, higher tax allowances, a return to nuclear power, the resumption of gas supplies from Russia and the abolition of the CO2 levy.

In the short term, tax cuts are to be financed, for example, through spending cuts, "including in climate ideology," the AfD lawmakers said.

Weidel called on Merz's party to cooperate on emergency measures for businesses and consumers.

She also signalled to the CDU "that we are ready at any time to implement these reform measures in the German Bundestag. The majority is there ... The CDU just has to do it."