The German automaker BMW has withdrawn its offer to lease an official vehicle to Tobias Rausch, the new president of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament and a representative of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Welt reports this, UNN writes.
Details
It is reported that the Munich-based automaker’s headquarters withdrew the offer on October 6 — the same day that Tobias Rausch, a politician from the Alternative for Germany party, was elected president of the state parliament.
BMW gave no reasons for withdrawing the offer.
The BMW Group does not comment on its relationships with customers as a matter of principle
Several days earlier, BMW CEO Milan Nedeljković said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, commenting on the AfD’s activities, that right-wing populism and nationalism "are poison for the open economic arena that thrives on global trade."
On Thursday evening, Beatrix von Storch, deputy chairwoman of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, reacted to the situation on the social media platform X, addressing Tesla CEO Elon Musk in English: "Elon Musk, would Tesla be willing to provide him with an official vehicle?".
Initially, Rausch will use a BMW 7 Series that belonged to his predecessor from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). However, the lease agreement expires in November. If the state parliament does not find a replacement by then, Rausch could be left without an official vehicle.
According to the administration, BMW’s offer was the only one from a major German automaker. No offers have yet been received from Mercedes or Audi. Until now, BMW had supplied a significant part of the vehicle fleet of the state parliament and the state government.
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