(AP) The far-right Alternative for Germany says it accepts that people can be German citizens “regardless of their ethno-cultural background,” an about-face for a party whose leading figures have in the past questioned whether immigrants from outside Europe can be integrated.
A declaration posted on the party’s website Monday and signed by dozens of its lawmakers states that AfD acknowledges “without reservation” that people who have only recently gained German citizenship have the same rights and duties as those whose families have lived in the country for centuries.
The declaration doesn’t go so far as to say that migrants or their descendants belong to the German “Volk,” a nationalist term the party has sought to rehabilitate and which refers to people who belong to a particular ethnicity.
