Germany's far-right AfD keeps second place in polls despite scandals

Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has maintained its second place in polls ahead of June's European Parliament elections, despite a wave of recent scandals that has threatened to damage the party's hopes.

An online survey carried out by the INSA polling institute for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper had the AfD at 17%, unchanged from April.

Germany's conservative CDU/CSU alliance was top at 30%, with the governing Social Democratic Party (SDP) at 14% and its coalition partners The Greens and the Free Democratic Party at 13% and 4% respectively.

The AfD has been rocked by controversies in recent weeks, with the party's lead candidate for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, being banned from making public statements after saying that not all members of the Nazi SS paramilitary force were criminals.

The party's second candidate in the European elections, Petr Bystron, has also withdrawn from the campaign after his Berlin home was searched by police last week. Bystron is under investigation for money laundering and bribery and has links to pro-Russian networks.

In addition, German police arrested Krah's former assistant Jian Guo on suspicion of espionage last month. Krah fired him following allegations that the parliamentary aide was spying for China.

While the spate of negative headlines is yet to harm the AfD in German polls, it has had consequences for the party on the European level.

In a blow ahead of the European Parliament elections, the AfD was ejected this week from the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, an alliance of populist right-wing parties in the parliament.