Just after Frankfurt had been awarded the seat of the AMLA, the European anti-money laundering authority, on Thursday evening, MEP Gunnar Beck spoke out. Mr. Beck is a member of the Identity and Democracy Group, which is an alliance of the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the French Rassemblement National, the Austrian FPÖ and other national and far-right parties in the EU Parliament. Beck is a representative of the AfD.

He sent out an email across the board in which he claimed, with utter conviction, that he was still surprised by the "attitude of my German colleagues", who "regularly vote against German interests". Tough stuff! According to Beck's firm conviction, Lindner had not been able to mobilise a single other vote for Frankfurt among all the other German MEPs in the EU Parliament. Well, if he is not on the wrong track there.

Of course, the vote was secret. A total of 54 votes was cast – 27 by MEPs and 27 by representatives of the 27 EU member states. Two hours earlier, they had agreed on a joint candidate, namely Frankfurt. It was agreed that all national governments should vote in favour of Frankfurt. In the end, Madrid received 16 votes, Paris 6 votes, Rome 4 votes – and Frankfurt 28, i.e. a (very narrow) majority. So Beck may have been the only MEP to vote in favour of Frankfurt. But that does not necessarily have to be the case. Firstly, diplomats who were actively involved in the preliminary talks assume that not all 27 national representatives adhered to the preliminary agreement. Secondly, there are also reports from the EU Parliament that more than one vote came from MEPs – not least because a second German, Rasmus Andresen from the Green Party, was involved.

Much more important than the question of who behaved how in the secret ballot – which cannot be clarified anyway – is to look at what would have happened if Frankfurt had received "only" 27 votes in the first ballot without Beck's support. It is – to put it mildly – extremely unlikely that Madrid would have almost doubled its number of votes from 16 to 28. All the more so as Frankfurt was on the EU Parliament's shortlist of favourites. It is much more realistic to assume that in round two, for example, the conservative party family would have given some of their votes to Frankfurt (as was probably agreed beforehand anyway).

In this respect, AfD man Beck is tinkering with a legend of his own making when he claims that it is only thanks to him that the AMLA is coming to Frankfurt. He is giving a foretaste of what can be expected in the next legislative period when the far-right group will foreseeably be even more strongly represented in the EU Parliament – and will then probably regularly claim that nothing will work without them.