An aide to a German far-right European Parliament lawmaker has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China, Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office said Tuesday, the latest in a series of cases that have intensified concerns about foreign interference in European Union politics weeks before bloc-wide elections.
The arrest also comes a day after the British authorities announced they had charged two people, one of whom was a former parliamentary aide, with spying for China, although there was no indication the two cases were linked.
The German arrest took place on Monday in the eastern city of Dresden. Hours earlier the German authorities had arrested three people in the west of the country on suspicion of leaking technological data used in maritime propulsion and exporting a high-powered laser to China. It was not clear whether the two cases were linked.
The episodes underscored the oftentimes fraught relationship between European countries and China, a vastly important trading partner that has long been treated with suspicion.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Jian G., as he was identified in keeping with German privacy rules, had worked for a German member of the European Parliament since 2019.
Calling him an “employee of a Chinese secret service,” prosecutors accused Mr. G. of repeatedly passing along information about parliamentary deliberations and decisions to Chinese intelligence in January. Mr. G., a German citizen, also was accused of spying on Chinese opposition groups in Germany, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office.
The Chinese government denied any involvement in the case.
“We have taken note of the relevant reports and related hype,” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, told a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday. “In reality, everyone has seen very clearly in recent times that the so-called ‘Chinese espionage threat theory’ is not new in European public discourse,” he added.
Nancy Faeser, who as Germany’s interior minister is responsible for homeland security, called the allegations “extremely serious.”
“If it is confirmed that the European Parliament was spying for Chinese intelligence services, then this is an attack on European democracy from within,” she said in statement on Tuesday morning.
Maximilian Krah, a lawmaker with the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party confirmed that the man arrested was one of his employees. “Should the allegations prove to be true, this would result in the immediate termination of employment,” Mr. Krah wrote on X.
A spokesman for the European Parliament said that Mr. G had been suspended from his job as a staff parliamentary assistant, effective immediately.
The fourth arrest of a German accused of working for Chinese intelligence in two days, Mr. G.’s case risked further straining the tense relationship between Germany and China, just days after Chancellor Olaf Scholz returned from a trip to Beijing.
China is Germany’s fourth-largest export market and Mr. Scholz had signed several bilateral trade agreements during his three-day visit to China. But Germany is also mindful of China’s aggressive trade practices: In a national strategy paper presented last year, the German government called China a “systemic rival.”
At the same time, if the allegations against Mr. G. prove true, they would reveal China’s efforts to influence and extract information from the European Parliament at a critical moment for the E.U.-China relationship.
The European Union has not followed the United States in confronting Beijing over tensions in the South China Sea, but it has been directly at odds with China over its support for Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The bloc of 27 countries has also been experiencing escalating tensions with Beijing over trade, a sizable economic relationship that hinges on mutual reliance but also deep rivalry.
And while the European Parliament has limited executive powers, it is a high-profile institution that approves all new legislation for the bloc while also serving as a forum for debate and the exchange of sensitive information pertaining to European policies.
But Mr. G.’s case was not the first to suggest an attempt at foreign interference in the European Union’s only directly elected body: The Parliament has been roiled since late 2022 by an ongoing investigation into an alleged cash-for-favors scheme involving Qatar.
Mr. Krah, who has served in the European Parliament since 2019, has positioned himself on the right wing of the AfD and has mingled with some members of the U.S. Republican Party. He is the top candidate on the AfD party list for the European Parliament elections in June.
The arrest of his aide also was not the first time Mr. Krah’s name had come in contact with accused spies for foreign countries. According to internal records reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Krah secured an access badge to the European Parliament for a Polish man later accused of spying for Russia.
Mr. Krah has said he was questioned by the F.B.I. about possible payments from Russia last December, when he was in the U.S. to attend an event hosted by the New York Young Republican Club. However, he denied taking money from Russian interests.
When the magazine European Conservative suggested last year that one of his aides was lobbying on behalf of China, Mr. Krah hit back at what he called a smear piece.
“They are merrily lying,” he said at the time.
