Nazi Sympathizers Pushing to Take Over Europe's Spy Agencies

Far-right politicians have taken over the security apparatus in Austria and Italy. Next on their list: the intelligence agencies.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY
JOSEPHINE HUETLIN
BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN

06.26.18 9:00 PM ET

A slow-simmering scandal in Austria has brought into public view potentially disastrous divisions among Western intelligence agencies. As far-right politicians have joined coalition governments in Austria and Italy and taken ministerial positions in charge of security and law enforcement, concerns have grown among intelligence professionals that they will ignore or even encourage the threat of violent ultra-right extremists.

The extreme right is now in charge of the interior ministries in both Vienna and Rome, putting conspicuous pressure on the intelligence services. In Austria, there have even been police raids on the homes and offices of top intelligence service staffers.

Already, at least some intelligence sharing between Germany and Austria appears to have been curtailed, and the relationship between Italy’s extreme-right-wing interior minister Matteo Salvini and other major European countries is severely, publicly strained. French President Emmanuel Macron last week likened the rise of such populists to “leprosy all across Europe.”

At the same time, these far-right politicians’ open friendliness toward Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the KGB veteran who may have helped some of them get elected, raises grave security issues for the NATO alliance. And the fact that right-wing U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be playing a similar game—trying to discredit U.S. intelligence professionals while flirting with Putin—greatly heightens the sense of alarm.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/nazi-sympathizers-want-to-run-europes-spy-agencies?ref=home