STRASBOURG: The European Parliament today suspended "with immediate effect" a German far-right MEP's assistant arrested for allegedly spying for China.

Following Germany's arrest a day earlier of the suspect, Jian Guo, "and given the seriousness of the revelations, Parliament has suspended the person in question with immediate effect," a spokesman for the legislature told AFP.

German prosecutors said the aide, a registered staff member to far-right German lawmaker Maximilian Krah, "is an employee of a Chinese secret service".

Guo, a German national, allegedly passed on European Parliament information to China and "spied on Chinese opposition members in Germany for the (Chinese) intelligence service", they said.

His boss, Krah, is the lead candidate for Germany's extreme-right AfD party in EU-wide elections taking place June 6-9.

Leftwing lawmakers in the European Parliament demanded the legislature speed up a foreign-influence probe launched last year when a scandal broke about some MEPs and assistants allegedly taking money from Qatar and Morocco to promote those countries' interests.

The pre-election cloud hanging over the Parliament darkened further two weeks ago, when Belgium opened an investigation into allegations Moscow paid some far-right MEPs to spread Kremlin propaganda.

Krah was allegedly implicated in that so-called "Russiagate" scandal, said Terry Reintke, a German MEP with the Greens group in the parliament who expressed indignation over the growing "Chinagate" affair.

She called for the parliamentary probe to accelerate because "autocracies like China and Russia are actively trying to undermine our democracies in Europe".

Reitke demanded that the parliamentary investigation deliver preliminary results before the EU elections in June.

Another leftwing MEP, Manon Aubry, co-chair of The Left group in the parliament, said the scandals showed the far-right sought "to hide the links they have with autocratic regimes".

She called for a mooted ethics body for EU institutions to be given powers to impose sanctions when corruption was proved.

Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who is now an MEP with the centrist Renew group, said on the social media platform X: "Sovereignty for sale! China and Russia are undermining our democracy and security... and the radical right is their Trojan horse!"

Valerie Hayer, a fellow Renew MEP from France, said of the far-right that "the interests they are defending are those of Moscow and Beijing".

She urged voters to reject them in the EU elections "to prevent them undermining our democracies across Europe".

Far-right parties across Europe are predicted to pick up more seats in the next parliament on a surge of support from some voters feeling squeezed by the cost of living and what they perceive to be a burdensome shift to more climate-friendly policies.

The AfD and other far-right parties are also hostile to immigrants.

Across Europe, though, they are split on the issue of Ukraine and whether to back EU support for Kyiv or to get behind a call for Ukrainian concessions to end the war Moscow is waging.

 - AFP