(Bloomberg) -- Police conducted a search Tuesday of the European Parliament offices in Brussels used by Alternative for Germany lawmaker Maximilian Krah and an assistant who’s accused of spying for China.

Krah, the far-right party’s lead candidate in next month’s European Parliament elections, hasn’t been implicated and has denied any personal wrongdoing. He said late last month after the case came to light that he would immediately dismiss the aide, a German citizen the prosecutor named as Jian G., whose Brussels apartment was searched on April 24.

Krah said in a post on X that Tuesday’s action, ordered by the German federal prosecutor, was not unexpected given the arrest of Jian G., whom he referred to as his former employee. “The only remarkable thing is that they took so long to do it,” he added.

Support for the AfD has dwindled since the allegations were made public, only the latest setback for the anti—immigrant party.

It’s still in second place on around 18% in most polls ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. The main opposition conservatives lead on about 30% ahead of the next federal election due by the fall of 2025.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Tuesday spoke out against “populists, radicals and right-wing extremists” and accused them of wanting to destroy the sense of community that has developed in Germany over the past 70 years.

He also highlighted what he called “violence” and “violence of language” fueled by social media, saying it is increasingly spilling into the political sphere.

Why German Far-Right AfD Party Has Run Into Trouble: QuickTake

At the weekend, Scholz led condemnations of a brutal attack on a member of the European Parliament for his Social Democrats, who was seriously injured late Friday in Dresden while putting up election posters.

“Freedom and democracy are under pressure from within, from enemies who want to fight them at their core and perhaps abolish them,” Habeck said in a speech to a conference in Hamburg.

“The pressure on freedom, on the country we cherish so much, is enormous and we shouldn’t think things are just always there as a matter of course if we don’t take care of them,” he added.

An alliance of German companies on Tuesday launched a campaign dubbed “We stand for values,” which aims to combat extremism and populism ahead of the June 6-9 European Parliament ballot.

It includes major corporations like Siemens AG and BMW AG, as well as family-owned businesses and startups. The initiative is also backed by the BDI industry lobby and the DGB labor union confederation.

--With assistance from Michael Nienaber, Peter Chapman and Kevin Whitelaw.

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