Financial woes for NPD

All seven full-time employees at the National Party of Germany's (NPD) Berlin headquarters were let go Thursday, party spokesman Frank Franz said. The "Spiegel Online" news website first reported the layoffs earlier in the day.

Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, withheld money due to be paid to the NPD because the party owes a 1.27 million euro ($1.63 million) penalty for an incorrect statement of accounts.

The Bundestag disburses government funding for the country's political parties based on their performances at European, federal and state elections, as well as the amount of contributions they collect. The NPD receives approximately 300,000 euros in state funding each quarter, but has yet to get any money this year.

Franz said that talks with the Bundestag over deferring the financial penalty or coming to another solution were fruitless. If the financial situation had been cleared up earlier, Franz added, the party could have canceled the layoffs, which he stressed were a temporary measure.

In addition to their financial woes, the NPD must deal with another headache. The party has had to cancel their party convention, which was set to take place this weekend in northern Bavaria.

Local officials earlier this week began construction at a site near the city of Coburg where the NPD had wanted to meet. A regional court in Bayreuth rejected the party's request to halt the work for the weekend. The NPD equated the court's actions to "absurd arbitrary authority" and postponed their conference until further notice.

dr/lw (dpa, AFP)