Berlin: Almost 70 years after Nazi Germany crumbled, a radical right-wing party that critics say shows an affinity for Hitler’s National Socialist movement looks set to enter the European Parliament for the first time due to a change in electoral law.

The National Democratic Party (NPD), described by German intelligence as “racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist”, has put stopping mass immigration at the core of its election program for this week’s vote.

Abolition of a German law allowing only parties with three percent of the vote to claim seats will almost certainly open the door to the NPD. The NPD says immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria are coming to Germany to use its social services.

Last year Germany’s 16 states launched a bid to ban the NPD for its “degrading racism” and “recognizable affinity” for the Nazis. A similar attempt by the federal government failed in 2003.