The European Union should set up its own version of Elon Musk’s “Doge” agency to cut red tape that prevents member states from defending their borders, Germany’s AfD party has said.

Markus Walbrunn, an MP for the far-Right Alternative for Germany [AfD], said “sclerotic” Brussels bureaucracy was holding back efforts in Germany and other EU states to adopt much tougher measures on migration, such as the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. 

“Not just Germany, but the entire European Union, which suffers from bureaucratic sclerosis, urgently needs a radical reduction in unnecessary regulations and laws,” Mr Walbrunn, an MP in the Bavarian state parliament, told The Telegraph. “This of course also applies to the areas of asylum and migration. The repatriation of illegal immigrants on a large scale must finally be possible.”

Asked whether the AfD saw Mr Musk’s Doge agency as a possible model for this, he said: “Absolutely.”

Doge is a semi-official US organisation created by Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, to help the Trump administration radically cut back on red tape and excessive US government spending.