extremism
AfD faction downplays meetings of radical right-wingers
The AfD parliamentary group is downplaying the meeting of radical right-wingers in Potsdam. photo
© Carsten Koall/dpa
The meeting of radical right-wingers, which AfD members also took part in, continues to cause excitement. The AfD parliamentary group does not want to know a known participant. Meanwhile, the ban debate continues.
He assumes “that we will discuss it in some form,” said Baumann before his group’s meeting in Berlin. The public reaction to this meeting was exaggerated. “It wasn’t a secret meeting,” said Baumann, but a “private appointment.” He asked: “Who is Mr. Sellner?”
As a result of reports about the meeting, people have demonstrated against the AfD in several German cities in recent days. Roland Hartwig, an advisor to AfD leader Alice Weidel, also took part in the meeting in Potsdam. According to a party spokesman, his contract has now been terminated.
Bundestag debates right-wing extremist meetings
On Thursday, the Bundestag will deal with the meeting of right-wing radicals in Potsdam on the initiative of the traffic light coalition. The SPD, FDP and Green factions have requested a current hour, as the German Press Agency learned from coalition circles.
SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich had already announced the initiative last week. He said the AfD wanted to know what role politicians from its ranks played at the meeting. “I think that we have to try (…) to ask the AfD about this question. That is very important. We need a political debate.”
Individual AfD officials as well as individual members of the CDU and the ultra-conservative Values Union took part in the meeting in a Potsdam villa in November. The former head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, confirmed to the dpa that he spoke about “remigration” at the meeting. When right-wing extremists use the term, they usually mean that large numbers of people of foreign origin should leave the country – even under duress. According to Correctiv research, Sellner named three target groups in Potsdam: asylum seekers, foreigners with the right to remain – and “non-assimilated citizens.”
The Bundestag debate could also include the question of banning proceedings against the AfD. The Bundestag, alongside the Bundesrat and the Federal Government, can apply for such proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court. High-ranking SPD representatives such as party leader Saskia Esken and Mützenich have spoken out in favor of examining a ban, as has the CDU Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Daniel Günther.
Ban procedure: top of the Union faction skeptical
The leadership of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, however, took a skeptical stance towards a ban procedure. “I really see very, very big dangers,” said the parliamentary manager of the CDU/CSU MPs, Thorsten Frei (CDU), in Berlin. The actions of the AfD members must be meticulously documented and completely deduced in order to prove that they are unconstitutional. CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt made a similar statement.
“When I see that the NPD ban process has already lasted four years, I don’t want to imagine what that would mean in this case,” said Frei. “This time alone would of course help the AfD because it could indulge in its victim myth.” He also doesn’t want to imagine what a failure of the ban process would ultimately mean. The parties have “the task of canvassing for votes and ensuring that radical and extremist parties do not gain traction if possible,” he said. “That hasn’t worked out well so far.”
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann also spoke out in favor of the party’s content. “We are concentrating on holding debates about how we can contain the AfD politically,” said the Green politician in Stuttgart. That is initially crucial.