The Federal Constitutional Court is hearing for the first time about withdrawing state subsidies from a party. Are the right-wing extremist NPD, which is now called “The Homeland,” the prerequisites for this?
Parties have an important task in a democracy. According to the Basic Law, they are involved in forming the political will of the people. According to the Political Parties Act, the parties finance themselves on the one hand through contributions and donations, on the other hand through so-called state partial financing.
The level of subsidies from the state results from “rootedness in society”. And according to the party law, this is based on your success in European, federal and state elections as well as the amount of donations and contributions from the population.
Ban of the NPD failed in 2017
In 2017, the second party ban proceedings against the NPD failed at the Federal Constitutional Court. The judges had confirmed that the National Democratic Party of Germany had clearly anti-constitutional goals. In the Judgment of January 17, 2017 it said, among other things:
The Respondent strives for the elimination of the free democratic basic order according to its goals and the behavior of its supporters. It aims to replace the existing constitutional order with an authoritarian “national state” geared towards the ethnic “national community”. This political concept disregards the human dignity of everyone who does not belong to the ethnic community and is incompatible with the constitutional principle of democracy.
However, Karlsruhe did not let the anti-constitutional goals alone suffice for a ban. Because there is no evidence that the NPD can somehow implement these goals, the hurdle for a party ban has not been reached.
Federal Constitutional Court had given impetus
But the Federal Constitutional Court did not stop with this statement. Rather, the judges pointed out at several points in the judgment that an amendment to the Basic Law could also provide for other, less drastic sanctions against anti-constitutional parties.
The President of the Federal Constitutional Court at the time, Andreas Voßkuhle, said in the oral verdict: “It is not for the Federal Constitutional Court, but for the legislature to decide whether other possible reactions make sense in such a situation – such as the withdrawal of state funding.”
Amendment to the Basic Law 2017 creates requirements
The “constitution-amending legislature” was not long in coming. In June 2017, the Bundestag passed the law to exclude anti-constitutional parties from party funding with the required two-thirds majority. In July 2017, the Bundesrat voted unanimously to amend the Basic Law. Anyone who wants to fight the constitution and the state should not get money from this state.
Malu Dreyer, Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate and then President of the Federal Council, put it this way: “We want to ensure that tax funds are not used to ensure that right-wing extremists and right-wing politicians are made in Germany and that the NPD also use them from taxes to further advance their ideology.”
Federal Constitutional Court must decide
With the amendment of the Basic Law, the conditions for a withdrawal of party funding were created. But for a party to actually do this, the Federal Constitutional Court must decide, and this only happens at the request of the Bundestag, Bundesrat or Federal Government.
In July 2019, all three submitted the application together in Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe is now negotiating whether the requirements are met. It is the first procedure of this kind. On the one hand, it should once again be a question of whether the implementation of the amendment to the Basic Law is compatible with the constitution. On the other hand, the court must examine whether the NPD, which has since been renamed “Die Heimat”, is aimed at eliminating the free democratic basic order – i.e. whether it is still anti-constitutional or whether something has changed since 2017 has.
Effects of the Judgment
The party has continued to lose political importance since the Federal Constitutional Court ruling. In the last federal election, she still received 0.1 percent of the second votes. This fell well short of the 0.5 percent threshold required for partial financing. The party has therefore not received any state subsidies since 2021. Before that it was between 300,000 and 400,000 euros per year.
Party chairman Frank Franz believes that equal opportunities for the parties have been violated: “As political competitors, we see our options limited if we ever get back into state party funding in any way. Because that also helps smaller parties in particular. Then we would have a significant disadvantage in competition. And we see that as a significant encroachment on the principle of equal treatment.”
If the Federal Constitutional Court were to exclude the party from part-financing by the state, this would have another consequence: Even donations to “Die Heimat”, from which the party now mainly lives, could no longer be deducted from taxes. A verdict is expected in a few months.