Should you apply for an AfD ban procedure? After the secret meeting with right-wing extremists became known, the Kiel CDU Prime Minister Günther is now also calling for it. Others express skepticism – including a former constitutional judge.
After it became known that AfD politicians met for a secret conference with right-wing extremists in Potsdam, there is increased discussion in Germany about how to deal with the party. Schleswig-Holstein’s Prime Minister Daniel Günther joined those who believe a ban procedure makes sense.
The AfD is “classified as definitely right-wing extremist in three federal states,” the CDU politician told “Welt am Sonntag”. In two of these countries, they have a good chance of becoming the strongest force in the state elections in the fall. Here, “a defensive democracy must also use the instruments that are available to it for its own protection,” demanded Günther. According to the Basic Law, only the Federal Constitutional Court can ban a party. Parliament or the government could apply for this.
Günther: “Must be very well prepared”
Elections will take place in autumn in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. In Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, the AfD is rated as definitely right-wing extremist by the respective Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the AfD regional association as a suspected right-wing extremist case. The party is also considered a suspected case nationwide. The party is legally defending itself against the classification.
Günther said that a ban procedure had to be “very well prepared” because it had to be successful in the end. He therefore understands that CDU party leader Friedrich Merz, for example, is skeptical about the attempt to ban the AfD. “A party ban is a sharp sword that should not be handled lightly,” said Günther. “However, given the danger that the AfD clearly poses, I come to a different conclusion.”
Efforts to ban the right-wing extremist NPD are seen as a precedent for party bans. The ban procedure failed in 2017. The Federal Constitutional Court ruled at the time that the NPD was clearly anti-constitutional, but as a splinter party it was too insignificant to pose a threat to democracy. At least this argument is unlikely to come into play in any possible AfD ban proceedings. In the current one ARD GermanyTrend The AfD has 22 percent nationwide. In the three eastern German states where elections will be held in the fall, opinion polls currently show it at over 30 percent.
Paper: “Would only play into the hands of the AfD”
According to the former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Hans-Jürgen Papier, the AfD, in contrast to the NPD, would have the weight to eliminate the “fundamental value decision of the constitution”. He still considers a request for a ban to be wrong. This would “only play into the hands of the AfD,” the lawyer told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
Papier, who was president of Germany’s highest court from 2002 to 2010, sees the popular parties of the democratic center as having a greater responsibility. They would have to win back voters. “The AfD has supporters from the right-wing extremist spectrum, but many of their voters are not right-wing extremists,” the lawyer pointed out. They have lost their political home and previously voted for the Union or even the Left. “The gradual erosion of our democracy is based on this blatant failure of the popular parties as mediators between citizens and political leadership,” said Papier.
Voigt: “The traffic light acts as accelerant”
Thuringia’s CDU chairman Mario Voigt also called considerations of a ban a wrong discussion. You have to deal with the matter. “The AfD’s victim myth must come to an end. We won’t turn them into martyrs, this supposed alternative.” Anyone who wants to see the EU and Europe die is “a threat to prosperity in Germany and of course also to the order that defines us,” said Voigt, referring to the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke – one of the leading figures of the right-wing extremist wing within the AfD.
The Thuringian CDU leader also criticized the federal government in this context. “The traffic lights in Berlin act as an accelerant for the protest and for people’s concerns,” said Voigt on the sidelines of the CDU board meeting in Heidelberg. This is even harder in the East because people there have less in their wallets.
Steinmeier: “We should give the better answers”
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed concern about the rise of right-wing forces in Germany. “If we look back into history, we realize that extremists have always been the misfortune of our country,” the head of state told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. However, he also expressed skepticism about a possible AfD ban procedure: He could not assess the chances of success, and a procedure would probably take a very long time, said Steinmeier. “I recommend that we concentrate on what is possible and necessary this year: we should give better answers, we should organize democratic majorities and strengthen them,” the Federal President continued.
Kiel Prime Minister Günther also advocated – regardless of his support for a ban – to fight the AfD more politically. Anyone who votes for the AfD today knows that it is an extremist party, said the CDU politician. “We have to address this much more clearly. Looking the other way and shrugging off the fact that so many people are turning to such a party is not acceptable for a Democrat.”
Demonstrations against the AfD in several cities
The meeting of right-wing activists and extremists in Potsdam in November became known through research by the Correctiv network. The participants included AfD politicians and at least one CDU member as well as members of the ultra-conservative Values Union, which is not part of the CDU but has long felt connected to it. Among other things, the conference discussed how it could be achieved that more foreigners and Germans with a migration background leave Germany. The AfD explained that it was not a party meeting.
Church leaders also reacted with horror to reports of the meeting. The Church is firmly opposed to this, emphasized the special representative of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference for refugee issues, Archbishop Stefan Heße, and the President of the Central Committee of German Catholics, Irme Stetter-Karp. “What AfD politicians and other right-wing extremists use the trivializing slogan ‘remigration’ is ultimately nothing more than a deeply inhumane and disturbing plan for the systematic discrimination, mass expulsion and deportation of people with a migrant background,” said Heße.
There were demonstrations in several cities. In Hamburg, for example, it is estimated that 2,000 people came to the AfD party headquarters there. The event was registered by the Jusos Hamburg Nord under the name “Demo against the fascist deportation plans of the AfD and the Values Union”. The call for the demonstration said that the plans were “a despicable attack on the lives of many millions of people in Germany and our democracy.”
In Berlin, several hundred people demonstrated in front of the Chancellery. The participants chanted, among other things, “Nazis out of parliament.” The call for the demonstration called on the Federal Government, Bundestag and Bundesrat to have the Federal Constitutional Court consider banning the AfD.