The populist-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could be declared “anti-constitutional” before the end of the year, a report in the German media has claimed.
Die Welt, part of the Axel Springer group, reported that Germany’s spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), was planning to issue a new report on the party to be published before January, with the document having the power to readjust the party’s legal standing in the country.
Speaking on October 14, BfV president Thomas Haldenwang said his organisation could either classify the party as being “suspected” of extremism, could say that suspicions of extremism have been “confirmed”, or could say that the party is “definitely extremist and anti-constitutional”.
It is unique in the Western world that a secret service monitors and pursues the political opposition.
Haldenwang added that his group would be “taking the latest political developments into account”. The line was reportedly in reference to the recent chaos that befell the Thuringian State parliament, with the first session of the body after the State’s election in September dissolving into a shouting match.
Establishment parties have blamed the fiasco on the AfD, claiming that the party — through the parliament’s mostly ceremonial senior president — was attempting to undermine the normal democratic rules of the assembly.
AfD officials have denied the accusations, insisting that their senior president has been doing his utmost to ensure the normal functioning of the parliament and that the establishment parties were the ultimate cause of the chaos.
In the first half of 2024, 84 violent attacks were made against German politicians, a sharp rise compared to 2023.
AfD politicians were most often targeted in those assaults — 48 times out of the 84 cases, the figures seen by Brussels Signal disclosed.
Read the full article ??… pic.twitter.com/2Wwc9HwRPI
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 3, 2024
The threatened designation came amid recent electoral success for the AfD at the regional level, with the party winning in the Thuringian vote and coming second in both Saxony and Brandenburg.
Under German law, the country’s spy agencies are given greater powers to observe political parties that have been designated as “extremist” and “anti-constitutional”.
The designation has been repeatedly applied to regional groups of the AfD in the past, with members of the party pointing to the designation as proof that Germany’s institutions were working with its political opponents, and ultimately aimed to keep the party out of power.
“It is unique in the Western world that a secret service monitors and pursues the political opposition,” party MEP Siegbert Droese told Brussels Signal.
“The so-called Verfassungsschutz [Constitutional protection] does not protect our liberal constitution at all, but the government from justified criticism!”
“This makes this authority nothing more than a modern Stasi acting on the instructions of ministers bound by party politics!” he added.
The data from recent German state elections has led to AfD co-chair Alice Weidel stating: “The SPD is above all a pensioners’ party.” https://t.co/Xg3WYvBk32
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) September 24, 2024
