CNN
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Germany (AFD)’s far-right alternative is now Germany’s largest opposition group, breaking through some opinions in the weeks following the federal election in February.
At the same time, the AFD has recently faced a call for a complete ban from another major political party.
In May, the country’s domestic intelligence agency officially classified the AFD as an extremist entity that threatens democracy. The 1,100-page report presented the finding that the Federal Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution, or BFV, is racist, anti-Muslim, and assesses “all segments” of the German population.
The move to allow BFVs to better monitor the group has rekindled attempts to impose a ban, the party, the highest performance by far-right parties in the country since World War II, despite claiming a significant 20.8% of votes in the February national elections.
The AFD also enjoys extremely vocal support from the Trump administration, with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, who has since left his position in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), urging Germans to vote for the party in the preliminary stage of the election. More recently, both the US Vice President, J.D. Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have criticized Germany’s decision to classify the AFD as an extremist.
On Monday, the Central Left Social Democrats (SPD), now the junior coalition partner of the conservative-led government in Berlin, voted unanimously to begin efforts to ban it.
However, the legal path to banning AFDs is long and almost unprecedented.
The German political system set up to avoid repeating Nazi rules is Conflictable democracyor “extremist democracy,” meaning it is a democracy.
In other words, German states can actively defend against internal threats to democratic principles and constitutional order, including the prohibition of political parties.
However, two criteria must be met by the German Federal Constitutional Court to form the legal basis for the prohibition.
First, the parties in question must be known to work against the country’s free democratic order, showing a “active, belligerent and aggressive attitude.” Second, parties must be popular enough to pose a concrete threat to democracy, a provision created in 2017 and called “possibility.”
Parties found to meet the first criteria are prohibited from accessing public campaign funding rather than the second criteria, but are permitted to continue other activities.
“It’s a widespread German misconception that AFD cannot be banned in Germany… because it’s too big,” Holters, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Rufuna, told CNN.
“The opposite is true. Its size indicates that it meets the criteria for “potential.” ”
To begin the process of banning parties, you must make a formal request to federal court. This request is the government itself, and Bustestag, German House of Parliament, or Federal Council, A legislative body representing the 16 regions of the country.
The court then decides whether to start the case or to abandon the application as unfounded.
It must examine thousands of pages of evidence, hear witnesses, hold a full trial and consider whether the parties are in fact violating the Constitution, Hortels explained.
The court may declare a party unconstitutional. The party then dissolves and bans all political activities. Additionally, the creation of alternative organizations is prohibited.
To make a declaration, at least two-thirds of the justice of the court must agree.
In fact, if the AFD is banned, the sitting lawmakers will automatically suffer a loss of mandate at the regional and federal levels and at the European Parliament.
Of the 152 seats AFD currently has Bustes Tag 42 people were direct seats, with each candidate winning the district individually as a majority. These 42 districts will need to vote again to fill their seats with new candidates from other parties. The other 110 AFD seats assigned using the Party List System remain vacant until the next election cycle. Similarly, seats in the AFD in the European Parliament remain vacant.
In either case, this changes the majority ratio. This means that seats of all other parties will gain greater importance.
The German Federal Constitutional Court has only been banned in the country’s history, both of which were early postwar years. The Socialist Imperial Party (SRP), the successor to the Nazi Party, was banned in 1952. Four years later, in 1956, Germany’s Communist Party (KPD) was also banned.
Repeated attempts to ban the Neo-Nazi Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany have failed in 2003, 2016 and 2021. The 2017 court publicly admitted that the party was unconstitutional, but found that it poses no major threat to the constitutional order. In January 2024, the court approved a freeze on the NPD’s state funds for six years.
Overall, Hortels believes it would be difficult to impose a ban on German political parties. “The party’s ban is seen as a measure of last resort against the enemy of democracy,” he said.
The rise of the AFD has sparked widespread unrest, and protesters are calling for it to be outlawed. Most notably, in early 2024, when tens of thousands of demonstrators descended in German cities, especially after senior AFD members discussed plans to deport immigrants.
But German lawmakers remain divided on the issue, with some fearing that the move backfires and burns far-right sympathy.
Pointing to the classification as a right-wing extremist organization, SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil told party members at Monday’s meeting that efforts to ban the AFD should be launched.
“The moment the domestic Intelligence Agency says this is a confirmed right-wing extremist party, there can’t be any more tactics,” he said.
But Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leads the German Union of Union government – hesitant.
German Home Minister Alexander Dobrind, a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, poured cold water into the SPD’s movement. Speaking to the German news podcast “Table. Today,” he said, “The decision made at the SPD Party meeting is not a mandate of the Minister of Home Affairs.”
Meltz reported in May that he was “skeptical” about the proceedings that the newspaper banned political parties, and he himself has been paying attention to the moves.
The AFD’s unparalleled public recognition means that strong transatlantic allies, let alone support from the Trump administration, may have a significant response to their ban.
Some polls found that, weeks after the German election, support for the AFD was even higher than the official 20.8% result, making it the country’s most popular party in a short time.
In April, the national voting agency FORSA found that the AFD was voting at a record 26%. Currently, FORSA shows AFD at 24%, a 4-point delay in the CDU.
With AFD support reaching such heights, Hortels risks creating a “martist effect” in the case of a ban, and sees the AFD as “staging as a victim of political opponents.” This could lead to further radicalisation of some of its supporters, and even politically motivated violence, he said.
He said the lengthy legal process could further boost the AFD platform, but the move could risk the “anger” of the Trump administration and challenge the narrative of “undemocratic Europe” populist.
