'Afd is against democracy in Germany, it must be banned, our history teaches us this'
Carmen Wegge, Spd deputy in the last parliamentary term, was among the initiators of a parliamentary motion to ban Alternative für Deutschland. "Bundestag, Bundesrat and government should act together, we have an obligation to ask the Constitutional Court to intervene". Republicans in the US 'have a lot in common with Afd'
from our correspondent Gianluca Di Donfrancesco
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2' min read
Key points
- What does this suspension mean?
- Are you going to ask the Constitutional Court to intervene again?
- So the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the government should act together?
- Accusations of extremism and xenophobia do not appeal to voters
- Afd says you are the ones who are against democracy.
- USA supports Afd and criticises German system
2' min read
BERLIN - 'Alternative für Deutschland is the biggest threat to our democracy since Hitler and must be banned'. She has no doubts, Carmen Wegge, Spd MP. Already in the last legislature she had promoted, together with Marco Wanderwitz of the Cdu, a parliamentary motion to ask the Constitutional Court to ban Afd. The document had been signed by more than 110 MPs from different parties, but the early dissolution of the Bundestag stopped everything. On 2 May, however, the Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution (Bfv) changed Afd's classification from 'suspect case' of right-wing extremism to 'established case' and incompatible with democracy. The party appealed and the Bfv decided to suspend the reclassification until the administrative court rules.
What does this suspension mean?
.In a state governed by the rule of law, Afd naturally has the right to take legal action against the Bfv's new assessment. But the Bfv has come to a clear judgement, for good reasons. I am certain that Afd will not succeed in court. The Administrative Court of Cologne and the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia have already ruled in favour of the Bfv in cases against the previous classification (that of suspect case, ed). It is important for me to emphasise that the suspension does not mean a change in the content of the new classification.
Are you going to ask the Constitutional Court to intervene again?
Yes. I think we have to do that. All of us members of parliament have an obligation to go to the Constitutional Court. Not only the Bundestag can do it, the government and the Bundesrat, the chamber of the Länder, can do it too. We must go to the Constitutional Court because Alternative für Deutschland is the greatest threat to our democracy since Hitler.
So the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the government should act together?
That would be the best thing.
The accusations do not seem to resonate with voters: Afd in some polls ranks alongside Cdu-Csu as the leading party in Germany. What good can its ban do?
.We are facing a situation that we in Germany know from our history, and the reason why there is the possibility of banning a party is precisely because of our history, because we know that there can be a party that moves within the democratic system, but wants to fight democracy. The people who wrote our Constitution thought that if this situation arises again, we must have a tool to deal with it. And that tool is banishment. We have a party that wants to wipe out democracy in Germany, I know there are many people who vote for it, but that is the path we have to take.
