Germany's Scholz cautions against hasty attempts to ban far-right AfD

Germany's outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday cautioned against hasty attempts to ban the far-right AfD, emphasizing that the Constitutional Court has set high thresholds for party ban cases.

Speaking at an event in Hannover, the Social Democrat has welcomed the domestic intelligence agency BfV's new report on the AfD and its designation of the party as a “proven extremist group.”

“This means that, based on this assessment, it is right that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) continues and intensifies its monitoring of the AfD,” Scholz said, emphasizing that this decision relied on factual, thorough, and careful expert investigation.

Asked whether democratic parties now should promptly file a petition at the Constitutional Court for a ban, Scholz cautioned against rushing such action. He emphasized that any petition must be meticulously prepared, considering the court's precedents in similar cases.

“I think this is something we shouldn't rush into,” Scholz said, noting that previous attempts to ban another far-right party, the NPD, were rejected by the Constitutional Court because of procedural flaws, issues with evidence gathering, and legal controversies..Earlier on Friday, Germany's domestic intelligence agency announced its classification of the AfD as a “proven extremist group,” citing the party's ideology and actions as incompatible with Germany's democratic constitutional order.

“The party's predominant understanding of people based on ethnicity and ancestry is incompatible with the free democratic constitutional order,” the BfV emphasized in its statement. The agency noted that the AfD seeks to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society while subjecting them to discriminatory treatment.

“For example, the AfD does not consider German citizens with a migration background from Muslim countries, to be equal members of the society, as it defines German people solely in ethnic terms,” the agency explained in its assessment.

The AfD party, known for its anti-immigration stance, was initially placed under preliminary observation in 2019. It was later classified as a “suspected extremist group” in 2021—a designation that courts in Cologne and Münster upheld despite the party's legal challenge.

That designation allowed security services to use stronger intelligence tools for surveillance of the party's activities, such as conducting communications surveillance and recruiting informants to monitor suspicious activities of party branches and their links to outlawed extremist groups.

The BfV had previously classified the AfD's regional branches in Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt as "proven extremist organizations" due to their more radical elements. The new assessment extends this classification to all AfD party structures and regional branches, which will now face heightened security monitoring for potential anti-democratic activities.

The announcement came at a time of growing concerns about domestic polarization and a shift toward radical parties, as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) reached an unprecedented 26% in recent opinion polls. The anti-immigrant party has gained five percentage points since the February snap elections, becoming Germany's leading party for the first time.

The AfD has significantly increased its vote share in recent months by campaigning against migration, stoking fears of Muslims and immigrants. The party has also capitalized on public frustration with traditional parties and anxiety about economic decline.

Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz's CDU/CSU has dropped to second place in the latest Forsa poll released Tuesday, with 24% support—a decline of 4.5 percentage points since their February election victory. Their coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), has fallen to 14%, dropping more than 2 percentage points below their previous election result.