AfD fails to appeal ‘extremist’ ruling in Saxony — what now?

With a federal election looming, the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) suffered a blow after a court ruled that its Saxony branch can now be classified as a right-wing extremist organisation. The party has no recourse to appeal the judgement.

Its youth organisation “Junge Alternative”, which was only recently separated from the AfD at large, had already been given the same classification.

The court justified its decision by stating that various party positions contradicted Germany’s basic democratic order. In particular, its stance on migration policy was singled out as incompatible with the respect for human dignity laid down in the German constitution.

The Saxony ruling comes not only in the midst of the campaign for the Bundestag elections on 23 February but also in the thick of a national discussion about potentially banning the AfD nationwide — a matter which the Bundestag could revisit as soon as next week.

“The debate in Germany is unique,” Professor Hajo Funke from the Free University of Berlin told Euronews. “The tradition we have is that we don’t want to go back to the danger of the far right. We have the example of national-socialism (ie Nazism) as a warning.”

Nevertheless, he is sceptical about an all-out party ban at this time.

“The focus must now be on drawing public attention to the party’s anti-democratic orientation. You have to be careful that a ban doesn’t create a martyr,” Prof Funke explained.

The election factor

Author and right-wing extremism expert Andreas Speit takes a different view.

“The national leadership of the AfD is just as radical as the state associations in Saxony or Thuringia,” he says, pointing out that for parties like the AfD, portraying themselves as victims is a part of the narrative.

“A ban would primarily be a political signal for society as a whole to say: this far and no further — and to remove the party’s legal framework,” Speit told Euronews.

However, any ban against the entire party is highly unlikely to be initiated before the Bundestag elections. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and opposition centre-right CDU parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz, among others, have recently spoken out against it, and the legal hurdles that stand in the way of an outright ban are high.

Regarding the upcoming election, Speit said that the AfD mainly focuses on a potential realignment of the German right.

“At the moment, the AfD’s main opponent is Merz’s CDU. The long-term strategy is to split the conservative camp to then seek cooperation with the less moderate conservatives in later elections, according to them,” Speit explained.

One question is crucial to a possible nationwide AfD ban. “Where are the social boundaries? What can a party be allowed to get away with — and what can it not?” Speit asked.