‘Don’t rush’ to prohibit AfD – Scholz
Germany’s domestic spy agency has classified the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as “extremist.” Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz cautioned against hastily moving to ban the AfD. Earlier on Friday, a comprehensive report...
TroibNews 
Germany’s domestic spy agency has classified the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as “extremist.”
Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz cautioned against hastily moving to ban the AfD. Earlier on Friday, a comprehensive report from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution labeled the party as “extremist,” alleging it promotes racism through its anti-migrant rhetoric and shows tendencies that threaten the nation’s democracy. This classification paves the way for a potential ban and allows the domestic spy agency to intensify its surveillance of the AfD, similar to how it monitors extremist groups such as the Islamic State.
“I think this is something that cannot be rushed into,” Scholz remarked when questioned about the prospect of outright banning the party.
Scholz noted that Germany’s “Federal Constitutional Court has rejected all recent applications for bans.”
He highlighted the challenges faced in previous unsuccessful attempts to outlaw the former nationalist National Democratic Party (NDP) as a warning of the potential legal complexities involved in trying to ban the AfD. The NDP endured years of federal efforts to prohibit it before eventually rebranding as The Homeland in 2023, and it opted not to participate in the 2025 German elections.
The AfD, which has recently experienced a rise in popularity, has criticized the BfV report as a “severe blow to the German democracy.”
“The AfD is the strongest party in current polls… Nevertheless, the AfD, as an opposition party, is now being publicly discredited and criminalized shortly before the change of government,” party co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla stated in a joint statement.
A Forsa poll from last month suggested that the AfD had surpassed the incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, becoming the most favored political party in Germany.
Debra A Smith for TROIB News
Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz cautioned against hastily moving to ban the AfD. Earlier on Friday, a comprehensive report from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution labeled the party as “extremist,” alleging it promotes racism through its anti-migrant rhetoric and shows tendencies that threaten the nation’s democracy. This classification paves the way for a potential ban and allows the domestic spy agency to intensify its surveillance of the AfD, similar to how it monitors extremist groups such as the Islamic State.
“I think this is something that cannot be rushed into,” Scholz remarked when questioned about the prospect of outright banning the party.
Scholz noted that Germany’s “Federal Constitutional Court has rejected all recent applications for bans.”
He highlighted the challenges faced in previous unsuccessful attempts to outlaw the former nationalist National Democratic Party (NDP) as a warning of the potential legal complexities involved in trying to ban the AfD. The NDP endured years of federal efforts to prohibit it before eventually rebranding as The Homeland in 2023, and it opted not to participate in the 2025 German elections.
The AfD, which has recently experienced a rise in popularity, has criticized the BfV report as a “severe blow to the German democracy.”
“The AfD is the strongest party in current polls… Nevertheless, the AfD, as an opposition party, is now being publicly discredited and criminalized shortly before the change of government,” party co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla stated in a joint statement.
A Forsa poll from last month suggested that the AfD had surpassed the incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, becoming the most favored political party in Germany.
Debra A Smith for TROIB News
