Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has designated AfD as a right-wing extremist organisation, citing xenophobic stances as the reason.
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Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution on Friday designated the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a right-wing extremist organisation that poses a threat to democracy and the constitutional order.
The office, also known as BfV, cited the AfD’s xenophobic stances on ethnicity as the reason for the decision, stating the party was being discriminatory towards non-ethnic Germans.
According to the statement released on Friday, the office's experts have examined whether the AfD's actions “matched central basic principles of the German constitution" over a three-year period.
The office also looked into statements shared by AfD representatives, their broader behaviour, as well as their connections to right-wing extremist actors and groups.
This led the body to determine that the AfD “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unconstitutional unequal treatment and thus to assign them a legally devalued status."
It added that the far-right party does not consider people with “a migration history from Muslim-influenced countries as equivalent members of the ethnically defined German people.”
Meanwhile, the AfD's co-chairs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla issued a joint statement in which they claimed the decision was "politically motivated", reminding their supporters that the classification has not yet been "legally finalised."
Weidel and Chrupalla stated that the party would continue to "legally defend" itself, against what it said was "defamation".
In turn, Germany's Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement that the classification was “clear and unambiguous” and resulted from a 1,100-page “comprehensive and neutral audit” without political influence.
In Germany's February elections, the AfD came in second with 20.8% of the vote, after the centre-right CDU and ahead of the centre-left SPD, the two parties that will form the new government.
The same decision was already in place for some sections of the party, including its youth wing.
However, the designation does not amount to a ban of the party, which can only take place through a request by either of parliament's two chambers or the federal government through the Federal Constitutional Court.
Although the German parliament could ask for the entire party to be dissolved, it is very unlikely that this will actually happen.
Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz has since called for caution regarding a possible ban on the AfD, stating, "I am against a kneejerk. We have to evaluate the classification carefully."