Commissioner for Eastern Europe does not want to ban AfD
The hurdles for banning a party are high in Germany. However, this is not the only reason why Schneider, the commissioner for Eastern Germany, is against an attempt to ban the AfD - and thus counters his party leader. He believes that people would only show even greater solidarity.
The Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Europe, Carsten Schneider, has spoken out against an AfD ban - and clearly contradicted his party leader Saskia Esken. Schneider told the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" newspaper that he did not believe in this at all. A party ban would be very difficult to enforce and he considered the legal chances of success to be low. However, the political dimension is crucial.
"If we ban a party that we don't like, but which is still leading in the polls, it will lead to even greater solidarity with it," said Schneider. "And even from people who are not AfD sympathizers or voters. The collateral damage would be very high."
In all polls for the Bundestag elections, the AfD is in second place behind the CDU/CSU with more than 20 percent, well ahead of the governing parties SPD, Greens and FDP. In Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, where new state parliaments will be elected in September, polls show the AfD in the lead, in some cases by a considerable margin. In Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, the party is classified as "definitely right-wing extremist" by the state offices for the protection of the constitution.
With his rejection of a ban procedure, Schneider is now clearly positioning himself against SPD leader Esken, who still considers a ban application to be an option. "Such a party ban is rightly subject to high hurdles. But I am convinced that we should keep reviewing it," Esken said recently. "It is important that a ban on the AfD is discussed and that voters are shaken up."
Schneider, on the other hand, emphasized that the aim must be to confront the AfD and make it clear to voters "what the consequences of their substantive positions would be. It voted against the minimum wage. It wants to abolish inheritance tax, i.e. less redistribution". In terms of social policy, the party maintains "the backward social image of the 1950s, which must be terrible for many East German women".
Ampel parties at odds
The Vice President of the Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, also spoke out in favor of a substantive debate with the AfD - but did not rule out a ban procedure. "If a party directly questions our free democratic basic order, our constitution with its fundamental rights, the constitutional bodies must of course deal with it," she told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers. This is not about banning a party because you don't like it.
Esken also faced opposition from coalition partner FDP: "Anyone who wants the AfD to disappear from the scene again should make better political offers of their own and not keep talking about banning the party," party deputy leader Wolfgang Kubicki told the Funke newspapers. "We have failed if voters turn their backs on us, nobody else has."
Thorsten Frei, Parliamentary Secretary of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, cited "good government work, less bickering and politics for the center" as a recipe against the AfD. "Such stupid discussions are more like grist to the mill of the far-right party," Frei wrote on the online platform X.
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The upcoming state elections in Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Saxony are expected to see the AfD leading in some cases by a significant margin. This is contrary to the classification of the party as "definitely right-wing extremist" by the state offices for the protection of the constitution in Saxony, Thuringia, and Saxony-Anhalt.
Katrin Göring-Eckardt, the Vice President of the Bundestag, supports a substantive debate with the AfD but does not rule out a ban procedure if the party directly questions the free democratic basic order or the constitution.
In addition, Wolfgang Kubicki, the FDP's deputy leader, has suggested that those wanting the AfD to disappear should focus on offering better political alternatives rather than advocating for a party ban.
Source: www.ntv.de
