Classification of the AfD as right -wing extremist is compulsory

The US government is almost Good for a surprise every day. The classification of the AfD On the other side of the large pond, reactions immediately caused « secured right -wing extremist » by the protection of the constitution. Vice President James David Vance said the AfD was the most popular party in Germany and by far the most representative for East Germany. « Now the bureaucrats are trying to destroy them. » US Secretary of State Marco Rubio even went so far to describe the decision as a « camouflaged tyranny ». As is well known, stupidity knows no boundaries, but the statements show what effects the decision of the protection of the constitution on the new Federal government has.

There is the debate about An AfD banthe designated chancellor Friedrich Merz caught with full force at the wrong time. On Wednesday the CDU chairman wants to go to inaugural visits Paris and Warsaw fly. If he does not address and clear the topic in a suitable manner beforehand, he will carry it in his luggage as a ballast. The governments in France And Poland deals with the topic of AfD more differentiated than Washington can do, but they have questions about Merz.

USA as a loyal ally of the AfD

This is especially true if Merz soon in The United States travels. Once they were USA Close allies of Germany -and they will certainly be again -but their loyalty to the alternative applies to Germany. Vance had already critically commented at the Munich Security Conference in February and Berlin had accused of supposed oppression of other political opinions. A few days later, he threatened to withdraw US troops from Germany if nothing should change. Merz cannot ignore these announcements from the highest point. Even if he holds the topic out of his bilateral conversations in the White House – at the latest at the subsequent press conference, it catches up with it.

There are enough policy fields, The migration Or the economy, for example, which Merz actually wants to devote himself to the government start. Now he has to reschedule. In addition to the Federal Council and the Federal Government, the Bundestag is one of the three institutions that can lead an AfD ban. At the end of the old legislative period, there were already two corresponding group applications in the parliament, over which there was a violent argument. You could be the basis of further debates.

Without the Union no AfD ban

Merz has to choose. Because without the voices of his Union, the necessary majority would be missing for a ban procedure. The Chancellor could go to the upcoming legal arguments refer and play for time. From a strategic point of view, however, this would not be a good move. In the coming year, state elections will initially be in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, later in Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. These are all federal states in which the AfD is strongly represented or in the surveys is even the strongest force. An unclear attitude of the CDU chairman for an AfD ban would be a load under which the campaigners could collapse.

Merz may have a spark that the AfD will remove all elements from the party under the external pressure on which the assessment of the protection of the constitution is based and thus becomes an uncomfortable but no longer extreme party. However, that would pretty much an exchange of the entire top staff Preside and seems not very likely.

However the Chancellor decides, he has to do it quickly so that the mood in the country does not tip over. One Review of government officialsHow it is being discussed may make sense. However, it must not degenerate into a witch hunt.