(Adnkronos) – German lawmakers in favor of launching parliamentary proceedings to ban the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could submit their motion to the Bundestag starting in mid-November.
“We will collect more signatures from supporters at least during the next session week and then we will present it,” motion promoter, conservative MP Marco Wanderwitz, told RND. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) lawmaker said no motion would be tabled that did not have a chance of securing a parliamentary majority. The Bundestag will hold its next session week from November 4 to 8 and then from November 11 to 15.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (domestic intelligence service) announced Monday that it will present a new report on the AfD within the next two and a half months. According to Wanderwitz, this report could significantly increase support for a motion among the conservative and social democratic parliamentary groups. “It is important to use the input that would come from a possible reclassification of the AfD as a right-wing extremist movement with the confirmation of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution”, said Wanderwitz.
Bundestag Vice President Yvonne Magwas also spoke out in favor of the group’s motion. “It is time for the Federal Constitutional Court to examine the constitutionality of the AfD,” the CDU deputy told ‘Zeit Online’. “For years we have seen that the AfD is extremist, that it continues to radicalize, that it undermines our free democratic order and despises it, with the aim of abolishing it”, she added.
The initiative of the motion, supported by members of the Bundestag belonging to the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the CDU/CSU conservative alliance, the Greens and the Left party, reopened the debate on the issue of the ban. The goal is to ask the Federal Constitutional Court for a procedure to ban the AfD.
The Bundestag, the Bundesrat (lower and upper houses of Parliament) or the federal government can apply to the Federal Constitutional Court to have a party banned. The proceedings must prove that the AfD is carrying out aggressive and militant actions against the Constitution. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is monitoring the party as a suspected right-wing extremist organization.
