Ukraine ambassador backs German decision to classify AfD as extremist
Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, has come out in favour of the domestic intelligence agency's designation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a confirmed "right-wing extremist" organization.
While as a diplomat, he respects all Germany's domestic decisions, the decision by the domestic intelligence agency regarding the AfD "deserves particular respect," Makeiev told dpa on Saturday.
He expressed concern at the fact that the AfD does not "clearly condemn the brutal Russian war of aggression" and instead seeks friendship with Russia.
"Russians rape, torture and murder. The AfD plays down, relativizes and denies this," he said.
His comments come after Germany's domestic intelligence service (BfV) determined in a lengthy report that there was now concrete evidence that the anti-immigrant AfD party pursued efforts that threaten Germany's democratic order and that its understanding of the German nation as based on ethnicity and descent was incompatible with Germany's free democratic order.
The BfV is tasked not only with counter-espionage and investigating terrorist activities, but also with identifying and naming groups that oppose the democratic order - principles that include human dignity, democracy and the rule of law.
Debate over ban
The BfV's move to designate the far-right party as extremist has reignited debate in Germany about whether to ban the AfD.
State interior ministers are set to discuss the designation and its implications at their next conference in June.
Specifically, they plan to weigh possible consequences for AfD members in the civil service, state party funding and a possible AfD ban, according to Ulrich Mäurer, Bremen's interior senator, who is chairing the meeting.
The interior ministers of Germany's 16 states hold different views on a possible ban of the party, according to some of the comments made to the media on Saturday.
Thuringia's interior minister, Georg Maier, said "initiating a ban procedure is the logical consequence of this decision and must now be tackled consistently as the next step," in comments to the Bild newspaper.
But his counterpart in Hamburg, Andy Grote, said a court would need to confirm the designation first - though warned this would not be sufficient as a precondition to issue a ban.
Such discussions are premature in the view of Felor Badenberg, justice senator in the city of Berlin and a former vice-president of the BfV.
Badenberg said she expected the AfD to take legal action against the designation, which has implications for how the party is monitored by the intelligence services.
Speaking to national public radio Deutschlandfunk, she noted that this could drag on for years. Politicians should start considering the issue only after the courts had ruled on the designation, Badenberg said.
The AfD has charged that the BfV's decision is not based on evidence.
Germany's Constitutional Court has been reluctant to ban political parties in the past. After banning two communist parties in the 1950s, the court ruled in 2017 against banning the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). An earlier attempt to ban the party was dropped on procedural grounds in 2003.
Calls for clarity
Looking ahead, the police union (GdP) called for a unified approach nationwide. The chairman for the federal police, Andreas Roßkopf, told the Rheinische Post newspaper that the federal states and the federal government must agree on a common approach.
"No procedures have yet been issued from the Interior Ministry or the leadership of the federal police," Roßkopf said.
US administration keeping close eye on Germany
Berlin's Badenberg rejected criticism of the BfV decision from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said on Friday: "Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That's not democracy - it's tyranny in disguise."
She told Deutschlandfunk that she could see nothing anti-democratic in the BfV designation.
Noting that the AfD had taken second place in the February elections, Rubio said it was the German establishment that was extremist in backing an open-border immigration policy that the AfD vehemently opposes. He called on Germany to "reverse course."
Immigration was a key issue in the elections in February that will return the conservative Christian Democrats to power at the head of a coalition government next week.
The leader of a German populist party on Saturday also slammed the BfV's decision as "authoritarian."
The outgoing government has done German democracy a serious disservice, said Sahra Wagenknecht, who heads a breakaway faction of The Left party called the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).
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