Bundestag: Green MPs present new proposal for AfD ban

Members of the Green Party have submitted a motion to the Bundestag to examine whether the AfD is unconstitutional. In contrast to the previously announced push by the group led by CDU MP Marco Wanderwitz for a ban on the AfD, this new application initially provides for the President of the Bundestag to commission experts. The experts should then examine the prospects of success of an AfD ban application based on the applicants’ ideas.

Both motions could be discussed in the first reading in the next week of the meeting. However, the agenda for the week before Christmas has not been finalized.

New application provides for preliminary examination

One of the initiators of the new application is Green MP Renate Künast. She says that a party ban process can only be successful if there is a comprehensive basis of reliable evidence. Therefore, legally valid evidence should be collected and examined with care – “on this basis we then want to decide whether to initiate the procedure.”

The supporters of an AfD ban procedure involving Wanderwitz, on the other hand, want the Federal Constitutional Court to examine directly whether the AfD is unconstitutional. This is possible according to Article 21 of the Basic Law. The AfD would have to be proven in the process that it is taking aggressive, combative action against the constitution.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution observes the party as a suspected right-wing extremist case. The Bundestag, Bundesrat or Federal Government can apply for a party ban to the Federal Constitutional Court. The goal of Wanderwitz’s group is for the Bundestag to pass a corresponding resolution.