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Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has said it will temporarily stop referring to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist organisation.
That’s according to a court in the western city of Cologne which says the BfV will refrain from using the designation pending litigation.
“The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution today declared in the court proceedings – without recognising any legal obligation – that it would provisionally suspend the classification of the AfD as a ‘confirmed right-wing extremist movement’ until the court has ruled on the urgent application,” a statement from the court said.
That means that the BfV will no longer publicly use the extremist group categorisation until the end of the proceedings.
The decision also means that the BfV has fewer legal options for monitoring the AfD.
The extremist designation gave security services greater powers to monitor the AfD, including the recruitment of informants and the legal option of intercepting party communications.
AfD sees decision as partial success
In a statement, which was also published on X, party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla referred to the announcement as a “partial success.”
“We are defending ourselves with all legal means against the upgrading by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,” they said.
Weidel and Chrupalla also called the suspension of the categorisation a “first important step towards our actual exoneration.”
The AfD filed a lawsuit against the BfV on 5 May, three days after the “right-wing extremist” designation was issued.
Daniel Tapp, a spokesperson for the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel, told the dpa news agency that a letter had been sent to the responsible administrative court in Cologne.
The BfV had concluded “after intensive examination” over a three-year period that racist and anti-Muslim stances advanced by the party were incompatible with the “free democratic order” set out in the country’s constitution.
In addition to the initial appeal, the AfD also applied for a so-called hanging order.
This would have allowed the court to temporarily suspend the categorisation as “definitely right-wing extremist”.
Without this suspension order, the AfD argued, there would be “irreparable damage” to the party and to the democratic decision-making process.
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The party also described the categorisation as an “attack on democracy.”