This is the first time in modern German history that the party with nationwide representation in parliament has been formally designated as extremist. Some state-level AfD branches \u2014 like those in the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia \u2014 had already received that label.<\/p>\n
The new classification doesn\u2019t ban the party, but it allows German authorities to intensify surveillance, including the use of undercover informants and monitoring communications, under judicial oversight. <\/p>\n
It also raises the political stakes as establishment parties will face growing pressure to rule out cooperation with the AfD at any level of government.<\/p>\n
The decision could fuel calls for a formal party ban, though that would require approval from Germany\u2019s top constitutional court and backing from the national government or parliament\u2014 an uphill legal and political battle.<\/p>\n
The AfD did not immediately respond to POLITICO\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
This story has been updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the first time in modern German history that the party with nationwide representation in parliament has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[6215,31,2000,299,1105,11070,1824,2817,48,7338],"class_list":{"0":"post-67963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-cooperation","9":"tag-democracy","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-far-right","13":"tag-german-politics","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-intelligence","16":"tag-rights","17":"tag-rule-of-law"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114437389327488362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}