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The alternative for Germany can now be monitored by secret service means. However, restrictions apply to parliamentarians. The decision of the national secret service comes at an explosive moment.
Right or far right? The AfD is involved in a legal dispute with the Office for the Protection of the Constitution before the Administrative Court of Cologne.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the entire AfD as a “suspect case.” According to several German media, the president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, informed the state authorities for the protection of the constitution on Wednesday that the measure was carried out on February 25. There is no official confirmation from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The reason for this is the legal dispute between the authority and the AfD before the Cologne Administrative Court. A spokesperson for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution responded to a request from NZZ: “In view of the ongoing process and out of respect for the court,” no comment will be made on this issue.
With the evaluation as a suspicious case, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution can now use intelligence services to monitor the AfD. The national secret service may, for example, monitor party email traffic or recruit party members as informants. However, according to information from NZZ, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution will not supervise any party members at the moment. This should also apply to candidates in the next election. Several East German AfD state associations are already included in the list and have been noted as suspicious cases: the state constitution protection offices in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt control the respective AfD state associations using methods of secret Service.
The moment for observation is explosive: there are six state elections and the federal election in Germany this year. The party now begins the election year with a clear competitive disadvantage, which begins in mid-March with state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate. “There is a selective attempt here to reduce the chances of the AfD voting with the help of the national secret service,” the presidents of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland, wrote in a press release.
Applause from the Union and the SPD
The representatives of the government coalition of Union and Social Democrats welcomed the decision of the secret service. “It is not surprising that constitutional protection is now apparently watching the AfD across the country,” said Mathias Middelberg, internal policy spokesman for the CDU and CSU parliamentary group. Now it is up to the party “to evade the surveillance of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution with a purification process.” SPD Secretary General Lars Klingbeil wrote on Twitter that the AfD was clearly a case for the protection of the constitution. He described the party as “inhuman and undemocratic.”
The AfD does not want to simply accept the decision of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. “Upgrading the AfD to a suspicious case is baseless and ultimately will not be brought to court,” said a joint statement by the two party leaders, Jörg Meuthen and Tino Chrupalla. Chrupalla said in an interview with NZZ last year that they will defend themselves against the protection of the constitution “with all democratic and legal means.” If necessary, they want to go to the Federal Constitutional Court.
The party leadership reacted angrily to the reports of the suspected case. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution violated its commitment to stand still. In the course of the legal dispute before the Cologne Administrative Court, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution promised not to publicly announce that the AfD was classified as a suspect case. Despite this promise, the decision of the national secret service was passed on to various German media outlets. It is not clear who is responsible for this. The secret service’s AfD confidential report had already leaked to certain journalists in 2019.
So far, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has led the entire party as a test case. Therefore, the secret service was only allowed to evaluate publicly accessible sources. Intelligence agencies collected information for two years. This resulted in an expert opinion that should be around a thousand pages long. In it, the protection of the constitution allegedly cites violations of the AfD against human dignity and against the principle of democracy to justify why the entire party is henceforth listed as a suspect case.
The secret service takes a risk
The step is not a surprise. As early as January it became known that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution wanted to observe the AfD as a party as a whole. Then the party moved to the Cologne Administrative Court to avoid this. For the protection of the constitution, the classification of the whole party as a suspect case is associated with a risk. If the AfD were to successfully complain to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, the secret service would be ashamed. Furthermore, the party could sell a possible Constitutional Court decision in its favor to its own supporters and voters as proof that it is not an extremist.
The Constitutional Court has already ruled in favor of extremist parties or those suspected of extremism. In 2017, he rejected a request from the Federal Council to ban the far-right NPD. In 2013 he decided that Bodo Ramelow of the Left Party should no longer be observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Ramelow is now Prime Minister of Thuringia and was a member of the state parliament at the time. Neither he nor members of the left-wing parliamentary group can be observed after the verdict. However, it could take a while for the Federal Constitutional Court to decide on the AfD’s anticipated lawsuit. Given the usual length of the procedure, a final judgment would not be expected before the election of the Bundestag.
