The debate over how to deal with the AfD continues following the party’s clear victory in Saxony-Anhalt. Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) reiterated his opposition to proceedings seeking to ban the AfD and said he remained “skeptical” about them. Federal Transport Minister Steffen Bilger (CDU) criticised the term “firewall” on Thursday. Meanwhile, Green parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge warned that the AfD would “destroy democracy as soon as it has the opportunity.”
The debate over how to deal with the AfD gained momentum again after the party’s clear victory in Sunday’s election in Saxony-Anhalt. North Rhine-Westphalia Minister-President Hendrik Wüst (CDU), for example, proposed setting up a federal-state working group to discuss how to deal with the increasingly strong AfD. Green politician Dröge called on members of the Bundestag to initiate a motion to examine an AfD ban.
“I am and remain skeptical about whether such proceedings can be successful,” Merz said on Wednesday at a joint press conference with European Council President António Costa at the Federal Chancellery. “We can, of course, examine this again and again. But from my point of view, that is a very high hurdle.”
His priority, Merz said, was instead “a political confrontation” with the AfD and an attempt “to win back voters for the political centre, including for the CDU.” They needed to be presented with “a convincing political offer” that “also takes seriously their concerns and reservations about current policies,” Merz said.
The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt clearly won Sunday’s state election with 43.8 percent of the vote, more than doubling its share compared with the 2021 election. However, it did not win an absolute majority. The CDU, which had previously governed the state, suffered heavy losses and received only 17.2 percent. The state parliament also includes the SPD, Greens and Left Party, as well as the BSW for the first time. Forming a government is expected to be difficult.
Dröge rejected the argument, in an interview with RTL and ntv, that proceedings to ban the AfD would be an attempt to eliminate an increasingly strong political opponent. “The Basic Law has provided for this final safeguard,” she told the broadcasters on Thursday morning. The AfD was far-right and intended to destroy democracy: “As soon as it has the opportunity to do so, it will. And it must not be given that chance.”
The Green politician warned that it was “almost too late” for proceedings and that “this is why it is so urgently necessary now.” Wherever far-right and right-wing populist forces came to power, it would subsequently become much more difficult to protect democracy. “That is why this must be prevented beforehand.”
Her party colleague and Baden-Württemberg Minister-President Cem Özdemir also sees the former traffic-light coalition government, in which he himself served as a minister, as having a responsibility. The former coalition bore “some of the blame” for the AfD’s rise, he told Der Spiegel.
“We did not give many people the feeling that they could come to us if they had questions, concerns or fears about migration policy, security issues or the economic transformation,” Özdemir said.
The new Transport Minister Steffen Bilger (CDU), meanwhile, distanced himself from the term “firewall” used to describe the strategy of consistently excluding the AfD. The term made “also voters feel excluded if they lean towards the AfD for various reasons,” Bilger told the Funke Media Group newspapers on Thursday. What mattered was not the wording, but the “clear demarcation from extremists. That must, of course, continue to apply.” At the same time, the Union had to try to win voters back.
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