Why Germany is debating a ban on the far-right AfD party, and what its constitution allows

Germany weighs banning far-right AfD

Germany is locked in an intense argument over whether it should try to outlaw Alternative for Germany, the far-right, anti-immigrant party that has grown into the second-largest force in the Bundestag. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier reignited the issue in a Kristallnacht commemoration speech, suggesting that a party that turns “aggressively hostile” to the democratic order must always reckon with the possibility of being banned, a clear reference to the AfD even though he did not name it, the Washington Post reported.

Polls now put the AfD roughly level nationwide with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union and well ahead of Steinmeier’s own centre-left Social Democrats. In several eastern states, the party is on track to finish first in upcoming regional elections. That strength has sharpened the question: is Germany obliged, by its own history, to act before a radical right party gains real power, or would a ban itself undermine democracy?

What Germany’s constitution says about banning political parties

Unlike many democracies, postwar Germany built a “defensive democracy” into its Basic Law. The constitution allows the Federal Constitutional Court to declare a party unconstitutional if it seeks to abolish the free democratic basic order or threatens the existence of the federal republic.

This power has been used only twice: to outlaw a neo-Nazi successor party in 1952 and a Communist party in 1956, at the height of Cold War division. Later attempts to ban the far-right National Democratic Party failed. In 2003, judges halted the case after discovering that the party’s ranks were riddled with government informants, blurring the evidence. In 2017, the court found the NPD too marginal to be a realistic threat to power.

The AfD, by contrast, is anything but marginal. Germany’s domestic intelligence service has formally classified parts of the party as an extremist endeavour that disregards human dignity and pushes anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas. That label has expanded state surveillance and fuelled calls for a formal ban, even as it has triggered criticism from abroad, including from U.S. officials who see overreach.

The case for a ban: “We lost democracy once”

For supporters of a ban, the argument is rooted in the 1930s. Lawmakers such as Social Democrat Ralf Stegner say Germany once allowed a radical nationalist party to use the rules of democracy to destroy it, and cannot repeat that mistake. They cite investigative reporting that exposed a secret meeting near Berlin where senior AfD figures and other right-wing activists allegedly discussed mass deportations, potentially including people with German passports but “non-German” backgrounds.

Campaigners behind initiatives like “AfD Verbot Jetzt!” argue that the party’s proposals on citizenship and residency amount to redefining who counts as German on racial or ethnic lines. In their view, this crosses the constitutional red line and justifies a pre-emptive move before the AfD enters government at state or federal level, when any ban would become far harder. Better to risk a fight in court now, they argue, than have future generations ask why warning signs were ignored.

The case against: democratic risk and potential backlash

Opponents of a ban are not necessarily fans of the AfD. Many regard it as dangerous but still think prohibition is the wrong instrument. Senior figures in the conservative CDU, including party leader Friedrich Merz, are sceptical. They warn that trying to outlaw the largest opposition party would look like eliminating political rivals rather than defeating them in elections.

Legal hawks within the CDU stress that any case must be watertight. A failed attempt, they argue, could be catastrophic, effectively handing the AfD a certificate of constitutional respectability from Germany’s highest court. That would make the party stronger, not weaker.

Critics also fear a ban could backfire politically by feeding the AfD’s narrative that it is a persecuted voice of “the people” and by turning it into a martyr across Europe’s right-wing ecosystem. Party leaders already invoke the debate as a rallying cry, telling supporters that the establishment either wants to jail them or fears that they will soon “fix” the country.

A divided public and an uncertain path forward

Public opinion is split almost down the middle. Recent polls show roughly equal shares of Germans for and against opening ban proceedings, with sentiment tilting slightly against in some surveys. Even Berliners who detest the AfD often say that in a democracy, people must be free to vote for views they dislike, and that the answer should be political argument, not prohibition. Others insist the state has waited too long and that the party is already “too strong.”

Any formal move would have to come from the federal government or one of the two houses of parliament, asking the Constitutional Court to act. For now, mainstream parties remain divided over whether to take that step, even as protests, intelligence reports and election polls all point in opposite directions.

Germany’s debate ultimately turns on a hard question: how far a democracy should go in defending itself against those seen as enemies of its core values. For advocates of a ban, doing nothing risks repeating history. For opponents, banning a popular party risks betraying the very democratic principles they are trying to protect.