AfD: Application to ban the AfD will not be pursued further for the time being

In November 2024, a group of 113 MPs from various parties requested that the Bundestag decide to initiate proceedings to ban the AfD . In the future, however, this party, which is considered a suspected right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution , will be represented in the Bundestag with 152 MPs, making it the second-largest faction. The MPs who had wanted to have the ban application examined have therefore had no choice but to give up for the time being. However, a new application has not been ruled out, according to a report by the ARD capital studio.

Hamburg Green Party MP Till Steffen, who was one of the initiators of the ban proposal along with Saxony CDU politician Marco Wanderwitz, said in an interview with ARD: "It remains our goal to launch another group procedure in the next legislative period."

Carmen Wegge (SPD) sees no realistic chance of a majority for the motion, and no special session of the Bundestag is planned for the matter. "But I will continue to campaign for proceedings to be opened against the AfD in Karlsruhe. The AfD represents the greatest threat to our democracy, and I am convinced that it meets the requirements for a party ban," the MP from Starnberg told ARD.

However, according to information from the ARD capital studio, there are currently no discussions on this. Marco Wanderwitz, who no longer belongs to the new Bundestag at his own request , is also committed to further work on the process. "The AfD is becoming more radical," said Wanderwitz, referring to the fact that the right-wing party has also accepted Maximilian Krah and Matthias Helferich into its parliamentary group .

Krah sat for the AfD in the European Parliament, but was expelled from the AfD parliamentary group after a series of scandals and statements. Nevertheless, both Krah and Helferich were nominated as Bundestag candidates at AfD delegate meetings in Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia - and won a mandate on Sunday.

Krah will represent the Saxon constituency of Chemnitzer Umland - Erzgebirgskreis II in the future Bundestag, where he had won a direct mandate. The Dortmund AfD politician Helferich was re-elected to the Bundestag via the North Rhine-Westphalia state list. In 2017, he described himself in a Facebook chat as "the friendly face of National Socialism".

The Bundestag, the Bundesrat or the Federal Government can apply to the Federal Constitutional Court for a ban on a party. The decisive factor for success is whether the party can be proven to have actively acted against the free democratic basic order of the state.

In the group motion submitted by more than 100 MPs in November, it is argued that the AfD is opposed to these central basic principles. Among other things, it questions the human dignity of migrants, people with disabilities and those with non-heteronormative sexuality, strives for a nationalist state and trivializes Nazi crimes. A possible ban on the AfD was also controversially discussed in the old Bundestag.