German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed caution on Wednesday about attempts to ban the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) after the party achieved success in recent state-level elections.
“First of all, a lot of other things are needed,” Scholz told a town hall meeting in Schwerin, northwest of Berlin, a day before the country celebrates German Unity Day. This included continued monitoring of the party by domestic intelligence services, he said.
Legal proceedings had to be prepared extremely carefully, Scholz said. “And for that reason this is not on the agenda.”
The Chancellor reminded the gathering of the high hurdles to banning a political party in Germany and noted that all recent such attempts had failed in the courts.
Scholz called on people to confront the AfD. “We have to be clear about what we are doing as citizens,” he said. “We don’t have to accept this. We must resist and convince our neighbor. That is also part of this,” the chancellor said.
The AfD is currently under surveillance by the federal domestic intelligence service for suspected extreme political activities, and certain state-level AfD associations are assessed as extremist by the relevant state intelligence services.
The party won about 30% of the votes in the recent elections for three state parliaments.