The Greens remain cautious with regard to banning the AfD. "We will have to examine and assess this again and again," said Bundestag parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann on Friday after a meeting with her counterparts from the federal states in Dresden. There is no simple yes or no to the question of a ban procedure.
However, a substantive debate with the AfD is urgently needed. The party has no answers to questions about the future, neither for Germany nor for individual federal states. As an example, Haßelmann cited AfD leader Alice Weidel's thoughts on Germany leaving the EU. Something like that could also leave some citizens feeling frightened.
According to Haßelmann, there is rightly a very high hurdle for a party ban. The question of how security authorities gather information and draw conclusions is relevant.
At the moment, three state associations of the AfD - in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony - are classified as confirmed right-wing extremist. The security authorities would continue to gather information and material, and the political actors would then have to deal with it carefully.
