German AfD Extremist Label Creates Constitutional Crisis

Ger­many AfD extrem­ist label has cre­at­ed a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis in Europe’s largest democ­ra­cy. On May 13, 2025, The Atlantic pub­lished an analy­sis exam­in­ing how Ger­many’s domes­tic intel­li­gence agency labeled the far-right Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) par­ty an “extrem­ist” orga­ni­za­tion despite its hold­ing near­ly a quar­ter of seats in par­lia­ment, rais­ing pro­found ques­tions about demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance and polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion. The arti­cle begins:

In the year lead­ing up to Ger­many’s Feb­ru­ary elec­tions, the far-right par­ty Alter­na­tive for Ger­many was ris­ing fast in the polls. It would ulti­mate­ly increase its seats in the Bun­destag from 76 to 152. But when I talked with sup­port­ers, I found that they were cyn­i­cal. One of the most con­sis­tent mes­sages I heard when I vis­it­ed Ger­many was that the gov­ern­ment had rigged the game against them. “It’s not just the oppos­ing par­ties that don’t want us; the sys­tem itself does­n’t want us,” said a mem­ber of the crowd at a ral­ly in Thuringia. Now that claim seems unde­ni­able. Last week, the Ger­man domes­tic spy agency Bun­de­samt für Ver­fas­sungss­chutz declared the AfD an “extrem­ist” orga­ni­za­tion, which makes it eli­gi­ble for sur­veil­lance, infil­tra­tion, and a poten­tial out­right ban.

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/05/afd-germany-extremism-ban/675901/

Key Points

• The intel­li­gence agen­cy’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion allows for sur­veil­lance of a par­ty hold­ing 152 par­lia­men­tary seats, cre­at­ing unprece­dent­ed demo­c­ra­t­ic tensions.
• For­mer intel­li­gence chief Hans-Georg Maassen crit­i­cized the prac­tice, stat­ing Ger­many and Aus­tria are “the only coun­tries in the West­ern world who use a domes­tic intel­li­gence ser­vice to observe polit­i­cal opponents.”
• The agency cit­ed AfD’s “under­stand­ing of the nation that is racist” and views “hos­tile to for­eign­ers and Mus­lims” as jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the extrem­ist label.
• Under Ger­man law, a par­ty can only be banned if it’s strong enough to threat­en democracy—creating a para­dox where the AfD may be “too big to ban, and too big not to.”

AfD and the Global National Conservative Alliance

The Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) has become a linch­pin in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance, with its des­ig­na­tion as an extrem­ist par­ty in Ger­many draw­ing inter­na­tion­al atten­tion and fuel­ing debates about the nor­mal­iza­tion of far-right pol­i­tics across Europe. The AfD’s deep­en­ing ties with Hungary’s Fidesz par­ty and its par­tic­i­pa­tion in transna­tion­al far-right events in the UK under­score the oper­a­tional and ide­o­log­i­cal con­nec­tions unit­ing nation­al­ist move­ments. This net­work is fur­ther strength­ened by Russia’s tar­get­ed influ­ence cam­paigns that ampli­fy anti-EU and anti-immi­gra­tion nar­ra­tives, a trend con­firmed by inves­tiga­tive report­ing from The New York Times, which details how Russ­ian actors have cul­ti­vat­ed rela­tion­ships with AfD politi­cians to under­mine sup­port for Ukraine and desta­bi­lize Ger­man democracy.

The Soufan Cen­ter has doc­u­ment­ed how these influ­ence oper­a­tions use dis­in­for­ma­tion, finan­cial incen­tives, and polit­i­cal alliances to empow­er par­ties like the AfD, espe­cial­ly ahead of key elec­tions. While the AfD often express­es admi­ra­tion for Vladimir Putin, analy­ses reveal stark con­tra­dic­tions between the party’s stat­ed val­ues and the real­i­ties of Russ­ian author­i­tar­i­an­ism. As the AfD’s influ­ence grows, BBC report­ing notes that its rise is part of a con­ti­nent-wide surge in far-right move­ments, fueled by eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty, anti-immi­grant sen­ti­ment, and coor­di­nat­ed inter­na­tion­al sup­port. The AfD’s abil­i­ty to par­tic­i­pate in high-pro­file far-right events and its role as a con­duit for Russ­ian-backed dis­in­for­ma­tion high­light the party’s trans­for­ma­tion from a nation­al protest move­ment into a key node with­in a transna­tion­al alliance that chal­lenges lib­er­al demo­c­ra­t­ic norms across Europe.

Exter­nal References:

1. Far Right’s Ties to Rus­sia Sow Ris­ing Alarm in Germany

2. Intel­Brief: Russ­ian Inter­fer­ence Tac­tics in Euro­pean Demo­c­ra­t­ic Process­es Ramp Up

3. Far right looks for elec­tion break­through as Ger­many fal­ters — BBC

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.