Supporters of an AfD ban plan to submit the group proposal in mid-November. A new report from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution could increase support in the Bundestag.
The supporters of an AfD ban in the Bundestag want to introduce the current group proposal to the Bundestag in mid-November at the earliest. “We will be collecting more supporter signatures for at least the next week of the meeting and then submitting them,” said initiator Marco Wanderwitz (CDU) to the Editorial Network Germany (RND). No motion will be submitted to the Bundestag that has no chance of a parliamentary majority.
The Bundestag will meet for the next week of sessions from November 4th to 8th and then from November 11th to 15th. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution announced on Monday that it would present a new report on the AfD in the next two and a half months.
This could significantly increase support for a ban proposal among the Union parliamentary group and the SPD parliamentary group, said Wanderwitz. “It is important to use the dynamic that would arise from a possible reclassification of the AfD as right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.”
Bundestag Vice President Yvonne Magwas also supports the group proposal. “It is high time to have the AfD examined for its constitutionality by the Federal Constitutional Court,” said the CDU politician Zeit Online. “We have seen for years that the AfD is right-wing extremist and is becoming more radicalized, how it is undermining our free democratic basic order and making it contemptible with the aim of abolishing it.”
The trigger for the renewed debate is a motion for a possible AfD ban, which is supported by members of the Bundestag from the SPD, the CDU/CSU, the Greens and the Left. Their goal is to apply to the Federal Constitutional Court for proceedings to ban the AfD.
A party ban can be applied to the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundestag, Bundesrat or Federal Government. The AfD would have to be proven in the process that it is taking aggressive, combative action against the constitution. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution observes the party as a suspected right-wing extremist case.