German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday that he is currently against a ban on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
He said domestic intelligence services should continue to monitor the party and gather material, but warned that authorities should be “very careful about any ban procedure.”
“The worst would be that you apply for a procedure that takes several years (…) and then things could eventually go wrong,” Scholz said at a constituency meeting in the city of Potsdam, near Berlin.
Under German law, both parliament and government can petition the Federal Constitutional Court for a ban on a specific party.
Earlier this month, a group of more than a hundred lawmakers from different parties filed a request for a ban procedure in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house. It remains to be seen whether the measure can gain a majority.
Recently, 17 experts in the field of constitutional law wrote a letter to the Bundestag’s home affairs and legal affairs committees expressing the opinion that an injunction procedure would have a chance of success.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) speaks at the SPD’s so-called “election victory conference”. The conference marks the start of the SPD’s campaign for the early federal elections in 2025. Kay Nietfeld/dpa
