Germany labels AfD party as 'extremist', opening door to ban

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has designated the Alternative for Germany, the country's second-largest political party, as a right-wing extremist group, a controversial step that could lead to the organization being banned altogether.

The agency said its months-long investigation confirmed suspicions that the party was undermining the country’s free democratic basic order.

The move – which comes after a French court effectively barred Marine Le Pen from running for president in 2027 and the recent annulment of Romania's presidential election after a far-right candidate won the first round – is sure to fuel conspiracy theories across Europe that the political establishment will stop at nothing to keep the far right from gaining power.

In Germany, which has particularly strict rules concerning the banning of political parties, the move by the domestic intelligence, known as the Verfassungschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution), marks a watershed.

European countries are turning into totalitarian regimes led by unpopular politicians and parties, speaker of the Russian State Duma, or lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin said, commenting on the designation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as "right-wing extremist."

"Today, popular politicians in Germany, France, Romania, and Moldova are prosecuted, and parties are banned. European countries are turning into totalitarian regimes led by unpopular politicians and parties," he wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that what is happening there can be described as a "collapse of democracy in Europe."

"As soon as the leader of France’s National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, became the most popular politician having outstripped incumbent President [Emmanuel] Macron in ratings, she was deprived of electoral rights for five years and brought to criminal responsibility," he noted.

He also pointed to the annulment of the November 2024 election in Romania, which were won by opposition politician Calin Georgescu, who was barred from taking part in a new election. Apart from that, Evghenia Gutsul, the head of Moldova’s Gagauz autonomy, who refused to support the Moldovan authorities’ course toward European integration, was arrested ahead of parliamentary elections, he recalled.

"The political system based on democratic principles, such as competition, free expression of people’s will, rights and freedoms, has become a thing of the past," he emphasized.