After the administrative court in Cologne halted the Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s decision to classify the AfD as a “secured extremist” in the emergency proceedings, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CDU) said the focus must shift to the main trial. Dobrindt explained that the court had clearly stated that there is sufficient certainty that within the AfD there are efforts aimed at undermining the liberal democratic constitutional order. However, the court has yet to determine an overall picture in which these efforts dominate the party as a whole. Therefore the case now needs to be pursued in the main proceedings, and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution will continue to accompany and argue the case there.
Referring to calls for a party ban, Dobrindt insisted that the goal should be to “wegregieren” the AfD rather than to outright forbid it. He added that the court’s recent ruling illustrates how challenging it is to classify a party, underscoring that only a thoroughly demonstrated, dominant influence can justify such a designation.
Green lawmaker Till Steffen criticised the Cologne court’s decision and urged the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to file a complaint as soon as possible. Steffen accused the court of misunderstanding the AfD’s strategy, arguing that the term “Remigration” has been deliberately obscured in the party’s program. He claimed that the court had been misled by this very tactic.
On 2 May 2025 the Office for the Protection of the Constitution publicly announced that the AfD would be upgraded from a “suspected case” to a “secured right‑extremist” following an internal report. Three days later, on 5 May, the AfD filed a lawsuit against the upgrade and simultaneously lodged an emergency request. In the emergency proceedings, the Cologne administrative court found sufficient indications that the AfD pursues anti‑constitutional aims, but concluded that, by the standards currently known, these aims do not so strongly shape the party that a constitution‑violating trend could be established in its overall character.
