Bernd Baumann, the AfD’s first parliamentary managing director, said he was hardly surprised by the Cologne administrative court’s ruling that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not allowed to classify the AfD as a firmly extremist organization until the main trial concludes. “We always expected that” he told Welt Thursday. “All this anti‑constitutional talk is nonsense. We have core positions that the CDU also had when they were still in power; the same issues-border migration refusal, citizenship, and the other matters the CDU once put up a firewall-were later adopted by them as well”.
He dismissed the court’s decision as a “foolhardy bluff by old parties that are being voted out” adding that the ruling had merely reiterated what the party already believed.
The court found enough evidence that within the AfD there are efforts aimed at undermining the liberal democratic basic order. However, at the current stage of the expedited proceedings, it could not conclude that these efforts have shaped the party so strongly that it can be declared to have a constitutional‑opposing basic tendency. The court remains convinced that strong suspicion still exists of the AfD pursuing anti‑constitutional aims, noting that the party “partially openly presents political demands that do not align with the constitutional order as embodied in the guarantee of human dignity”. A decision can still be appealed, and the main case is ongoing.
