Efforts to exclude the right-populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) from the German political system—despite it coming second in the recent federal elections and leading national polls for the first time earlier this month—are reportedly crumbling. But establishment figures are scrambling to ensure that this so-called ‘firewall’ remains in place.
Jens Spahn, an ally of incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz and fellow member of his centre-right CDU, last week told Bild that politicians must “simply acknowledge … how many millions of Germans voted for the AfD,” in part because they “wanted to tell us [establishment types] something.” He also “recommend[ed] that
We treat the AfD as an opposition party in the same way in terms of procedures and processes as we would any other opposition party.
Hardly the most extreme of proposals, though the response would suggest otherwise.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who has previously expressed a desire to sack federal police officers who “actively support” the AfD, accused Spahn of being “irresponsible and oblivious to history” because
The AfD is not an opposition party like any other. Anyone who wants to treat it that way and thereby further normalise it is making a serious mistake.
The left-wing SPD’s Matthias Miersch also bashed Spahn as “fundamentally wrong and very, very dangerous,” while the party’s parliamentary manager, Katja Mast, also insisted she would “continue to protect our democratic institutions” by blocking the widely democratically-backed AfD.
Clearly unnerved by this backlash, Spahn later stressed that he “didn’t use the word ‘normalisation’” when discussing the AfD, adding: “Nobody really needs to tell me what kind of people are sitting in their ranks. I know that.”
For its part, the AfD declared on Thursday it is still willing to cooperate with the CDU, praising “more and more leading Christian Democrats” who are “calling for what should actually be a matter of course in a democracy: to finally treat the AfD like any other opposition party.” Party officials added that
The exclusion of the AfD harms democracy—it does not strengthen it.
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/merz-afd-firewall-jens-spahn/