Germany’s far-right AfD files lawsuits to avoid security service surveillance

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has filed two lawsuits aimed at averting surveillance by the country’s domestic security service, a spokesman at the Cologne administrative court told POLITICO.

The party is arguing such a move by the authorities would violate its constitutional right to equal opportunity, fearing that falling under surveillance would impair its chances in this year’s elections, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung and German public broadcasters WDR and NDR, which first reported on the lawsuits Friday.

Multiple media outlets reported this week that the Cologne-based Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) — Germany’s domestic security service — is preparing to treat the entire AfD as a so-called “suspected case” over concerns that the influence of extreme forces within the party is growing.

This would allow security services to surveil the party — including hiring informants and, with parliamentary approval, even monitor the party’s communications.

The AfD’s extreme-right “Flügel” (“wing”) faction came under surveillance in 2019. The Flügel was dissolved last year after the BfV concluded it was a “proven extremist endeavor,” but the security service has since warned of a growing influence of the Flügel’s former members within the party and there are doubts as to what degree the group continues to operate.

The AfD has hit back at such statements. “It is completely obvious that the AfD does not give the [BfV] the slightest reason to classify it as a suspected case,” party chairman Jörg Meuthen, an MEP, told German media.

The Cologne administrative court’s spokesman said one of the two lawsuits filed on Thursday “is about the upgrading of the entire party” to surveillance status, while the other was “about the fact that, in the AfD’s view, the [BfV] is overestimating the number of members who belonged to the so-called Flügel.”

The party’s youth organization Junge Alternative is already under observation as a “suspected case,” a label for organizations that are not or not yet considered unambiguously extremist but where there are significant grounds for suspicion of “extremist endeavor.”

The AfD itself is currently treated as a “case for investigation,” the mildest of the BfV’s three categories. Upgrading the party to a “suspected case,” the second tier, could send a stark signal to voters in Germany’s so-called Superwahljahr, a year of six regional elections plus the general election in September.

The AfD considers the risk of surveillance imminent, according to SZ, WDR and NDR. As a result, the party filed an emergency appeal at the court in Cologne.

“I assume that a decision will be made sometime next week,” the court’s spokesman said.