AfD ban | If you don't know what to do next, set up a working group

A clear demand Monday in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin Photo: Fabian Sommer/dpa There doesn't seem to be a problem of knowledge in the CDU. At least Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared on Wednesday in the general debate in the Bundestag that the AfD's remigration concept was "nothing other than ethnic cleansing based on skin color and origin." It seems clear to the Chancellor that the AfD is pursuing goals that are incompatible with the Basic Law. Merz does not derive actions from his knowledge.

Another CDU politician who has long understood the character of the AfD - at least he has been calling it a Nazi party for years - is Hendrik Wüst. The Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia has been calling for the establishment of a federal-state working group since Monday to decide how to deal with the AfD constitutionally. Wüst leaves the possible consequences open; he expressly does not want to commit to a ban.

An open-ended legal review is more than Wüst's colleagues from Hesse and Bavaria are prepared to do. Instead, they repeat the mantra that the AfD must be “politically positioned.” But Wüst's advance doesn't go far enough either. A working group that collects and evaluates material about the AfD is no longer necessary. There is an abundance of political science and legal work on the AfD's unconstitutionality. There is also no need for a legal assessment of a ban by the applicants - the Federal Constitutional Court can do that on its own.

All in all, the North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister's proposal is little more than a ploy to generate a few headlines after the election in Saxony-Anhalt and to present oneself as the democratic conscience of the Christian Democracy. This may be helpful on Wüst's personal path to chancellorship, but it does not protect democracy and the constitution. If the NRW Prime Minister wanted to do that, he would convince his conservative colleagues in the Federal Council of a ban procedure and get it underway. Time is of the essence and does not allow further working groups.

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