Dispute over “radicals” | “Extremism clause”: After Söder, Dobrindt is now railing against the left

The two CSU politicians Markus Söder (right) and Alexander Dobrindt find the AfD and the Left just as “extreme”. Photo: dpa/Annette Riedl Berlin. Bremen's mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD) has rejected the CSU's demand for an extremism clause for the state financial equalization as an arbitrary measure. “This is pure populism,” Bovenschulte told the Germany editorial network. »You cannot make the constitutionally secured domestic financial distribution dependent on whether you like a government or not. That would be purely arbitrary.”

Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) also knows this. With a view to a possible AfD government in Saxony-Anhalt and a government in Berlin possibly led by the Left Party, he had called for a regulation that would allow payments from financial equalization to federal states with "extremist" governments to be stopped. According to Söder, Bavaria is in discussions with the other two donor states, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg.

Bovenschulte warned the Union against equating the Left Party and the AfD: "The AfD is a right-wing extremist, anti-constitutional party that wants to eliminate our free-democratic basic order." There is no evidence for a comparable classification of the Left, neither in the Federal and State Office for the Protection of the Constitution nor elsewhere.

The Left clearly won the election to the Berlin House of Representatives on September 20th and wants to govern the capital together with the Greens and the SPD. In Saxony-Anhalt, AfD politician Ulrich Siegmund could become the first politician from the right-wing extremist party in Germany to assume government responsibility in December. The AfD clearly won the state elections at the beginning of September, but does not have a sole majority.

Before the CSU party conference at the weekend, Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) also took aim at extremism, but not on financial issues. In Dobrindt's opinion, a possible "ultra-left coalition" in Berlin that "reduces significantly, especially in the security area," would be "a security risk not only for Berlin, but of course for the whole of Germany," Dobrindt told the Phoenix broadcaster. He finds it strange that the SPD apparently does not adequately evaluate this finding. He would like to see significantly more support from her as a coalition partner in the federal government.

That is why the principle of unanimity “could not be maintained” in the Conference of Interior Ministers. With a view to possible governments in Saxony-Anhalt and Berlin, Dobrindt spoke about the handling of security-relevant information. If "radicals" come into office in the countries, one must be careful about how they handle information. Critical information should not “flow into regions where it does not belong.”  nd

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