To ban or not to ban AfD? German democracy at a crossroads

The news "hit Berlin like a bombshell", said Friederike Haupt in Frankfurter Allgemeine. After a year-long investigation, Germany's domestic intelligence agency has officially designated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) a right-wing extremist organisation, paving the way for the government to ban the second-largest party in the Bundestag.

The AfD's open pitting of "real Germans" vs. "passport Germans", said the agency in a leaked 1,108-page dossier, violates the constitution by making "ethnic ancestry the definition of nationality". It also detected a "solidified xenophobic attitude" among AfD leaders, such as its co-chair Alice Weidel, who has railed against migrants "from [alien] cultures prone to violence... in Africa and the Middle East".

You don't need "a magnifying glass to find extremist ideas in the AfD", said Marcus Rubin in Politiken (Copenhagen). It "openly advocates discrimination based on ethnicity, and numerous members have downplayed the Holocaust". One former leader called the genocide of six million Jews a "blip". Yet Germany's mainstream parties need "to defeat right-wing extremism at the ballot box, not in the courts", which would only damage faith in German democracy.

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The agency has now paused its designation pending a court ruling on the issue, said Hansjörg Friedrich Müller in the Aargauer Zeitung (Aarau), leaving new chancellor Friedrich Merz with a dilemma. The CDU leader can either ignore the calls for a ban, and "live with the accusation that he is taking the threat too lightly". Or he can initiate proceedings against the AfD, who now regularly top nationwide polls, and polarise an already deeply divided country. And it's only his first week in the job.

A ban would be fruitless, said Michael Hanfeld in Frankfurter Allgemeine. It could take years; and even if we did eliminate the AfD, the issues that led to its rise won't "disappear" into thin air. As long as uncontrolled immigration exists, so will the far-right; "anything else is magical thinking". And remember, the "vast majority" of the AfD's supporters aren't Nazis, said Michalis Psilos in Naftemporiki (Athens). "They are citizens who no longer trust the ability or even the will of the traditional parties to solve the big problems." Germany's mainstream parties need to prove them wrong.

If only things were that simple, said Stefanie Witte in Tagesspiegel (Berlin). It's an "illusion" to think that all we have to do is make better policies, "and voters will react rationally and objectively"; the anti-establishment feeling in today's politics is far too strong for that. Right now, Germany is hurtling down a very dangerous path. We're witnessing the rise of a party intent on destroying German democracy itself. The AfD has openly expressed "contempt for the rule of law, courts, democratic institutions and their representatives". If allowed into power, it will only be a matter of time before the German constitution "fails". The time for a ban "is now" – before it's too late.

The impulse to do this is quite understandable, said Malte Lehming in the same paper. But how would that make us any different from the Nazis? They banned political parties, and removed fundamental rights. When we vowed "never again", those were some of the mistakes we vowed not to repeat.

You've got to feel for Merz, said Clay Risen in The New York Times. He has already had an incredibly rocky start as chancellor: he needed two attempts to secure the votes for his approval, an unprecedented situation that has put a serious dent in his credibility. Now he faces a daily battle against the "politically toxic" AfD.

As the leading opposition party in the Bundestag, they have the power to make his life a misery, and with a majority of just 12 members, Merz needs to work out how to offset their influence and push through his own agenda. "As parliament settles into a new, uncomfortable normal and as rifts inevitably open among the coalition", the temptation to work with the AfD will grow. Will Merz be able to resist?