The administrative court of Cologne has ruled that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is not allowed to classify the AfD as a confirmed far‑right extremist organization until the main proceedings are finished.
Bernd Baumann, the AfD’s first parliamentary chief officer, said on the TV network „Welt” that he had never been surprised by the court’s decision. He described the criticism as “nonsense” and reminded viewers that the party’s core positions-such as tight immigration controls at the border, citizenship restrictions and other measures that the CDU once pushed-were not new. “We had the same positions when the CDU was still with Trost. The CDU erected a wall, but the arguments about migration and citizenship were basically adopted by us” he added.
Baumann called the accusation “a blunder by old parties that have been voted out” and stated that the court’s decision had been clearly understood beforehand.
The court found that there is ample evidence that the AfD harbors tendencies against the free‑democratic constitutional order. However, according to the current preliminary findings, these tendencies do not yet constitute a “conspiracy against the constitutional order” strong enough to label the party as extremist as a whole. The court is, nevertheless, convinced that there remains a strong suspicion that the AfD may develop anti‑constitutional aims. It noted that the party sometimes openly promotes political demands “in conflict with the constitutional order in the form of the guarantee of human dignity”.
A complaint against the ruling may still be filed, and the main proceedings are ongoing.