The FDP warns of the possible consequences of a renewed ban on the AfD. “We are against it,” said FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai in Berlin after a meeting of the FDP executive committee. He called for the FDP to be given political support. “An application for a ban or a ban procedure, at the end of the day, in my opinion, only the AfD would benefit from that. And we don’t want that,” he said.
FDP defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who will lead her party’s European election campaign, warned that the AfD would then portray itself as a victim and communicate that it should be eliminated as political competition by law. “We’re not eliminating anyone. We’re picking up the gauntlet and will confront them politically,” said Strack-Zimmermann.
FDP wants to focus on the issue of migration
When asked, Djir-Sarai said that solving existing problems was also one of the steps that were now necessary. As an example, he gave: “Of course we have to tackle the big issue of migration this year too. There was a lot of emphasis in the right direction last year, especially when it came to the topics of limitation, management and control “Of course we still have to do much better and achieve success.”
The debate about a ban on the AfD recently picked up speed again after reports from the media company Correctiv about a secret meeting in which AfD members also took part. Individual AfD officials as well as individual members of the CDU and the ultra-conservative Values Union took part in the meeting in a Potsdam villa in November. The former head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, confirmed to the German Press Agency that he spoke about “remigration” at the meeting. When right-wing extremists use the term, they usually mean that large numbers of people of foreign origin should leave the country – even under duress. According to Correctiv research, Sellner named three target groups in Potsdam: asylum seekers, foreigners with the right to remain – and “non-assimilated citizens.”
