BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday that simply banning the far-right Alternative for Germany would not end the groundswell of support for it, noting it was key instead to fight the causes.
The designation last Friday of the AfD as an “extremist” entity by the German domestic intelligence agency has revived a debate about whether lawmakers should seek a ban on the anti-Muslim, nationalist party.
In one of his first interviews since being sworn in as chancellor earlier on Tuesday, Merz said the government would carefully evaluate the intelligence agency report before drawing its own conclusions.
“But I would also like to add: 10 million AfD voters — you can’t ban them,” the conservative politician said. “You have to engage with them factually and on substance.”
“And I want to do everything in this federal government to help people regain trust in the political center — so that they no longer feel the need to vote for a party like the AfD.”
The AfD came second in February’s federal election, scoring the best performance of any far-right party in Germany since World War Two. Support for the party has continued to climb in recent months, with the AfD even topping some opinion polls, ahead of Merz’s conservatives.
The domestic spy agency’s classification of the AfD as extremist will enable it to step up monitoring of what is now the country’s biggest opposition party, which has decried the move as a “blow against democracy”.
Since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president, the party now has powerful backers on the other side of the Atlantic.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last Friday Germany should reverse course on branding the AfD as “extremist,” while U.S. billionaire Elon Musk, who threw his support behind the party ahead of February elections, warned against banning it.
While Merz has consistently ruled out officially cooperating with the AfD, he welcomed its backing in January for an anti-migration motion in parliament, breaking a taboo on any kind of collaboration with the party and raising questions about whether he might seek to normalise relations with it.
(Reporting by Holger Hansen and Sarah Marsh; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
