Germany will try to ban extremist NPD once again
After meeting on 5 December, the Interior Ministers of all 16 German states recommended initiating a new attempt to have the courts ban the ultra-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). It is not clear whether the federal government will also join such a step. The first attempt to ban the NPD foundered at the Constitutional Court in 2003 and concerns predominate that the failure of another attempt could just strengthen the extremists.
The state ministers agreed in March of this year that evidence of the party’s unconstitutional nature must be systematically gathered prior to the much-desired filing of a motion to ban it. Many German politicians have recently called for the dissolution of the NPD, which is currently represented in the state parliaments of Mecklenburg – Upper Pomerania and Saxony. Efforts to ban the party intensified after a cell of neo-Nazi murderers of immigrants was recently uncovered. The German Government, however, intends to file such a motion only if it is sure the Constitutional Court will not block it again.
Chancellor Angel Merkel is still not clear on whether the Government will join the state ministries. "There is no doubt that we want to overthrow right-wing extremism in Germany. If a motion to ban the NPD is to be filed, I want it to have a future," the Chancellor said in an interview with the Phoenix television station. Merkel will meet on this topic Thursday with state ministry heads.
In 2003, the court halted the trial in question when it came to light that agents from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German counter-intelligence) were connected to the NPD leadership. Counter-intelligence describes the NPD as a "racist, antisemitic, revisionist" party which is striving to overturn the democratic order. The NPD labels the German Constitution a "dictatorship" forced upon Germany by the Western powers after 1945. In 2001, the German Government and Parliament jointly filed a request with the Constitutional Court to ban the NPD.
