Enlarge image

Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe

Photo: Uli Deck / dpa

The right-wing extremist NPD, which now calls itself “Die Heimat”, is excluded from state party funding.

This was decided by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe.

The party should no longer receive any state funds for at least six years, and the party and donations to it will no longer receive tax benefits.

The court's decision was unanimous.

The court found that “Die Heimat” disregards the free, democratic basic order and is aimed at its elimination based on its goals and the behavior of its members and supporters.

The party aims to replace the existing constitutional order with an authoritarian state geared towards the ethnic “national community”.

Their political concept disregards the human dignity of everyone who does not belong to this “national community” and is incompatible with the principle of democracy.

The Bundestag, Bundesrat and federal government had already submitted the application to cut public funding for the party in 2019.

The possibility of this was introduced in 2017 after an NPD ban in Karlsruhe failed for the second time.

The party has now become largely politically irrelevant and, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, only has around 3,000 members - as of 2022.

Due to the election defeats, the party is currently not receiving any public funding.

Parties are only entitled to direct subsidies if they receive at least 0.5 percent of the vote in European or federal elections or at least one percent of the vote in state elections - “Die Heimat” has recently been unable to achieve this.

The party last received around 370,600 euros from the state in 2020.

Hard blow for the right-wing extremists

However, she was still entitled to tax relief for donations, gifts and inheritances.

Due to the Federal Constitutional Court's ruling, the right-wing extremist party can no longer deduct donations from their taxes.

A hard blow: Political scientist Steffen Kailitz from Dresden said at the hearing in July that it already lacks the substance for larger election campaigns due to the lack of state funding.

The insignificance was also the reason why the NPD was not banned in 2017.

The Federal Constitutional Court did attest that it had anti-constitutional goals and “an essential similarity to National Socialism.”

But it is too insignificant to achieve these goals and endanger democracy.

The dealings with the NPD and the revelations about the right-wing extremist meeting in Potsdam have fueled a debate about the AfD ban in recent days.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution attests that the AfD has similar right-wing extremist activities as the former NPD, but only in parts of the party.

At the same time, the AfD is significantly more popular in surveys.

Politicians are divided about a ban on the AfD.

One way could be, according to many politicians, to use the Karlsruhe ruling as a blueprint for a possible cap on the AfD's finances.

mrc/AFP/Reuters