Berlin Won’t Join Effort to Ban Far-Right Party
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Version 0 of 1. BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right government said Wednesday that it would not try to ban a far-right political party deemed “racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist” by domestic intelligence, choosing instead to focus on combating neo-Nazi extremism through other channels. The decision comes as Germany’s main political camps stake out their positions ahead of a general election in September, in which Ms. Merkel is seeking a third term in office. The chancellor’s main rivals, the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens, who control the upper house of Parliament, announced in December that they would seek to have the far-right National Democratic Party, or N.P.D., banned on grounds that it violated the Constitution. A separate filing submitted by Ms. Merkel’s government, alongside the one from the upper house, or Bundesrat, would have given political weight to the argument but was not necessary for petitioning the Constitutional Court. “It is enough if one state organ does this, then the case will be launched,” Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said Wednesday. Mr. Friedrich had been skeptical of a renewed attempt to ban the party, a move that is allowed but difficult under the German Constitution. He also expressed concern that a separate case against the N.P.D. would bring unnecessary attention to the party — which is not represented at the national level but holds seats in two state legislatures — at a time when it is in the midst of a leadership and financial crisis. Groups representing Germany’s minorities, including those of Turkish descent, Jews and Roma, nevertheless criticized the government for what they said was a missed opportunity to send a united message to a group that has troubled the country since the 1990s. “The decision of the government is disappointing and politically completely wrong,” Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement. “Hesitation and procrastination instead of courage and determination — the government has missed the opportunity to send a clear and credible signal of a strong democracy.” The Free Democratic Party, Ms. Merkel’s junior coalition partner, was at the forefront of the decision to not pursue a separate ban. The party’s leader, Philipp Rösler, derided the fresh attempt by saying that “stupidity can’t be banned.” While the National Democrats are a problem because they receive taxpayer money as an officially recognized political party, they are not the most dangerous extremists, said Jörn Menge, the leader of the group Noise Against Nazis. He warned against allowing a fresh political debate over the party to divert attention from what he called the very real danger posed by far-right extremists. “We wish that, instead, this government would make good on its pledge to support all of the existing groups out there who are struggling against the far right,” Mr. Menge said. |