Top-ranking officials in US President Donald Trump‘s administration were quick to criticize Germany’s domestic intelligence agency BfV on Friday for designating the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a “right-wing extremist” entity.
The agency said the party’s positions on ethnicity were incompatible with democracy, noting that the AfD “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society.”
It also highlighted the party’s use of hateful rhetoric and incitement to undermine democratic institutions.
The BfV had previously designated several local AfD branches as right-wing extremist groups, but it now said it decided to give the entire party the label due to its attempts to “undermine the free, democratic” order in the country.
The designation gives authorities greater powers to monitor the party’s activities.
The AfD slammed the decision as “politically motivated.”
It also drew sharp criticism from across the Atlantic, with Trump administration officials slamming the move.
What did Vance and Rubio say?
US Vice President JD Vance on Friday accused Germany of rebuilding a “Berlin Wall.”
“The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt — not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment,” Vance wrote on X.
In February, Vance met with AfD leader Alice Weidel in Munich after delivering a contentious speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he accused European nations of failing to defend free speech, calling out Germany in particular.
Vance complained that the AfD was being ostracized and called for it to end. The US vice president’s statements angered officials in Berlin.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also waded in on Friday, calling the AfD designation as a right-wing extremist outfit as “tyranny in disguise.”
“Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition,” Rubio said on X. “That’s not democracy — it’s tyranny in disguise.”
He said “Germany should reverse course.”
How has Germany responded to the US criticism?
The German Foreign Ministry replied directly to Rubio on X to say: “This is democracy.”
The ministry said that the “decision is the result of a thorough and independent investigation to protect our constitution” and could be appealed.
“We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped,” the ministry said.
Surge in popularity
The AfD, founded in 2013, has surged in popularity over the past few years by capitalizing on fears over migration.
It is now Germany’s largest opposition party, after securing over 20% of the vote in February’s election, a record result and behind only the center-right CDU/CSU bloc.
The AfD, however, remains excluded from government due to the other parties’ refusal to collaborate with it due to its extremist tendencies.
Recent opinion polls have put the party neck-and-neck or even slightly ahead of the CDU/CSU alliance.
Several lawmakers from across the political spectrum have already been working to get enough support for a ban of the AfD party.
The spy agency’s decision now may give that effort new momentum.
Still, legal hurdles to ban a political party are very high in Germany because of the country’s history.
