Maier considers it necessary for security policy and legally justifiable to block the AfD’s access to data stored for investigating far-right groups and counterintelligence in the event of its participation in government. A federal state cannot be completely excluded from the intelligence network, for example for protection against attacks. “But we can build Chinese walls in the joint information system, i.e. partitions that block certain information,” Maier told Welt.
The domestic intelligence service classified the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt as a confirmed far-right extremist group in November 2023. The party is taking legal action against this. In the state election on September 6, the AfD is far ahead in polls. Top candidate Ulrich Siegmund recently considered abolishing the state intelligence service in a podcast if the AfD were to form the government.
Austria serves as a warning example: After a raid on the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution during the tenure of FPÖ Interior Minister Herbert Kickl in 2018, foreign intelligence services restricted their cooperation. Officially, neither the federal government nor the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) comment on the scenario.
Source: www.zeit.de
