Overview
- Speaking at the Hamburg Greens’ New Year reception, Michel Friedman called for initiating a party-ban case against the AfD without delay.
- He rejected warnings about losing at the Federal Constitutional Court as a weak rationale for inaction and said such arguments make him feel he is being treated foolishly.
- Friedman cited court findings that parts of the AfD seek to dismantle democracy and argued the Constitutional Court should now assess whether the activity warrants prohibition.
- He dismissed the claim that the AfD should be countered purely through politics as a pseudo-argument, saying sustained engagement with the party’s voters has been lacking for years.
- The Hamburg Bürgerschaft voted to urge the Senate to pursue a federal–state working group led by the federal government if an expedited Cologne court proceeding confirms the AfD as decisively right-wing extremist, with SPD, Greens, and the Left in support, the CDU opposing the route, and the AfD calling it partisan agitation.