Germany's domestic intelligence service on Friday designated the far-right AfD party as an extremist group, setting off a diplomatic spat with the United States.
The BfV intelligence agency, which had already designated several local branches of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) as right-wing extremists, said it moved against the entire party due to its attempts to "undermine the free, democratic" order in Germany.
The classification gives authorities greater powers to monitor the party by lowering the barriers for such steps as intercepting telephone calls and deploying undercover agents.
The conservative US administration quickly condemned the move.
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, who in February defiantly met the AfD leader in Munich, wrote on X. He said the AfD was "the most popular party in Germany".
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it "tyranny in disguise" and said "Germany should reverse course". President Donald Trump's billionaire advisor Elon Musk has also previously defended the AfD.
The German foreign ministry took the unusual step of replying 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.
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Banning the AfD?
In a statement, The AfD slammed the move as a "heavy blow" to democracy, just months after they came second in a national election. It vowed to mount a legal challenge.
AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla charged that the party was "being publicly discredited and criminalised", and that the decision was "clearly politically motivated".
The designation revived calls to ban the party in Germany ahead of conservative Friedrich Merz becoming chancellor next Tuesday, leading a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
The SPD's Lars Klingbeil, set to become vice-chancellor and finance minister in the coalition, said the government would consider banning the AfD.
"They want a different country, they want to destroy our democracy. And we must take that very seriously," he told Bild newspaper. He added however that no hasty decision would be made.
Incoming interior minister Alexander Dobrindt said the spy agency's move "inevitably means there will be further observation of the AfD".
The intelligence agency said the AfD "aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society".
In particular, the AfD does not consider German citizens with a migrant background from countries with large Muslim populations to be "equal members of the German people", it added.
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(With newswires)
