With Europe's open borders and 'green globalism' resulting in a massive wave of populism, Germany's top security czar said on Tuesday that she aims to make it easier to track the finances of so-called right-wing extremists,' a catch-all phrase for 'people who don't agree with us' who would be surveilled by bureaucrats that would undoubtedly abuse their new tools (see: Justin Trudeau).
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser's proposals follow a report that said 'extremists' met to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants. The group included members of Germany's conservative AfD party, whose support has doubled since the 2021 German election, the Washington Post reports.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency says the number of far-right extremists has been rising. In 2022, it reached 38,800, with 14,000 of them considered potentially violent. The agency’s head, Thomas Haldenwang, said the numbers are believed to have risen again last year.
Faeser said efforts to shut down extremists’ financing have been hampered because financial investigations are limited to “inciting and violence-oriented” movements. She suggested that the law be changed to make a group’s “threat potential” grounds for such investigations, and the proceedings should be faster and less bureaucratic.
"No one who donates to a right-wing extremist organization should be able to rely on remaining undiscovered," said Frazer, adding that she's actively working with regional authorities to prevent right-wing 'extremists' from entering or leaving the country.
"German right-wing extremists and foreign autocrats have one thing in common: They want to stoke rage and divide, above all through disinformation," she said, pointing to fake accounts and AI-generated content as a problem.
Fraser said that the country's "early recognition unit" - housed within the Interior Ministry, will start work "hopefully in a few months."
AfD wins big in yet another election
On Sunday, after a Berlin court ordered repeat elections in select districts, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) nearly doubled its support vs. the 2021 election, ReMix reports.
On Sunday, 550,000 citizens were able to vote, amounting to a fifth of the city’s population in 455 districts, with the AfD scoring 12.6 percent of the vote. In 2021, their overall share was only 7 percent.
In one eastern district, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, the AfD received the most votes of any party, amounting to 33.1 percent of the vote. In 2021, the AfD managed only 18.5 percent of the vote in this district. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) received 21.5 percent of the vote in the same district, coming in second place.
Bundestagswahl – Teilwiederholung in Berlin • Der letzte, die #btw21 wiederholende Wahlbezirk ist ausgezählt.
— Wahlrecht.de (@Wahlrecht_de) February 12, 2024
Wahlbeteiligung: 50,6 % – zum Vergleich 2021: 76,7 %
🔗https://t.co/tpd8nlm6v0#Wahlwiederholung pic.twitter.com/7S7355cRiU
Meanwhile, a report published before the world's largest security policy conference held in Munich showed that Russia is no longer the primary concern of G7 countries - it's migration and terrorism.
The Munich Security Index 2024 conference report compiled a heat map of security risks based on a variety of survey questions. The map shows that in Germany, for example, migration as a result of war or climate change has the highest score in terms of risk based on the survey data, with it scoring 80 points, the highest score of any nation surveyed in the entire study. In addition, terrorism scored 74. -ReMix
So, the same thing that the 'far-right extremists' are concerned about?