Reuters
source: Reuters
This month’s victories for far-right and far-left parties in German state elections have intensified official debate over whether security authorities can restrict secret information that might be passed on to Russia or criminal groups.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came close to winning an absolute majority in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on September 6, and the far-left Left Party, which came first in the capital Berlin on September 20, could both pose risks, senior figures in the ruling coalition say.
In Germany’s federal system, states have their own domestic intelligence agencies under local government control, which share information with each other and operate with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
Politicians from rival parties and former security officials have expressed fears that if the agencies come under the authority of ministers from the far right or far left, confidential information could leak either to Moscow or, in the case of Berlin, to groups investigated over suspicions of organized crime links.
“This concerns information relating to organised crime – that would be an issue in Berlin,” said Alexander Hoffmann, head of the parliamentary group of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU). “And it’s about issues concerning Russia – that would be Saxony-Anhalt,” he said.
