CSU regional group leader Alexander Hoffmann doesn’t want any representatives next year either AfD at the Munich Security Conference. be the reason for this AfD contacts with Russia and China: “Information also flows there,” said the chairman of the CSU MPs in the Union parliamentary group. “And that’s why it would be a security risk.”
The Munich people Security conference is the most important expert meeting on security policy in the Western world. Next year it will take place from February 13th to 15th, 2026. In addition to dozens of heads of state and government as well as foreign and defense ministers, foreign and defense politicians from the Bundestag factions are usually represented at the conference.
JD Vance criticized the AfD’s absence in 2025
In the past two years, however, the then conference leader Christoph Heusgen decided not to invite the AfD; This year the same was true for the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which at the time – before the federal election – was still represented in parliament as a group without parliamentary group status.
The lack of AfD representatives was prominently discussed at the 2025 conference: US Vice President JD Vance criticized this in his sensational speechwithout naming the party. In a democracy, there is “no place for firewalls,” Vance said at the time, alluding to the German debate about the AfD’s participation in government formation.
In Germany in particular and in other European countries in general, he accused the incumbent governments of endangering democracy if they refused to cooperate with right-wing parties. Vance then demonstratively met with AfD leader Alice Weidel outside the conference grounds – while a conversation with then Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) did not take place.
Hoffmann hopes for understanding from the USA
Hoffmann is still betting that the USA would have more understanding for the exclusion of the AfD at the conference next year. “I believe that if you explain to the Americans what the background is and the Americans take a deeper look at the AfD, then it will be very understandable from their side why the AfD cannot be there,” said the CSU politician.
However, the assessment contradicts that published a few weeks ago new US national security strategy. Similar to Vance’s speech at the last conference, the document accuses European governments of failing to respect freedom of expression in their countries. At the same time, the USA announced in the document that it wanted to actively support the “resistance” against policies in Europe that were supposedly too migration-friendly in the future.
Ex-constitutional judge against AfD ban proceedings
In view of the AfD’s poll numbers, which has been either in first place or just behind the Union in surveys conducted by several election research institutes for months, the debate about the so-called firewall and the start of a possible party ban procedure against the AfD has recently intensified.
Against the latter said the former constitutional judge Udo Di Fabio. Di Fabio told the newspaper that he was not sure whether the conditions for a ban on the AfD currently existed Picture on Sunday. A ban procedure could be “promising and even politically necessary” if the party radicalizes even further.
“But if we act as if we already have a Nazi party in front of us, then we are also hostile to those who vote for the AfD for some objective or less objective reasons,” which at least one in four voters does. If the AfD were to form a state government next year, for example, it would also have to adhere to the law, said the former constitutional judge. The Basic Law provides options to ensure this.
Also July toe against ban
Also the writer Juli Zeh spoke out against a ban. Zeh said that she does not reject such a step in principle weekday. But if a ban procedure has no chance of success, then the AfD will use it. “If you ask a reasonably clever AfD official what is on his wish list for 2026, he will probably say: I would like to see a ban,” said the writer.
“The attempt to keep the AfD down with the firewall has achieved nothing over the last ten years,” she continued. “The AfD’s percentages continue to rise.”
