German Lawmakers Move To Halt Federal Funding for Neo-Nazis

The German Bundesrat, or Federal Council, is taking a ‘by any means necessary’ approach to end state funding of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). After losing a suit in the Constitutional Court to have the NPD banned, the Bundesrat proposed a constitutional change to prohibit certain parties from capturing state subsidies.

The current legal framework stipulates that legally-recognized political parties can receive state dollars based on success in local, state, and European elections, according to international news outlet Deutsche Welle. The NPD raked in 1.3 million euros ($1.38 million) in 2015, the news service reported.

“Parties who pursue a course against the free democratic order” of Germany should be excluded from federal financing, the proposed constitutional amendment stipulates. The next step forward in the process is for the law to be sent to the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.

One member of the NPD has a seat in the European Parliament, but the group has not lifted any officials to elected office in the German parliament, nor any regional lawmaking entities.

A magistrate in Karlsruhe previously ruled that the NPD had such low member counts that it did not warrant the state ban. The new proposed amendment would, Deutsche Welle wrote, have “major symbolic importance as a barrier against a return to fascism.”

The amendment received unanimous approval in the Bundesrat. “Everything must be done to ensure that parties that pursue anti-constitutional aims and whose political concept disregards human dignity are not enabled by state resources to achieve their goals,” the resolution states.