German Coalition Warns AfD Government Would Risk Intelligence Trust

Germany's two governing parties spent Sunday warning, in unison, that a Saxony-Anhalt state government with the AfD inside it would put the trust on which the country's intelligence work runs at risk. Marc Henrichmann (CDU), chair of the Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Committee — the body that oversees the BND, the Military Counter-Intelligence Service and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution — told Handelsblatt that "a party with demonstrable links to far-right milieus and a strikingly Russia-friendly course" taking on government responsibility would put cooperation between the federal level, the Länder, the services themselves and international partners under "considerable strain." Sebastian Fiedler, the SPD's interior-policy spokesman, said the AfD as a Land government would force the security services to ensure that "when far-right actors are in power, they should ideally not know who among them is being watched by the Verfassungsschutz." AfD parliamentary manager Bernd Baumann dismissed the warnings as a "campaign manoeuvre" to "demonise" the party. The exchange comes as a fresh state poll puts the AfD at a record 41 percent in Saxony-Anhalt. The Catholic children's mission "Die Sternsinger" used the same Sunday to criticise the appointment of an AfD MP to chair the Bundestag's Kinderkommission, with president Pfarrer Dirk Bingener calling it "a politically significant signal" that the body needs trust from families and faith communities.

On the Ukraine track, Munich historian Franziska Davies told Ukrinform that German aid is "a matter of German and European security, not charity," criticising the CDU for letting migration politics outrank Ukraine and warning that populist narratives are pushing the file to the background — a frame the SPD-CDU security politicians effectively cited again in their AfD warnings.

The coalition's domestic-relief politics ran into a wall on Friday when the Bundesrat blocked the tax-free €1,000 employee bonus law that had cleared the Bundestag. Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil (SPD), speaking from Toronto, asked for patience: "We will talk about whether and how relief can look. But please give us a little time to clarify this internally." Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), at a Stockholm press conference with Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson, said the coalition would discuss "what else we can do" and pointed to fuel-price cuts as evidence the government "will not leave citizens alone in this crisis." SPD parliamentary manager Dirk Wiese told the Rheinische Post that Tuesday's coalition committee would take up further measures. CSU leader Markus Söder, in Welt am Sonntag, told the coalition to deliver: "Less talking, more results," and warned it could not afford to fail twice in a row.

Inside the parties, leadership manoeuvres advanced. The FDP previewed its end-of-May congress with rival pitches from deputy chair Wolfgang Kubicki and North Rhine-Westphalia leader Henning Höne for the federal chair, Kubicki citing four parliamentary comebacks and Höne offering "new faces" for a five-percent threshold the party is currently sub-polling. The Baden-Württemberg CDU at a Korntal-Münchingen congress and the Greens at Stuttgart both ratified the Özdemir-Hagel coalition deal with near-unanimous votes, clearing the path for Cem Özdemir to become minister-president. DGB chair Yasmin Fahimi opened the trade-union federation's Berlin congress with a warning against attacks on the eight-hour day and welfare state ahead of her own re-election bid Monday and a Tuesday speech by Merz; ZDH president Jörg Dittrich (Bild am Sonntag) cautioned against any tax reform that hits personal-firm owners as the "Leistungsträger" three-quarters of the trades sector. Health minister Nina Warken (CDU) told the Rheinische Post she will raise the social-care insurance contribution ceiling for higher earners and tighten access to care levels one to three to stabilise the system for the boomer generation, while ruling out cutting the existing levels.

Justice minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) used Bild am Sonntag to confirm she will write femicide into Germany's homicide statute (Paragraph 211) so that killings motivated solely by the victim being a woman are charged as murder rather than manslaughter — a change that would expose those convictions to life imprisonment instead of jealousy-defence reductions. In Berlin, both "Berlin autofrei" and "Berlin werbefrei" referendum campaigns missed their signature thresholds (the auto-free initiative gathered 140,000 against the required 175,000), with the final tally due 22 May.

On the foreign-policy register, Merz used the Stockholm presser to argue NATO's strength "does not depend on troop numbers alone but on shared goals," insisting US-European unity remains intact despite the announced American troop pull-out from Germany. "I have no doubt that the US has a strong interest in a strong European part of NATO at its side," he said — a line the AfD-warning wing of the SPD and CDU spent the day arguing must be defended at the Land level too.