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The legislature created the option to exclude funding after the second unsuccessful NPD ban procedure in 2017. The Constitutional Court rejected a ban at the time because there was no evidence that the party could achieve its anti-constitutional goals.
The legislature then created the possibility of exclusion from party financing in Article 21 Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law. The Bundestag, Bundesrat and Federal Government applied to the Constitutional Court to exclude the NPD and possible replacement parties from party financing for six years. The period is specified by law. The ruling also means that tax benefits for the party and donations to it will no longer apply.
From the point of view of “Die Heimat”, the new regulation violates the principle of equal opportunities for parties enshrined in the Basic Law as a core element of the principle of democracy. She considers the change to be unconstitutional and void. However, the party failed in its application to the Constitutional Court to determine exactly that because it was not authorized to make the application. The chairwoman of the Second Senate, Doris König, made it clear when the verdict was announced on Tuesday that this argument was off the table: only parties that do not want to abolish the free democratic basic order could invoke equal opportunities because of the constitutionality of the exclusion from it The BVerfG has no doubts about party financing.
How party financing works
According to the party law, parties can receive money from the state for their work. The sum is calculated according to a specific key, where, among other things, votes play a role. To be eligible, parties must achieve minimum shares in the most recent elections at state, federal and European levels.
Since the NPD recently failed to do this, according to Bundestag figures, it has not received any money since 2021. A year earlier it was around 370,600 euros – it received 3.02 percent of the votes in the 2016 state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. For comparison: In 2016, when the party was credited with more electoral successes, it was entitled to more than 1.1 million euros. To put it into perspective: the SPD received the highest sum at that time, almost 51 million euros.
There was a scandal at the oral hearing in July last year because no party representative appeared – according to the court, a one-off event. The party also did not send anyone to the verdict. At the time, Die Heimat declared on its website that it would not allow itself to be “made into an extra in a justice simulation.” The negotiation will “degenerate into a show trial”. Since there is no requirement to be present, the court continued the hearing.
(Editor’s note: The report will be supplemented with details from the reasons in the course of the morning.)
on BVerfG, judgment of January 23, 2024 – 2 BvB 1/19
Editorial team beck-aktuell, jvh, January 23, 2024 (supplemented by material from the dpa).