Germany's spy agency has classified the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as "extremist", enabling it to step up monitoring of the country's biggest opposition party, which decried the move as a "blow against democracy".

A 1100-page experts' report found the AfD to be a racist and anti-Muslim organisation, a designation that allows the security services to recruit informants and intercept party communications, and which has revived calls for the party's ban.

"Central to our assessment is the ethnically and ancestrally defined concept of the people that shapes the AfD, which devalues entire segments of the population in Germany and violates their human dignity," the BfV domestic intelligence agency said in a statement.

"This concept is reflected in the party’s overall anti-migrant and anti-Muslim stance," it said, accusing the AfD of stirring up "irrational fears and hostility" towards individuals and groups.

'Right-wing extremist' AfD is a threat to German democracy, minister says.

The BfV agency needs such a classification to be able to monitor a political party because it is more legally constrained than other European intelligence services, a reflection of Germany's experience under both Nazi and Communist rule.

Other organisations classified as extemist in Germany are neo-Nazi groups such as the National Democratic Party (NDP), Islamist groups including Islamic State, and far-left ones such as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany.

The agency was able to act after the AfD last year lost a court case in which it had challenged its previous classification by the BfV as an entity suspected of extremism.

The move follows other setbacks the far-right across Europe has suffered in recent months as it seeks to translate surging support into power. They include a ban on France's Marine Le Pen contesting the 2027 presidential election after her embezzlement conviction, and the postponement of Romania's presidential vote after a far-right candidate won the first round.

Matteo Salvini, deputy Italian prime minister and leader of far-right party, the League, wrote on X:

"VERY SERIOUS. After France and Romania, another theft of Democracy?"

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Germany should reverse course on branding the AfD as "extremist," while US billionaire Elon Musk, who threw his support behind the party ahead of February elections, warned against banning it.

"Banning the centrist AfD, Germany's, most popular party, would be an extreme attack on democracy," said Musk on X.

The AfD denounced its designation as a politically motivated attempt to discredit and criminalize it.

"The AfD will continue to take legal action against these defamatory attacks that endanger democracy," co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said in a statement.

A ban?

German parliament could now attempt to limit or halt public funding for the AfD - but for that authorities would need evidence that the party is explicitly out to undermine or even overthrow German democracy.

Meanwhile, civil servants who belong to an organisation classified as "extremist" face possible dismissal, depending on their role within the entity, according to Germany's interior ministry.

The stigma could also make it harder for the AfD, which currently tops several polls and is Germany's most successful far-right party since World War Two, to attract members.

The BfV decision comes days before conservative leader Friedrich Merz is due to be sworn in as Germany's new chancellor and amid a heated debate within his party over how to deal with the AfD in the new Bundestag, or lower house of parliament.

German conservative leader Friedrich Merz will be sworn in as Germany's new chancellor. - Reuters

The AfD won a record number of seats in the national election in February, coming in second behind Merz's conservatives, which in theory entitled it to chair several key parliamentary committees.

A prominent Merz ally, Jens Spahn, has called for the AfD to be treated as a regular opposition party to prevent it casting itself as a "victim".

However, other established parties, and many conservatives have rejected that approach - and could use this news to justify blocking AfD attempts to lead committees.

Manuela Schwesig, premier of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and senior member of the Social Democrats (SPD), who are about to form a government with the conservatives, said:

"Starting today, no one can make excuses anymore: This is not a democratic party."

Under the new government, the authorities should review whether to ban the AfD, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil told Bild newspaper.

SPD's outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for a careful evaluation and warned against rushing to outlaw the party.

Created in 2013 to protest the euro zone bailouts, the eurosceptic AfD morphed into an anti-migration party after Germany's decision to take in a large wave of refugees in 2015.

Why has the far-right AfD been classified as 'extremist'?

Here are some of the key findings and evidence cited in the 1100 page document, according to security officials who have seen the report:

Anti-migrant incitement

Party officials frequently described citizens of immigrant background as "passport Germans" and used terms such as "population replacement" to describe what they say is the impact of large-scale migration.

Migrants were often compared to invasive species or described as "knife migrants" or "knifemen".

In October 2023, the party leadership accused the Greens in posts on social media of having a "Population Replacement General Plan", which carried echoes of "General Plan East", the Nazis' label for their plan for a genocide of Jews and other ethnic groups in eastern Europe during World War Two.

Party co-leader Alice Weidel described knife crime in July 2023 as something exclusive to "people from a totally alien culture, from violent cultures ... It doesn't exist in our culture ... It only exists in the cultures of Africa and the Middle East".

Senior party official Hannes Gnauck said on August 11: "We have to be able to decide again who belongs to our country and who doesn't. There's more to being German than a citizenship certificate ... We are linked by an invisible band that you don't have to explain."

Racism

The party youth wing ran a campaign, involving a song, a mini-game and a video clip, that depicted Black men as violent in "an extraordinarily racist way".

Islamophobia 

Asserting that there had been 761 mass assaults in Germany the previous year, Weidel in 2023 said: "What we are seeing on German streets is jihad. A religious war is being fought against the German population."

Attacking German democracy 

AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla described the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, and the lack of an immediate response, as proof "that this country can't be sovereign. That's not how you react when you're attacked."

He later described mainstream parties as "American vassals".

The Nord Stream pipelines, which brought Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany, were blown up shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.