The northern state of Lower Saxony's internal intelligence agency will monitor the Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party as a "surveillance object of considerable import" on the far-right. 

Interior Minister Daniela Behrens and state intelligence agency (or Verfassungsschutz) head Dirk Pejril announced the move at a press conference on Tuesday. 

What did officials say about the decision?

"The evaluation of the intelligence service is clear: the greatest threat to our society stems from right-wing extremism and the AfD Lower Saxony [party chapter] can be assigned to this area according to the designation," Behrens said.

"It treats our state and our democratic institutions with contempt. People with migratory backgrounds are made into second-class citizens. It unapologetically propagates the so-called 'remigration' of millions of people from the heart of our society. This is again proven. The continuation of surveillance by the Lower Saxony Verfassungsschutz is a logical consequence given this backdrop," Behrens said.  

The AfD won 11% of the vote at the last regional elections in Lower Saxony in 2022 and is the second largest opposition party in the state at present.

Pejril of the state intelligence agency said that the party pursued a slightly more subtle approach in a state where left-leaning parties govern. 

"In public the Lower Saxony AfD and its state leaders try to present a more moderate image," he said. "But distancing themselves from the extremist forces within the party as a whole is not taking place."

Instead, Pejril said, officials were either supporting, disseminating, or sometimes actively approaching extremist actors and their ideologies. 

What does the designation mean? 

A spokesman at Lower Saxony's Verfassungsschutz told DW that the designation constituted upgrading the AfD from level 2 to level 3 of its three-step observation scale. 

Rather than just being a clear case for surveillance as it was first designated in 2022, the state chapter of the party was now deemed "certified right-wing extremist" or an "extremist endeavor." 

This lowers the barriers to surveillance for intelligence operations, permits the use of undercover informants and simplifies telecommunications monitoring. Behrens said that as extremists could not work as public servants, this would make checking individual cases necessary. 

Several other state chapters of the AfD already have this designation, as was the case for the main party at the federal level. However, the AfD is challenging this designation in court. both at the national level and in some states.

What did state Interior Minister Behrens say about moves to ban the party? 

Interior Minister Behrens, part of the center-left Social Democrat party whose members last year advocated seeking to start a bid to outlaw the AfD, on Tuesday said that it would not make sense to pursue any such steps at a state level. 

"The AfD is not a Lower Saxony phenomenon, it operates nationwide, with varying support from the public," Behrens said. "Given this backdrop I do not consider an attempt to ban launched on the initiative of individual states via the Bundesrat [upper house of parliament] as productive."

"In my view, any process would need to be collectively launched by the Bundestag [lower house of parliament], Bundesrat and the federal government if it were to have a chance of success after evaluation," she said. 

Behrens said that on a state level, she saw three main tasks in light of Tuesday's upgraded designation. 

"We must uncover extremists, we must disarm them and we must dismiss them from public service. We will not permit our democracy and our society upheld by respect of fundamental values to be destabilized and turned inside out." 

Edited by: Roshni Majumdar