Green Party accuses German interior ministers of ignoring right-wing extremism ahead of Hamburg conference
On the eve of the Innenministerkonferenz in Hamburg, the Green Party criticizes the agenda for omitting the fight against right-wing extremism. The conference will also for the first time include the defence ministry.
Germany's interior ministers will convene in Hamburg on Wednesday for the Innenministerkonferenz (IMK), a regular summit to coordinate internal security policy across federal and state levels. The agenda encompasses 75 to 80 draft resolutions, spanning civil protection, money laundering, power grid resilience, migration policy, and stadium security. Yet one topic is conspicuously absent: right-wing extremism.
Green Party appeal
Seventeen leading Green Party interior policy experts from federal and state parliaments have signed an appeal demanding the issue be prioritized. The document warns that right-wing extremism remains one of the greatest domestic threats and is at an alarmingly high level, as recent statistics on politically motivated crime have shown. Attacks on Christopher Street Day events, refugee shelters, and democratic activists demonstrate, in their view, how real the danger from the far right is.
The fight against right-wing extremism must not be a side issue at the Innenministerkonferenz.
The appeal calls for decisive action against the radicalization of young people on social media, the disarmament of enemies of the constitution, the dismantling of right-wing extremist financing structures, and reliable prevention and deradicalization programmes. Better protection for victims of right-wing violence is also demanded.
Marcel Emmerich, the Green Party's interior policy spokesman in the Bundestag, underscored the urgency.
Ahead of the upcoming state elections and in the middle of CSD season, the danger from right-wing extremists is particularly acute for many people.
Emmerich insisted that interior ministers must now agree on concrete steps.
Agenda without extremism
The IMK's collection of resolution texts includes proposals to anchor civil protection in school curricula, clamp down on money laundering, and create a national reserve of construction and repair materials following an attack on Berlin's power supply in January. Key components like power transformers and special cables would be stockpiled to enable faster grid restoration. Other items cover migration policy under the newly effective Common European Asylum System, the return of convicted criminals, safety improvements in football stadiums, and measures against sexualized violence and organized crime.
No item on right-wing extremism appears among the draft texts, a fact the Greens call incomprehensible.
Defence ministry joins for first time
For the first time, the IMK will formally integrate the Defence Ministry and the Bundeswehr into its meetings. Hamburg's Interior Senator Andy Grote, the current IMK chair, said the conference is the platform where interior departments and security authorities bundle their forces and make joint decisions. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is expected at the plenary session on Friday.
Internal security is a shared task in Germany, and the Innenministerkonferenz is the platform where we as interior departments and security authorities pool our forces and make joint decisions.
The conference will focus on civilian defence capability and the effective defence against hybrid threats. Grote told journalists that civilian defence must be developed as a second, equally important pillar alongside military defence, necessitating closer integration with the Bundeswehr.
