Germany expects tougher penalties in response to attacks on EU activists

After a series of attacks on EU election campaigners. German interior ministers promised on Tuesday (May 7) to introduce tougher legal consequences for attacks on elected officials.

The meeting of Germany’s regional interior ministers was called by Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD, S&D) to discuss the federal government’s response to the violent attack on SPD MEP Matthias Ecke at the weekend.

“Perpetrators who actively attack political activists must feel the full force of the law. This means quick, consistent proceedings and punishments. And that is also part of today’s decision by the interior ministers,” Faeser told reporters after the meeting.

“If we have to further tighten criminal law, I will discuss this quickly with the Minister of Justice,” she added.

In doing so, the interior ministers signaled that they were ready to follow the states’ demands after the attack on Ecke and other election campaigners at the start of the EU election campaign.

On Monday evening, Saxony’s Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) pushed forward an initiative to make threats against public officials a separate criminal offense.

“We need a new criminal offense in the criminal code for threatening public officials, elected officials and volunteers,” Schuster told ARD.

The initiative is to be discussed in the Federal Council with the aim of getting Justice Minister Marco Buschmann to make appropriate changes to the law.

The states are also planning to accelerate several legislative initiatives in the Bundestag to regulate attacks against politically active people in a separate paragraph in the criminal code.

Faeser also outlined a plan to adjust the population register to protect lawmakers’ home addresses.

Concerns about democratic values

The proposed measures came after left-wing parties raised concerns about the state of democracy in Germany. They accused the far right of creating a “climate of fear” after several physical attacks occurred in the run-up to the European elections in June.

In the days before the attack on Ecke, politicians from the Greens, the Left and Volt were also attacked.

However, a question to the government from the German far-right AfD revealed that political violence in Germany affects the entire political spectrum, with the AfD being the most targeted. Of a total of 234 violent crimes registered by the police in 2023, the AfD was targeted 86 times, the Greens 62 times and the SPD 35 times.

(Kjeld Neubert | Euractiv.de – Edited by Nick Alipour)