Incoming German interior minister sceptical about ban on far-right AfD

BERLIN (Reuters) - Incoming German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt suggested on Sunday it was unlikely the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party would be banned after the spy agency classified it as "extremist" last week.

German lawmakers have been discussing outlawing the party and taking other measures including dismissing civil servants who are members of the AfD and limiting or halting public funding.

But Dobrindt told broadcaster ARD he was doubtful whether the AfD activities identified in the spy agency's report met the requirements set out for an outright ban.

Guidelines set by the constitutional court say a party must be shown to be working "combatively and aggressively" to implement its goals to be banned.

"I'm sceptical, because the aggressive, combative nature of the party against our democracy must be a defining characteristic. The Constitutional Court was right to set high hurdles for banning a party," Dobrindt said.

He added that he was "convinced that the AfD does not need to be banned, it needs to be governed away, and we need to talk about the issues that have made the AfD so big".

Dobrindt, a high-profile member of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU, said his ministry would examine the designation in depth and he would discuss its findings with the spy agency's top brass in person.

SPD leader Lars Klingbeil told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the future government would work to shrink the AfD.

"What I don't believe is that a potential ban procedure, which could take years, is the sole instrument to bring the AfD down," Klingbeil, Germany's next vice chancellor, said.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel accused outgoing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser of using the spy agency as a "secret justice system" to discriminate against the party.

"We are a future governing party; even the machinations of the secret justice system will not be able to prevent that in the long run," Weidel told the Welt newspaper on Sunday.

(Reporting by Holger Hansen and Andreas Rinke, Writing by Miranda Murray; Editing by Andrew Heavens)