Germany has denied media reports that it had declared a “national emergency” to increase border controls and refuse entry to refugees.

A government spokesperson told Euractiv, denying the report in the Welt newspaper, “The chancellor will not declare a national state of emergency.”

A day after Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, a member of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU), promised a return to pre-2015 migration policy, Germany reportedly informed capitals that it would apply a special provision, Article 72 (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – TFEU), contained in the EU’s founding treaties. Italy had applied the same article in 2023 to prevent migration.

Merz is expected to attend a meeting in Brussels tomorrow for the start of his chancellorship and Europe Day celebrations. Merz had promised stricter migration rules for Germany.

Professor Daniel Thym from the University of Konstanz said that it would be the first time Germany, a founding member of the EU, would attempt to suspend EU law.

“In most previous cases where a government applied Article 72 TFEU, this attempt failed before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg because its justification remained superficial,” Thym explained.

The European Commission had made such a step possible by issuing a communication on the hybrid threat of migration last December.

Article 72 allows member states to deviate from certain EU regulations to protect public order and safeguard internal security. Whether this would be permissible in this case was a subject of debate between the traffic light coalition and the CDU/CSU last year.

Exactly 80 years after Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, Berlin police banned Soviet symbols during Victory Day commemorations.

Visitors rushing to the Second World War memorials in the city were prevented from wearing St. George ribbons and using Belarusian and Russian flags and banners, as well as the USSR flag.

On the other hand, according to Nico Popp, who wrote an impression piece for Junge Welt, on May 8, “smiling figures tried to provoke visitors at the Soviet memorials in Berlin with NATO flags.”

A reporter for Berliner Zeitung also reported that some groups with Ukrainian flags gathered around the Soviet memorials.

Furthermore, Berlin police also banned the distribution of the Junge Welt newspaper at the Soviet Memorial in Berlin because its May 8 cover featured a Soviet flag.

The police justified this decision with a general order prohibiting the display of Soviet flags and symbols around the capital’s three Soviet Memorials on May 8 and 9.

On the front page of the Junge Welt newspaper regarding the 80th anniversary of the liberation from fascism, under the headline “Hitler kaputt” (Hitler is finished), a red banner with hammer and sickle symbols is placed behind a photograph of people celebrating the end of the war in Moscow.

Junge Welt editor-in-chief Nick Brauns criticized the police’s general decision to ban Soviet symbols that defeated Nazi fascism, and their use of this decision to keep Junge Welt away from the Soviet Memorial in Treptow, calling it “censorship and an attack on press freedom.”

Brauns continued:

“As a Marxist and anti-fascist daily newspaper, Junge Welt is committed to historical truth. By publishing the red flag with hammer and sickle symbols on the cover of our May 8 issue, we honor the decisive role of the Red Army in Germany’s liberation from fascism. The police’s prohibition of displaying the symbols of the Soviet liberators at the Soviet memorials on May 8 and 9 appears to be an attempt to rewrite history.”

Members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) who visited the Soviet Memorial in Treptow were also reportedly prevented from entering because of their hammer and sickle flags.

Meanwhile, May 8 was declared a public holiday in Berlin this year to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe and the liberation from Nazi fascism. Thousands of people used this holiday to visit the Soviet memorials in Treptower Park, Tiergarten, and Schönholzer Heide. Tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers who lost their lives in the Battle of Berlin during the final weeks of the war are buried here.

A commemoration ceremony was also held in the Federal Parliament (Bundestag), to which Belarusian and Russian representatives were not invited. Speeches were given by Federal Parliament President Julia Klöckner (CDU) and Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD).

According to Popp from Junge Welt, a common feature of both speeches was the almost undisguised desire to use the date May 8, 1945 – or rather, an interpretation of this date serving the current political agenda.

Klöckner claimed that Moscow was “abusing history” by trying to justify the war in Ukraine by citing the war against Nazi Germany.

Arguing that “Red Army soldiers did not only come from Russia,” Klöckner said, “We must be able to defend peace and freedom militarily ourselves.”

Steinmeier went a step further, accusing the Soviet Union of paving the way for “a new dictatorship” in East Germany. The Federal President guaranteed that May 8, 1945, was a day of liberation and is today “at the core of all German identity”; he thanked the “Americans, British, and French” for the liberation and said they also acknowledged the “contribution” of the Red Army.

The President stated, “Precisely for this reason, we resolutely oppose the Kremlin’s current historical lies. Even if this claim is repeated at the victory celebrations in Moscow tomorrow: the war against Ukraine is not a continuation of the struggle against fascism.”

On the other hand, as Arnold Schölzel from Junge Welt also recalled, it was Steinmeier who, as foreign minister in 2014, initiated the regime change in Kyiv together with fascist groups in Maidan, where his predecessor Guido Westerwelle did not want to be photographed.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has temporarily refrained from classifying the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as “definitely far-right.”

The elevation of the classification has been suspended until the administrative court rules on the lawsuit filed by the AfD, but it will not be withdrawn.

In a statement to the court, the BfV stated that it would only register the AfD as a “suspicious case” until the decision-making body rules on this case. The press release regarding the elevation of the AfD’s classification has been removed from the BfV’s website, but this does not mean the decision has been reversed.

The party nevertheless interpreted this step by the BfV as a success. AfD co-chairs Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said, “We will defend the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s classification through all legal means, and the Federal Office has committed not to describe the Alternative for Germany as ‘right-wing extremist’ until the court decision is final.”

Lower Saxony AfD state chairman Ansgar Schledde said, “Thus, the unjust and politically motivated classification of the AfD has finally been corrected. This is an important step for our party to receive fair treatment based on the rule of law.”

According to Schledde, the suspension of the classification showed that “the AfD’s arguments were taken into account and that the rule of law still functions in Germany.”

In fact, behind the BfV’s decision lies a method frequently used in urgent judicial proceedings: To prevent facts from emerging due to a measure taken by the competent authorities – for example, the surveillance of AfD members of parliament according to the new classification – the relevant authorities often voluntarily agree not to take action until a court decision is issued.

The BfV informed the court that it wanted to allow time for “an appropriate summary review” and emphasized that the suspension of the classification resulted from respect for the court, “without accepting a legal obligation.” The BfV said, “Since the press release already had a certain effect, it has now been taken offline again for the time being.”

The first legal decision regarding the classification belongs to the Cologne Administrative Court. A timeframe for when the urgent judicial decision will be made cannot currently be predicted; according to experts’ estimates, the judicial process could take a long time.

When the AfD challenged its classification as a “suspicious case” in 2021, it took the Cologne Administrative Court 14 months to issue its final decision on the party’s urgent application.