How Does Germany Ban Foreign Far-Right Extremists?

the basic interests of society.”

Renner believes that Sellner represents such a threat: “Participation in meetings on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany to plan and implement millions of deportations of people from Germany violates these fundamental interests in a fundamental way,” she said.

But Stefan Martini, senior researcher in public law at Kiel University, is skeptical whether there are enough grounds to ban Sellner from the country. “It would depend on how concrete these remigration plans are thought to have been,” he said. “Would this count as a call for subversion in Germany? If so, then a ban could be justified, but if he is thought to have just described some abstract scenarios, then the entry of Mr Sellner probably wouldn’t be seen as sufficiently dangerous.”

Suspending Freedom of Movement in the EU
Other countries have considered Sellner a threat in the past. The United Kingdom and the United States both denied Sellner entry in the past few years. In the US’ case, this happened after it emerged that he had had direct contact with Brenton Tarrant, the Australian terrorist who murdered 51 Muslims in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019. Sellner’s organization, the Identitarians, had also received a donation from Tarrant.

But the EU has more stringent criteria — especially for EU citizens like Sellner, who enjoys freedom of movement rights. “Simply because of the European regulations, Germany is much stricter,” said Martini. “The individual must get a hearing, the reasons why a ban is imposed must be made clear – the legal restrictions on such a decision are much more stringent in Germany than in other countries.”

And the criteria for imposing an entry ban are also relatively strict. “A fundamental interest of society needs to be threatened — such as the peaceful co-existence of people,” said Martini. “Even if the individual committed a crime in the past, you still have to examine whether a ban would be proportional.”

Nevertheless, bans on extremist agitators are not uncommon in the EU — though they are generally tied to actual events. In 2020, Germany denied entry to Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan after the anti-Islam activist had burned a copy of the Quran at a demonstration in Copenhagen. His group was planning a protest in the Neukölln district of Berlin, where many Muslims live.

Similarly, in 2019, authorities in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia ensured that Russian extremist Denis Kapustin was denied entry to the entire Schengen area after he had organized martial arts events for neo-Nazi groups across Europe.

Martini says that while in such cases the federal interior ministry usually carries out a risk assessment and then issues orders to the police, even if border control officers have no order from above, they can also use their own discretion.

“In the case of Mr. Sellner, an interview was apparently carried out at the border,” he told DW. “He was asked what purpose his stay in Germany had, and then they had to decide on the spot: Is there any threat to public safety in Germany?” In short, if Sellner told them on Monday night, as he declared to his followers, that he was going for a coffee, the officials would have seen no grounds to refuse him entry.

Ben Knight is a DW reporter. This article was edited by Rina Goldenberg, and it is published courtesy of Deutsche Welle (DW).