German cities and municipalities may stay in alliances that fight right-wing extremism, as long as those alliances do not primarily serve to campaign against a specific political party.
Germany’s highest administrative court (BVerwG) set this standard in a March 2026 ruling.
The case concerns the City of Nuremberg and its membership in the “Allianz gegen Rechtsextremismus in der Metropolregion Nürnberg” (Alliance Against Right-Wing Extremism in the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region).
What happened in the case of the city of Nuremberg and AfD?
The AfD’s district association in Nuremberg sued the city. They argued that membership in the alliance violates the political neutrality required of public bodies. This puts the political party (AfD in this case) at a disadvantage in the elections.
Here is what has happened so far:
- The Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht) initially rejected the AfD’s claim.
- The Bavarian Higher Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof, or VGH) reversed that decision and ordered Nuremberg to leave the alliance. It ruled that the membership breaches the city’s duty of neutrality.
- Nuremberg appealed to the BVerwG.
- The BVerwG overturned the Bavarian court’s ruling but did not itself decide whether Nuremberg must stay in or leave the alliance. It sent the case back to the Bavarian VGH for a new assessment. This time, VGH must apply the legal test that the BVerwG has established.
Only after that renewed assessment by VGH will Nuremberg’s membership be definitively resolved.
What does the new political neutrality test consist of?
The test has two parts.
- First, a political party can only demand that a city leave an alliance if the alliance’s activities are legally attributable to the city. This means the city must be seen as acting or speaking through the alliance.
- Second, those activities must significantly harm the party’s constitutionally protected right to equal opportunities in political competition under Article 21(1) of the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz).
Both conditions must be met before a court can order a city to leave such an alliance.
NOTE: The BVerwG did not rule that anti-extremism alliances are unconstitutional or that all city memberships in such groups are problematic. It only set the conditions under which a party can legally challenge them.
