In September 2021, the far-Right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) won seats in the Bundestag for the second time in a row, with 10.3% of the vote. While the party lost significantly in the country’s western states, it consolidated its position in the east, coming first in Saxony with 24.6%, for example. With its second set of seats in the national parliament, the AfD achieved another important milestone that might considerably improve its organisational capacities, ideological impact and public reputation. During the next legislative term, the AfD may be able to get public funding for a party-affiliated foundation.
The mission of party-affiliated foundations, such as the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Social Democratic Party, SPD) and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), is to influence public opinion and strengthen the civic education sector. The foundations use their generous budgets to organise workshops and seminars, build up expertise on specific policy issues and fund democratic engagement and international collaboration. They have offices in many countries across the world.
In 2019, the Bundestag gave a total of 660m euros to the six party-affiliated foundations. Currently, the distribution of tax revenue to the foundations is largely unregulated, which means that they barely have to account for how they spend their money. According to the NGO Frag den Staat, the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation (Desiderius-Erasmus-Stiftung, DES), will receive around 50–70m euros up to 2025.
