Europe seeks to define extremism out of its politics
BERLIN — For years, discussions of extremism across Europe were about Islamic extremism and terrorism, but the debate has now shifted to extreme-right ideologies, with governments saying they need to be regulated to protect their democracies. The issue is arguably most vivid in Germany, where calls for a ban of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) — the country’s second-most-popular political party — are growing and the government wants to cut off funding sources of right-wing extremist networks. In Britain, the government wants to keep extremists from meeting with lawmakers or receiving public funds, and it plans to publish a new list of groups it considers “extremist,” focusing more on beliefs rather than a propensity for violence. The debate over extremism has come a long way from the early 2000s and the terrorist attacks in the United States and Britain. As recently as 2015, then-Prime Minister David Cameron declared that “the fight against Islamist extremism is, I believe, one of the great struggles of our generation.” The threat now is less about extremists planting bombs …