(live-PR.com) - BERLIN (AP) - Germany's minister responsible for integration of the nation's five ex-communist states warned Wednesday that the growing popularity of far-right political parties risked hampering development in the region.
Wolfgang Tiefensee, the minister for transport and integration of the former East German states, told reporters that, while stable growth had been measured in parts of the region, others remained plagued with problems _ the most important of which is the growing strength of far-right political parties, represented in two state legislatures.
«Such tendencies are capable of negatively influencing development in the (former East German) states,» Tiefensee said at the presentation of an annual report on progress in the region.
Insufficient experience in democracy and fair-minded teaching of German history has led to a «lack of basic democratic conviction» and «an extreme-right attitude» that Tiefensee said had allowed the far-right parties to take root.
Germany's far-right National Democratic Party, or NPD, holds seats in the state legislatures of both Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel has her constituency.

A recent spike in far-right attacks in these and other former eastern states has been blamed on the NPD and led to calls for a revival of efforts to ban the party, calls that failed four years ago.
Tiefensee urged citizens to show more civil courage in the face of extremists and called for increased efforts at the municipal level to fight the rise of the far-right.
«We need to strengthen the people on the ground,» the minister said.