German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the interior ministers of Germany‘s 16 federal states said on Tuesday that they want to toughen up laws to protect politicians and election helpers from politically motivated violence.

The interior ministers convened a special video conference to discuss the issue after Social Democrat (SPD) lawmaker Matthias Ecke, the party’s leading candidate for the eastern state of Saxony in the upcoming European elections, was attacked while hanging out election posters in Dresden on Friday night.

Authorities in Saxony said at least one of the four alleged teenage attackers belonged to the far-right scene, while police said the same group had earlier assaulted and injured a Green Party election helper nearby.

At the conference on Tuesday, the interior ministers backed parliamentary initiatives from the states of Saxony and Bavaria to push for tougher punishments for bodily harm and assault.