CDU on the economy

The CDU wants to create a "Hessenfonds" (Hesse fund) to support new ideas across all industries. It also wants tax relief for newly founded businesses and more help for small and midsize firms going digital.

The CDU wants to set up a new fund. A fund is a pot of money. It will help companies with new ideas. New businesses should pay less tax. Small and midsize firms get more help with going digital.

The fund is meant to help companies adapt to changing conditions and develop new technologies, products and business models. The CDU wants tax relief for newly founded businesses so that successful firms can grow. For small and midsize firms, the "Digi-Check" is to be expanded and the "Digi-Zuschuss" grant raised. The party also wants to establish the "Hessischer Zukunftsrat Wirtschaft" as an independent body advising the state government.

The CDU wants to set up a commercial court in Frankfurt that hears business disputes in English. In addition, a new "Made in Hessen" concept is meant to raise the state's profile abroad.

The CDU wants a special court in Frankfurt. Companies can settle their disputes there in English. The CDU also wants to promote Hesse more abroad. This should bring workers and companies to Hesse.

At the commercial court, specialized panels of judges would decide business and commercial law cases in English. With "Made in Hessen," the CDU wants to attract skilled workers, company relocations and foreign investment, also using well-known business figures as ambassadors. A showcase for the state is planned at Frankfurt Airport, along with a virtual version. For invitations to sponsored events, a threshold is to be agreed with organizers, business, the judiciary and tax authorities below which they count as unproblematic.

The CDU wants to keep and expand key industries in the state, including carmaking, pharmaceuticals, mechanical engineering, heavy industry and aerospace. For the party, the car is part of mobility.

The CDU wants to strengthen key industries in Hesse. These include carmakers and drug companies. Machine builders and heavy industry should stay too. The space sector in Darmstadt should grow.

For the auto sector, technologies such as autonomous driving, hybrid, drive and battery technology and lightweight construction are to be strengthened; the CDU wants to continue the strategy dialogue with the industry and include suppliers. For pharma and health care industries, conditions are to be improved, research sites linked, and a higher federal share in IPCEI Health projects sought. For heavy industry, which the platform says suffers most from high energy prices, the party wants to work with the sector, also at the federal level, on solutions for the shift to climate-neutral production. The ESOC space operations center in Darmstadt is to become a central European site, including a center to protect space infrastructure from cyberattacks.

The CDU wants to strengthen city centers and retail with funding programs. Stores without staff are to be allowed to open on Sundays, and four Sunday openings without a special occasion are to be examined.

The CDU wants lively city centers. Funding for this should continue. Stores without staff should be allowed to open on Sundays. This should help rural areas most of all. The CDU will also look at four open Sundays a year.

To let fully automated stores open on Sundays, Hesse's store opening law is to be changed; this is meant to improve supply in rural areas in particular. The CDU wants to continue and expand programs such as "Zukunft Innenstadt," "Lebendige Zentren" and "Ab in die Mitte!" as well as the "Bündnis für die Innenstadt" alliance. Energy funding programs are to be opened to retailers as well. In model regions of different sizes, overall concepts linking retail, restaurants, urban planning and climate protection are to be tested.

The CDU wants to speed up and better support business start-ups. Founders should be able to set up within two days; this comes with more financing options and a continued start-up initiative.

The CDU wants to make starting a company easier. It should take just 48 hours. There should be more loans for founders. Women who start companies get their own funding program. Students should learn more about business.

Microloans, capital for small firms, innovation loans and growth financing are to be expanded, and conditions for venture capital improved. The 2018 start-up initiative and hubs such as StartHub Hessen and TechQuartier will stay and grow, joined by a start-up commissioner, a central database, an annual international festival and a funding program for women founders. In schools, the CDU plans an elective subject in economics, a state prize for student-run companies and founder ambassadors. Business takeovers are to be made easier through transitional grandfathering of existing permits, and start-up advice is to be funded even after business registration.

The CDU wants a funding program that helps mainly small and medium-sized companies become more attractive employers. It adds skills camps for teenagers, the skilled-labor alliance and more employee ownership in companies.

The CDU wants to help small and medium-sized firms. The firms should become more attractive for workers. One example is housing for employees. Teenagers should get to know jobs in camps. Workers should be able to buy shares in their own firm.

As examples for the funding program, the text names company housing and a commuter transport service run jointly by several firms. The skills camps for young people aged 14 and up, so far focused on health and care, are to be extended to other occupations. The "Bündnis Fachkräftesicherung Hessen" alliance of business, unions, churches and municipalities will continue. The CDU wants to back initiatives for employee share ownership and push for more Erasmus funding so that young people from the EU come for internships and then start training in Hesse.

The CDU wants to boost start-ups from universities and science with the ZusePower initiative, which gives every university ten euros per student. An innovation and founders' fund is to provide venture capital as well.

The CDU wants more students to start companies. Every university gets 10 euros per student for this. A new fund should give money to founders. In return the fund can get shares in the company. Founders should be better connected.

The ZusePower money is meant, for example, to create desks in co-working spaces and build contacts with investors. The fund is to give founders capital, for instance in exchange for company shares; existing funds such as the CARMA-Fund will be supported. University start-ups are to get access to affordable patent attorneys so that ideas from Hesse stay in the state. Plans include regional founder clusters, dedicated centers for young companies that have already grown ("Grown-Ups") and continuing the "Houses of" strategy. Applied research and transfer to business are to receive more support.

The CDU wants to create better economic conditions for the health and pharmaceutical industry in Hesse. In the program's view, medicine shortages can only be avoided with a strong industry and domestic production.

The CDU wants to strengthen drug companies in Hesse. They should get better conditions. Medicines should also be made here at home. This is how the CDU wants to prevent shortages of medicines.

In EU and federal discussions on making Europe more independent in medicines, the CDU wants to promote Hesse in particular as a location. The program describes the health sector, including medical technology, pharmaceutical companies, health trades, retail and research, as a strong economic factor. The pharma and health cluster and medical research are to receive lasting support.

The CDU wants to secure raw material deposits in Hessen for the long term, including fossil fuels. It rejects a special levy on extracting gravel, sand, and rock as well as a general water charge, arguing these would burden businesses and consumers.

Hessen has raw materials in the ground. The CDU wants to secure them for later. This includes natural gas and other fossil fuels. The CDU does not want a new charge on gravel, sand, or water. It says this would make things more expensive.

Deposits that could be mined are to be kept free of competing uses. If the federal government again allows the extraction of unconventional natural gas, the CDU wants to go along with it in Hessen under high environmental standards. The resource protection strategy and the "PIUS" and "HIEM" programs for businesses are to continue. Together with business and science, a Hessian raw materials initiative is planned, focused mainly on reuse, recycling, and secure supply chains.

The CDU wants to strengthen tourism as an economic factor and above all keep inns and hotels in rural areas open. This includes funding programs, a family-friendliness label, further development of garden shows, and time-limited trials of new working-time models.

The CDU wants to strengthen tourism in Hesse. Country inns should not have to close. There should be funding for this. Hotels and restaurants should be allowed to try out new working hours. There should be a label for family-friendly businesses.

Funding is also to go to new approaches for recruiting skilled workers and for business succession. Cooperation among the state, municipalities and tourism regions in the three-level model is to be deepened, and the “Runder Tisch Tourismus” (tourism round table) is to continue regularly. State-owned tourist attractions are to be preserved and renewed, and the federal garden show in the Middle Rhine Valley will be supported. For state garden shows, the CDU wants to examine whether they can take place more often and in smaller municipalities, following Bavaria's example. Municipalities are to remain able to levy a tourism contribution. New working-time models in hotels and restaurants are to be tested without lowering health and safety standards.

The CDU wants to overhaul planning and permitting law at all levels so that infrastructure and investment projects are built faster. Applications are to count as approved if the authority does not respond within a deadline. Procedures are to be fully digital.

The CDU wants faster permits for building projects. It wants to change the planning rules. If an office does not answer in time, the request counts as approved. The process should be digital.

The program cites the fast approval of the vaccine plant in Marburg as a model that should become the norm. The speed-up is to apply to all transport, construction and infrastructure projects, not just certain types. The CDU offers the federal government a "Tempo-Pakt" (speed pact) for this. It sees the biggest potential in the planning stage itself and the standards that apply there, less in the courts. State-owned operations such as Hessen Mobil are also to be reviewed for faster procedures; projects with final legal approval are to be carried out promptly and not reopened.

The CDU wants noticeably fewer regulations at the end of the legislative term than at its start. To that end it is considering the "one in, two out" principle and pilot projects for "bureaucracy-free zones." Small and mid-sized businesses and the skilled trades are to help draw up a list of measures.

The CDU wants fewer rules in Hessen. For each new rule, two old ones should go if possible. The CDU is looking at test areas with very little red tape. Businesses and tradespeople should make suggestions.

"One in, two out" means that two existing rules are dropped for every new one; the CDU wants to examine how close the state can get to this principle. In the pilot zones under review, experimental clauses, faster procedures and administrative discretion are to be used together. On cutting red tape and speeding up permits, the party relies on practitioners from mid-sized firms and the skilled trades. A list of workable steps is to be developed with them.

The CDU wants to bring the European anti-money-laundering authority AMLA to Frankfurt and make Hesse an international leader in sustainable finance. Universities and training institutions for the finance sector are to be strengthened as well.

Frankfurt is an important place for banks and the stock exchange. The CDU wants a new EU agency against money laundering to come to Frankfurt. Hesse should also lead in sustainable investing. Training for finance jobs should get better.

AMLA would fight money laundering and terrorist financing from Frankfurt; the platform sees special locational advantages there. As evidence of Hesse's pioneering role in sustainable finance, it cites the International Sustainability Standards Board, which has been based in Frankfurt since late 2021. Institutions such as the House of Finance, the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and the European Banking Institute are to receive further support. The aim is to compete for skilled professionals in the finance industry.

The CDU wants European banking regulation to take savings banks and cooperative banks into account rather than being built around large banks. It is skeptical of a ban on commissions in investment advice and wants investors to keep the choice between commission-based and fee-based advice.

The EU makes rules for banks. The CDU says these rules often fit only big banks. Small banks and savings banks should get rules that fit them. Advisers should still be allowed to earn commissions. A commission is money paid for arranging a contract.

According to the platform, the growing harmonization of EU rules overburdens small, regionally focused institutions. The CDU intends to engage with the EU's retail investment strategy while preserving the German advice model; fee-based advice should supplement it, not replace it. For sustainable funds it calls for workable ESMA guidelines on fund names. Investment should remain possible in companies that are credibly on their way to becoming more sustainable.

The CDU wants to expand Hesse's foreign trade, achieve more free trade and attract international companies. At the same time it expects the federal government to protect key companies and infrastructure from investments by autocratic states.

The CDU wants more trade with other countries. It wants new trade deals, for example with the US. More foreign companies should come to Hesse. Important companies should be protected from the influence of dictatorships.

The federal government is to push for a new free trade agreement with the US and better trade terms with Latin America and the ASEAN region. An international technology drive with the chambers of commerce abroad is to support future industries and attract skilled workers. Hesse is to open more offices abroad, starting in London, to cushion the effects of Brexit on business. Citing Frankfurt Airport and the financial center, the CDU wants to court the European headquarters of international firms.