CDU: program for the 2022 Saarland state election

The CDU wants to defend the competitiveness of Saarland's industry at EU, federal and state level against regulation it considers hostile to industry. In its view, climate protection should come through technological innovation and fair competition, not by moving production abroad.

The CDU wants to protect industry in Saarland. It rejects rules that hurt industry. This is especially true for steel and cars. The CDU says new technology helps the climate more than factories abroad.

The CDU wants Saarland to remain a car-making state where the car of the future is built. To that end, the industry is to gradually reduce its dependence on the combustion engine, supported by a new mobility competence center at the university.

Cars should still be built in Saarland in the future. Companies should depend less on gasoline and diesel engines. The CDU wants to set up a new center at the university. It will do research on new car technology.

The CDU wants to bring more companies to Saarland and make attracting them a task for the state premier personally. To do so, industrial land is to be made available continuously, preferably on former industrial sites.

The CDU wants to bring new companies to Saarland. The state premier should take care of this himself. There should always be enough land for companies. Old industrial sites should be reused first.

The CDU wants to position Saarland as a location for a circular economy, especially in recycling vehicle batteries. A dedicated strategy is meant to attract new companies and strengthen existing ones.

The CDU wants more recycling in Saarland. Recycling means using raw materials again. This is especially true for old car batteries. A plan should bring new companies for this to the state.

The CDU wants to draw up a raw materials plan for Saarland so that local mineral resources can be extracted and processed in the state. In the platform's view, short transport routes benefit the environment.

Saarland has raw materials in the ground. The CDU wants to use them in the state itself. There should be a plan for this. The CDU says short routes are good for the environment.

The CDU wants to create a statewide advisory service for mid-sized and family-owned businesses. It is meant to help them adapt their business models to new technologies, energy efficiency and online markets.

The CDU wants to help small and mid-sized companies. There should be a new advice service all over the state. The first session is free. This should help companies deal with new technology and online retail.

The CDU wants to help downtown retailers catch up with online shopping and win customers back. A pilot project is to test local platforms with ordering from the local shop and pickup stations.

The CDU wants to help downtown shops. Customers should be able to order online from a local shop. They then pick up the goods, for example from a locker. The CDU wants to test this in a project.

The CDU wants to attract more young people to training and self-employment in the skilled trades and to keep the Meisterbonus (a bonus for master craftspeople). According to the platform, tradespeople are also needed for the energy transition.

The CDU wants to strengthen the skilled trades. More young people should train there. People who become master craftspeople still get a bonus from the state. Tradespeople should find it easier to work in the neighboring country.

The CDU wants a joint tourism strategy for all of Saarland that every county supports. The sector is to get help with digitalization and stand out through cycling, hiking, health and cultural tourism.

The CDU wants a tourism plan for all of Saarland. All counties should take part. The state should become known for cycling, hiking, health and culture. Buses and trains should fit tourist destinations better.

The CDU wants to fundamentally reorganize startup support in Saarland and make the state a location for technology-based startups. At the core are the "Saar Tech Cycle" concept with coaching and a well-funded state startup fund.

Few companies are founded in Saarland. The CDU wants to change that. Founders should get better advice. A new state fund should give young companies money. There should also be more spaces for young companies.

The CDU wants young companies to take a larger part in public contracts. A clause is meant to keep them from being shut out of tenders for lack of experience and references.

The state awards many contracts to companies. Young companies often do not get them. They lack years of experience. The CDU wants to change the rules. Young companies should then get a chance too.

The CDU wants to bring founders together with companies and investors and raise the Saarland's profile as a place to start a business. It plans regular events, a state prize, and cooperation with startup centers in Luxembourg and Paris.

The CDU wants to help people who start a company. They should meet investors and companies more easily. There will be a prize for good ideas. This should make the Saarland better known as a place for new companies.

The CDU wants to turn more university knowledge into economic value, especially in the health sector. To that end, a startup center is to be set up at the university hospital in Homburg.

The CDU wants a center for new companies at the university hospital in Homburg. Research there should lead to new businesses. The focus is on medicine and health. The center helps with planning a company.

The CDU wants to manage structural change through more public investment, stronger innovation funding, and better depreciation rules. Industrial policy is to support the shift to a climate-neutral and circular economy.

The CDU wants more money to go into infrastructure and new technology. Companies should be able to deduct spending on new technology from taxes faster. The state should support new ideas in companies more. This should make the economy climate-friendly.

The CDU wants to market the Saarland more assertively abroad as a business and research location and fund this marketing on a lasting basis. Business promotion, currently spread across many bodies, is to be better coordinated.

The CDU wants to advertise the Saarland more in other countries. There should be lasting money for this. Many offices in the state support companies. These offices should work together more closely.

The CDU wants better tax incentives for research and development in companies. It sees the low private research rate as a locational disadvantage for Saarland.

Companies in Saarland do less research than companies in other states. The CDU wants to change that. Companies should pay less tax when they do research. This should bring new ideas and products.

The CDU wants to make Saarland a European hub for artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. To that end, research institutions such as CISPA and DFKI are to grow and get additional land and buildings.

The CDU wants Saarland to be strong in artificial intelligence and internet security. Research institutes should grow. They get new buildings. New companies should come out of this too.

The CDU wants to expand business-oriented research institutes, bring new top-tier institutions to Saarland and link them closely with companies. University spin-offs are to be allowed to market the results they obtained there in exchange for compensation.

The CDU wants to bring more research institutes to Saarland. They should work closely with companies. People who invent something at a university should find it easier to start a company. There should be clear rules for this.

The CDU wants to significantly increase cooperation between research and industry, creating a central point of contact and additional capacity for industrial research. New technological developments are to be spotted and used more quickly.

Research and industry should work together more. The CDU wants to set up one central office for this. Companies can turn to it. The state should spot and use new technology faster.

The CDU wants to strengthen Saarbrücken as a location for research, business and culture and to decide quickly on major investments. These include more space at the university campus, fiber-optic connections for everyone, a cultural mile and an overall urban development concept.

The CDU wants to strengthen Saarbrücken. Decisions on big investments should come quickly. The university should get more space for new companies. All homes and companies should get fast fiber-optic internet.

The CDU wants to put support for the video game industry in the Saarland on a permanent footing and give it more money as far as the budget allows. The state is also to become a training location for games. The platform sees great potential for creativity, innovation and growth in the industry.

The CDU wants to support companies that make video games. The support should become permanent and get more money. People should also be able to train for this work in the Saarland. A new professorship is planned for that.

The CDU wants to cut legal and administrative obstacles to living, working and doing business across borders. To do so, it backs a European Business Code, a fresh attempt at the European Cross Border Mechanism and more advice for cross-border commuters.

Many people and companies work across the border. There are still many obstacles. The CDU wants to remove these obstacles. It wants one shared business law code for Europe. Cross-border commuters should get more advice.

In light of demographic change, the CDU wants to make better use of the existing workforce potential and above all bring more women into work. Barriers are to be removed, childcare improved, and household services given more support.

The CDU wants more women to be able to work. Daycare should get better. Working hours and workplaces should be more flexible. There is a program for returning to work after family time. The CDU wants to support household help more.

The CDU commits to fair wages, jobs covered by collective agreements, and permanent employment with social insurance as the standard. Temp work should serve only as an entry route and to cover peaks; the long-term unemployed are to keep receiving state programs.

The CDU wants fair pay and steady jobs. People should be able to live on their wages. Temp work should stay the exception. The state will keep running programs for people who have been out of work for a long time.

The CDU wants to make the Saarland a model region for flexible working hours and attractive employers in order to counter the labor shortage. In the state civil service, fixed-term contracts without an objective reason are to end.

The CDU wants companies in the Saarland to be good employers. Working hours should be more flexible. Good companies get a seal. The state should stop giving fixed-term contracts without a reason.

The CDU wants to take stock of loneliness in Saarland and derive a comprehensive strategy from it. The aim is to address causes preventively and show people living alone possible solutions.

Many people feel lonely. This affects young and old. The CDU first wants to study how big the problem is in Saarland. Then it wants to make a plan against it. There should also be a special center for this topic.

The CDU wants to set up a coordination office for volunteering in the social sector and expand funding programs for it. The platform describes volunteering as the backbone of social cohesion.

Many people help others for free. This is called volunteering. The CDU wants a new office that coordinates this help in the social field. There should also be more funding.

The CDU wants many more subsidized jobs in inclusive companies and wants to promote employment in regular businesses. Sheltered workshops and independent day support centers are also to be expanded.

People with disabilities should find work more easily. The CDU wants more supported jobs in companies. It also wants to expand workshops and day support centers. People there should be able to build up a pension too.

The CDU wants to develop support and funding programs so that older people can live independently in their own homes for a long time. Virtual multigenerational houses are to be set up across the state to bring young and old together online.

Older people should be able to live at home for a long time. The CDU wants to create new support for this. There should be online meeting places for young and old. People also learn there how to use digital media.

The CDU wants a retirement system that is fair to both women and men. It should strengthen women's economic independence and fit the way women's working lives typically unfold.

Many women get a small pension when they are old. The CDU wants to change that. Pensions should fit women's lives better. Women should be able to support themselves.

The CDU wants to free mid-sized businesses from red tape and lower their tax and contribution burden. Through the Bundesrat it wants to reverse the early due date for social insurance contributions and expand the tax loss carryback.

The CDU wants to ease the load on companies. They should pay less in taxes and charges. There should also be less paperwork. Companies should be allowed to pay social contributions later. That leaves them more money.

The CDU wants to stick to the debt brake while investing in public infrastructure. All state spending is to be reviewed continuously for effectiveness and cut or eliminated where needed.

The debt brake limits new government debt. The CDU wants to keep this rule. The state should still invest in roads and buildings. The CDU wants to check all state spending again and again. It wants to cut or end spending that has little effect.

The CDU wants to raise public investment with a special infrastructure program and set up a "Saarlandfonds" (Saarland fund). The fund is meant to boost investment without breaching the debt brake and to serve as an investment option for savers and investors.

The CDU wants to put more money into buildings, administration and transport. It plans a special program for this. There should also be a Saarland fund. Savers and investors can put money into this fund. The debt brake should still apply.

The CDU calls for scrapping the solidarity surcharge entirely. It considers the surcharge no longer justifiable more than 30 years after reunification and given higher tax revenues.

The "Soli" is an extra charge on top of income tax. Since 2021 most people no longer pay it. The CDU wants to end it for everyone. It says the charge no longer fits the times.

The CDU supports uniform nationwide exemption thresholds for the Grunderwerbsteuer (real estate transfer tax). This is meant to make buying a home easier, especially for young families, with a federal program covering the cost.

People who buy a house or apartment pay a tax. The CDU wants part of the purchase to be tax-free. This should help young families most of all. The rule should be the same across Germany. The federal government should pay for it.

The CDU wants Saarland's Gewerbesteuer (local business tax) rates not to exceed the national average in the long run. It considers a state-backed reduction program feasible only if the federal government takes part through a municipal debt relief strategy.

Companies pay a business tax to their town. Each town sets the rate itself. The CDU wants this tax to go down in Saarland. It should not be higher than the German average. But the state needs help from the federal government for this.

The CDU wants Saarland's municipal fiscal equalization system reassessed soon and reviewed regularly so that money is distributed according to actual need. It calls on the federal government to take over the legacy debts of financially weak municipalities.

Many towns in Saarland have little money. The CDU wants to check how money is shared between the state and the towns. The sharing should be fair. The federal government should take over old debts of poor towns.

The CDU wants to ease the burden of energy prices on households and businesses. It calls for electricity tax at the EU minimum, a faster end to the EEG surcharge (renewable energy levy), a temporary cut in fuel tax and a higher commuter allowance.

Energy has become expensive. The CDU wants to cut taxes on energy. The tax on electricity should be as low as possible. The tax on gasoline and diesel should also go down for a while. Commuters should be able to deduct more from their taxes.

The CDU wants to deepen relations with Luxembourg through a dedicated strategy. It will lobby the federal government for a revised double taxation agreement allowing 52 home office days a year and for cross-border workers to count more when tax revenue is distributed to municipalities.

Many people from Saarland work in Luxembourg. The CDU wants closer cooperation with Luxembourg. Commuters should be allowed to work from home 52 days a year. Luxembourg and Germany should share the taxes for those days. Towns with many commuters should not lose out on tax money.

The CDU wants to meet land needs for housing, business, and infrastructure primarily within existing built-up areas, but still sees moderate designation of new land as necessary. Municipalities are to get clear guidelines in the state development plan and access to special loans.

The CDU wants to use free land inside towns first. If that is not enough, new land at the edge of towns should be possible. This should harm nature as little as possible. Towns should be able to get special loans for this.

The CDU wants to revise the state building code and digitalize and simplify building procedures. Construction processes are to be managed with digital building models (BIM), and innovative building methods are to be supported.

The CDU wants to rewrite the building rules in the Saarland. Applications should become digital and simpler. Building projects should be planned with digital models. The CDU wants to support new building methods like 3D printing.

The CDU wants to align the state development plan with sustainability, climate and environmental protection, social and economic concerns, and the needs of municipalities. New building areas should be ecological where possible, and the plan is to be passed by the state parliament as a law.

A plan sets out how the state uses its land. The CDU wants to change this plan. It should consider the environment, climate, economy, and towns. Ecological model villages are to be built. The state parliament should pass the plan as a law.

The CDU wants owning a home to stay affordable, especially for young people and families. It wants to expand funding programs for buying and renovating, achieve exemption thresholds in the real estate transfer tax, and allow new building areas where demand is high.

The CDU wants young families to be able to afford their own house. There should be more support for this. Part of the purchase price should be tax-free. Where many people want to build, there should be new building areas.

The CDU wants to create affordable housing for all income groups, including people with middle incomes. The state-owned housing company WOGE is to build more, state land is to be made available, and public land is to be awarded by concept rather than price.

The CDU wants more low-cost apartments. People with middle incomes should benefit too. The state's housing company should build more. The state will check which of its own plots can be used for housing.

The CDU wants to make town centers in Saarland more attractive and keep small and mid-sized retailers competitive. A strengthened funding guide in the state building ministry is meant to help make better use of EU and federal funding.

The CDU wants to make town centers in Saarland nicer. Small shops should be able to stay there. The building ministry has a funding guide. This is an adviser for public grants. This adviser should get more tasks.

The CDU wants to strengthen sustainable building in the state administration and reward it with higher grants in funding programs. The state is also to emphasize design and quality in its own building projects and give more support to building culture.

The CDU wants building in Saarland to be more eco-friendly. Those who build this way and get it certified should receive more grant money. The state should care about good design in its own buildings. There should be more design contests for this. The Stiftung Baukultur Saar foundation should get more money.

The CDU wants to work with the city of Saarbrücken on a plan for housing construction and renovation. The aim is housing that meets demand, is sustainable and remains affordable for everyone.

Living in Saarbrücken has become expensive. The CDU wants to make a plan with the city. The plan should cover building and renovating homes. In the end, everyone should be able to afford a home.

The CDU wants many more barrier-free and disability-friendly homes and wants to write this goal into law. Support and care services for people with disabilities and people needing care are to become more flexible and personal.

There should be many more homes without barriers. This also applies to older people. The CDU wants to put this into law. Help and care should fit each person better.

The CDU wants to do away with parental fees for daycare altogether, after, by its own account, already initiating their halving by 2022. Quality and reliability of care, especially at the start and end of the day, are also to be priorities.

Parents pay money for daycare today. The CDU wants daycare to cost nothing. Care should also be good and reliable. That includes early mornings and late afternoons.

The CDU wants to reduce group sizes in nurseries and kindergartens and back this up with substitution rules and a reserve pool of educators. Together with municipalities and providers, a long-term strategy for training and recruiting staff is to be drawn up.

Daycare groups should have fewer children. There should be a reserve of educators for when someone is absent. Other experts should also help in daycare. Every daycare center should have one French-speaking staff member.

The CDU wants to extend the partnership months in Elterngeld (parental allowance) and give preference to companies that offer flexible hours and remote work. An expanded right to return to full-time work is meant to ease re-entry and significantly raise women's employment rate in Saarland.

Parents should be able to combine family and work more easily. The CDU wants couples to get parental allowance together for longer. Companies with flexible hours and remote work should get advantages. People working part-time should be able to return to full-time more easily.

The CDU wants to build a competence center for child protection in health care and offer child protection clinics as widely as possible. Routine child check-ups are to become more binding beyond the age of six as well.

Children should be better protected from violence and neglect. The CDU wants to build an expert center for child protection. There should be special clinics for children everywhere. Health check-ups should be more of a duty for older children too.

The CDU wants to review and simplify all subsidy programs for families so that more families can buy a home. Funding for family vacations for low-income households is to be increased, and networked services for families are to grow.

Families should be able to buy their own home more easily. The CDU wants to make the support for this simpler. A website should show all the programs. Families with little money should get more help for vacations.

The CDU wants to raise funding for youth work, vacation camps and out-of-school programs over the long term and make it permanent. The number of funded positions for youth education officers is also to keep rising.

The CDU wants to give more money to youth work. The money should keep coming over time. There should be low-cost vacation camps for children and teens. Clubs should get more paid experts for youth education.

The CDU advocates a family working time model in which saved-up working time can be used for family or caregiving without real financial loss. Pilot projects are also meant to make it easier for people needing care to live with the families who look after them.

Parents and family caregivers should have more time for family. They should be able to use saved-up working time for this. They should lose hardly any money. The CDU also wants to fund new kinds of help for care at home.

The CDU wants Saarland's universities and research institutes to keep internationalizing and to attract more students from abroad. It justifies this with the importance for research, teaching and the export-oriented economy.

Universities in Saarland should become even more international. More young people from other countries should study there. The CDU says this helps research and the economy.

The CDU wants to expand the university's Europe focus and the Franco-German institute at htw saar. Saarland's universities are to remain national leaders in Franco-German and trinational degree programs.

Universities in Saarland should teach a lot about Europe and France. The CDU wants to build on this strength. There should still be many degree programs with France.

The CDU stands by university autonomy and wants to keep steering through target and performance agreements. The broad range of disciplines, including the humanities, is to be preserved.

Universities should keep deciding for themselves. The state agrees on goals with them. All subjects should stay. This includes subjects like history or languages.

The CDU wants to set up a joint doctoral college of Saarland University and htw saar with its own right to award doctorates. Research-active professors from the university of applied sciences would supervise dissertations there on equal terms.

The CDU wants a new institution for doctoral degrees. The university and the applied sciences school htw saar run it together. Professors from htw saar may also supervise doctoral work there.

Citing a teacher shortage, the CDU wants more university places for primary school teaching and a new degree program at the university for teaching at special-needs schools. Digital content is to get more weight in all teacher training programs.

Saarland lacks teachers at primary schools and special-needs schools. So the CDU wants more study places. There should be a new degree for special-needs teachers. Future teachers should learn more about digital learning.

The CDU wants to expand digital infrastructure and digital teaching at universities while keeping them as in-person institutions. Students who were set back by the pandemic are to get special learning support.

Universities should get better digital technology. Students should still learn on campus. Students who had problems because of the pandemic should get help.

The CDU wants planned construction and renovation projects at the universities and the university hospital carried out quickly. Buildings are to be modern, accessible and sustainable; public transit access to the Saarbrücken campus is also to improve.

The CDU wants to renew university buildings quickly or build new ones. The biggest project is a neuroscience center in Homburg. The Saarbrücken campus should be easier to reach by bus and train.

The CDU wants to put the Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology (ZeMA) on a broader financial and thematic footing. Research on sensor intelligence is also to be brought together in a dedicated focus area.

ZeMA is a research center in Saarland. The CDU wants more partners to put money into it. The center should get more research jobs from local companies. Research on smart sensors should come together in one place.

The CDU wants to strengthen research on new active substances by expanding the Helmholtz institute HIPS and creating a drug research center at Saarland University. It pledges state co-financing for a second Excellence Cluster application by the university.

The CDU wants more research on new medicines. The research institute HIPS should grow. The university should get its own center for drug research. The state will add money if the university wins a big funding contest.

The CDU wants to develop an overarching education strategy to make Saarland an attractive place for education by 2030. A new staff unit is to analyze problems and develop solutions.

The CDU wants a plan for education in Saarland. By 2030, Saarland should be a good place to learn. A new office will study the problems. It will also come up with new ideas.

The CDU wants to make further training for daycare staff and teachers more flexible in time and place. The platform sees lifelong learning as a precondition for keeping pace with change in schools and the economy.

Daycare staff and teachers should find it easier to take training courses. Courses should be possible at different times and places. There should also be fitting courses for people at work. The CDU says people must keep learning all their lives.

The CDU wants to create a competence center for digital education at Saarland University that advises and trains teachers and helps with technical questions. Digitalization is to follow teaching concepts tailored to each target group.

The CDU wants to start a center for digital learning. It will be at Saarland University. The center advises teachers and offers courses. It also helps with questions about technology.

The CDU wants to give children, teenagers and young adults targeted support in catching up on learning gaps caused by the pandemic. This is to be based on an ongoing assessment of the pandemic's effects.

Because of Covid, many children learned less. The CDU wants to help them catch up. There will be special learning offers for this. There will also be voluntary offers during school vacations.

The CDU wants to keep Gymnasium (academic high school), Gemeinschaftsschule (comprehensive school) and vocational schools as three pillars and distinguish their profiles more clearly. Instead of fundamental disputes over pedagogy, it calls for peace on school structure and updated curricula.

Saarland has academic high schools, comprehensive schools and vocational schools. The CDU wants to keep all three. Each type of school should have its own clear goal. There should be no big fight over the school system.

The CDU wants access to the Gymnasium (academic high school) to depend once again on a binding recommendation from the elementary school. According to the party, this is meant to prevent lotteries for places and wrong school choices.

After elementary school, parents pick a school for their child. The CDU wants the elementary school to decide again who may attend the academic high school. That way children should not end up at the wrong school. Drawing lots for places should also stop.

The CDU wants to add a year of learning at the Gymnasium (academic high school), so that the Abitur diploma is earned there after nine years, as at comprehensive schools. Weekly lesson hours are also to rise in order to teach more computer science, among other things.

At academic high schools, the path to the final diploma takes eight years today. The CDU wants one more year. Then it takes nine years, as at comprehensive schools. Students should have more time to learn.

The CDU wants to create positions for administrative assistants at schools who take organizational and bureaucratic work off teachers' hands. This is meant to let teachers focus more on teaching.

Teachers have a lot of office work. The CDU wants to hire extra staff at schools for this. These people take care of organizing and paperwork. Then teachers have more time for lessons.

The CDU wants to review the system of performance assessment and ensure clear, comprehensible standards for grading. Especially gifted children are to receive more support starting in elementary school.

The CDU wants clear rules for school grades. Everyone should understand how a grade comes about. Comparison tests within a grade level should stay. Very gifted children should get more support.

The CDU wants to expand all-day care and make the voluntary all-day school more attractive. Parents are to keep their freedom to choose. The "Flexible All-Day" model is to be extended to more schools.

The CDU wants more afternoon care at schools. Parents should decide which kind of care they want. A flexible model should come to more schools. Teachers should also help in the afternoon.

The CDU wants to make Saarland multilingual, with German, French and English. The European School in Saarbrücken is to get a permanent site quickly. The Schengen-Lyzeum in Perl is also to become a European School.

The CDU wants people in Saarland to know three languages. These are German, French and English. A European School in Saarbrücken should be built quickly. The school in Perl should also become a European School.

The CDU wants to shift the focus from hardware to good digitally supported teaching. Curricula are to be revised, the DigitalPakt Schule (federal-state school digitalization fund) expanded, and teachers trained continuously.

Schools already get digital devices. The CDU wants lessons with them to be good too. For this, the school plans should be rewritten. Teachers should keep learning about this.

The CDU wants to strengthen the "Früh Deutsch lernen" (Learn German Early) program and keep the preparatory courses in the last year of kindergarten statewide. Language support in daycare centers is also to be expanded.

Some children do not speak German well before school starts. The CDU wants to help these children early. They learn German in small groups half a year before school. Daycare centers should also offer more language help.

The CDU wants to keep the choice between inclusive classes at regular schools and special-needs schools. Special-needs schools are to stay independent and be expanded or newly built where needed. School kindergartens are to return for children not yet ready for school.

Children with special needs can go to a regular school or a special school today. The CDU wants parents to keep this choice. Special schools should stay. New ones should be built if needed. Children who are not ready for school should get school kindergartens.

The CDU wants to develop new, interactive continuing-education programs and build a tool that matches workers' skills with companies' needs. This is meant to support the region's economic transformation.

The world of work is changing fast. The CDU wants better courses for working people. A program should show what workers can do and what companies need. Then everyone gets fitting courses.

The CDU wants to set up an institute for vocational education that pools responsibilities and removes duplicate structures. Vocational schools are to keep their full range of programs and get a push in digitalization.

The CDU wants a new institute for job training. All partners work together there. Vocational schools should stay and become more digital. More young people should become teachers at vocational schools.

The CDU wants to bring early-intervention centers and the offices for integration together in one system. It also wants more inclusive daycare centers so that children are cared for without interruptions.

Children who need extra support should get help early. The CDU wants to combine two kinds of help centers. Help should be simple and close to home. There should be more daycare centers for children with and without disabilities.

The CDU wants to thoroughly evaluate the current school inclusion regulation and then revise it. Special-needs schools are also to get reliable afternoon and vacation care.

There are rules for children learning together at school. The CDU wants to check these rules and then change them. Experts should find out early, in daycare, what help a child needs. Special-needs schools should offer care in the afternoon and during vacations.

The CDU wants to make French a required subject from first grade and promote multilingualism starting in daycare. Multilingual training and degree programs as well as international schools are to be strengthened so that people from Saarland can work and live anywhere in Europe.

All children should learn French from first grade. Children should already meet foreign languages in daycare. For this, the CDU wants to recruit childcare workers who are native French speakers. There should be more training and degree programs in several languages.

The CDU wants to launch an initiative for vocational training across the border. The training agreement between Saarland and Lorraine is to be developed further and extended to other partners in the Greater Region.

Young people should be able to do their job training in a neighboring country too. The CDU wants to do more for this. An agreement with Lorraine already exists. It should also cover other neighbors. Trainees should do internships abroad more often.

The CDU wants to give the Heimaufsicht (care home supervisory authority) more staff and turn it into a modern, digitally working agency. It is to advise care homes more and work in dialogue with them in order to secure the quality of care over the long term.

The Heimaufsicht checks care homes. The CDU wants to hire more staff there. The agency should work digitally. It should not only inspect homes but also advise them more.

The CDU wants to link outpatient and inpatient care more closely, redesign hospital planning and set up a medical care center in every municipality. It pledges 840 million euros in investment funding over 15 years. The platform presents this as a lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDU wants to reorganize care by doctors and hospitals. Every municipality should have a medical center. Practices and hospitals should work together digitally. The state should provide 840 million euros over 15 years.

The CDU wants to continue and increase funding for rural doctors and new practices, and create more university places in medicine and dentistry. The goal is at least one family doctor in every municipality and care close to home across the state.

Rural areas often lack doctors. The CDU wants to support doctors who open a practice there. There should also be more places to study medicine. Every municipality should have at least one family doctor.

The CDU wants to introduce medium-term planning of training facilities for non-academic health professions, based on a needs analysis. The reason given is new legal rules for these training programs, which place higher demands on schools, teachers and trainees.

Training for nursing and other health jobs has changed. The CDU wants to plan exactly how many training places the state needs. Further training should be included too. Intensive care nursing is especially important.

The CDU wants to centralize procurement and storage for Saarland's hospitals and expand a central warehouse for this purpose. In addition, the public health service is to get more staff and digital technology and be permanently linked with disaster response.

The CDU wants the state to be better prepared for crises like a pandemic. Hospitals should buy and store supplies together. There should be one large warehouse for this. Public health offices should get more staff and better technology.

The CDU wants to develop a strategy for digital patient care together with IT companies and research institutions based in Saarland. It considers a partial reassessment of data protection in health care necessary so that digital services are practical and user-friendly.

Doctors, hospitals and others should work together digitally. The CDU wants to make a plan for this. Companies and researchers from Saarland should help. Some data protection rules should be reviewed.

The CDU wants to improve conditions in long-term care for staff, people in need of care and their relatives, including through higher pay, flexible working hours and more responsibility for nurses. New job profiles, such as a dual assistant training in Heilerziehungspflege (care for people with disabilities), are meant to bring in more skilled workers.

More and more people need care. The CDU wants care workers to get more pay and better working hours. There should be new training programs. Relatives who care for someone at home should also get relief.

The CDU wants drug policy to keep focusing on education and prevention and does not want drug use to be played down. At the same time, counseling and treatment are to grow, a substitution center is to be set up, and a pilot project for testing drugs is to start in Saarbrücken.

The CDU wants to warn and inform people about drugs. It wants more counseling and treatment for people with addictions. A new center is to give substitute medication to people who are dependent. In Saarbrücken, people should be able to have drugs checked for special dangers.

The CDU wants to build shared health care structures with neighboring regions so that treatment is possible on both sides of the border. An interregional crisis and pandemic task force is to coordinate action in emergencies, and rescue services are to cooperate across the border.

Diseases do not stop at borders. So the CDU wants to work more closely with the neighbors. Sick people should be able to get treatment on both sides of the border. A shared crisis team should plan for emergencies and pandemics. Fire and rescue services should also help across the border.

The CDU considers needs-based immigration of international skilled workers necessary because, in its view, the regional labor market can no longer cover shortages in many sectors. The skilled worker agency DeFa, based in the Saarland, should therefore also serve other shortage occupations.

The Saarland lacks skilled workers in many jobs. So the CDU wants to bring skilled workers from abroad. An agency in the Saarland already helps with care jobs. It should help with other jobs too.

The CDU affirms the fundamental right to asylum but calls for clear rules on migration. Serious criminals and persons considered a security threat are to be deported consistently. For well-integrated people facing deportation, it calls for differentiated rules.

The CDU says: The right to asylum stays. But immigration needs clear rules. Serious criminals and dangerous persons should have to leave the country. For well-integrated people, there should be other solutions.

The CDU wants to evaluate the state's migration program and improve administrative procedures together with the organizations that do integration work. It combines a right to participation and integration services with expectations of immigrants.

The CDU sees immigration as a gain for the state. One reason is the lack of skilled workers. Immigrants should have equal chances. But they should also respect the rules of democracy. The CDU wants to review the state's migration program.

The CDU wants to recruit more skilled workers from abroad for medicine and nursing and expand integration services for them. A new funding program called "Kommunikation und Sprachverstehen" (communication and language comprehension) is meant to reduce language barriers.

Saarland lacks doctors and care workers. The CDU wants to bring in more skilled people from other countries. They should get help settling in. A new program should help them learn German.

The CDU wants to keep borders within Europe open and ties this to effective protection of the EU's external borders. It sides with the countries on the external borders and favors joint European solutions in migration policy.

The CDU wants open borders between countries in Europe. For that, the borders at the edge of the EU should be well protected. The CDU wants to help the countries at the edge of the EU. People at the border should be treated with dignity. Europe should solve migration questions together.

The Saarland CDU supports adding protection against discrimination based on sexual identity to the Grundgesetz (Basic Law, Germany's constitution). It wants to evaluate, revise and continue the state action plan against homophobia and transphobia.

The CDU says no one should be treated worse because of their sexual identity. Saarland's state constitution already says this. The CDU wants the national constitution to say it too. The state's plan against hostility should be checked and updated.

The CDU wants to create a specialist office for accessibility at the state's social affairs ministry. It is to advise people affected and those who implement accessibility, and coordinate the work, so that people with disabilities can take part in daily life on equal terms.

Many people in Saarland have a disability. They should be able to take part everywhere. For this, barriers must go, for example in buildings, buses and online. The CDU wants a new office that gives advice on this.

The CDU wants to promote voluntary, unpaid blood donation and supports ending exclusions or deferrals based on a person's sexual or gender identity. Only individual risk behavior is to count. The platform justifies this with the growing shortage of blood supplies.

There are too few blood donations. Until now, some people could not donate because of their sexual identity. The CDU wants to change that. Only a person's own risky behavior should matter.

The CDU calls for an independent commissioner for equal participation at the level of the state government. She is to work with women's organizations, advise women's representatives and encourage companies to advance equality. The state equality law is to be reviewed and adjusted.

The CDU wants a new state commissioner for equality. She should be independent. She should advise women's groups, public agencies and companies. The state's equality law should also be reviewed.

The CDU wants to create dedicated education and training programs for girls and women in the digital field and give female founders more targeted support. Women are to have equal access to venture capital, since significantly more men than women currently start businesses.

Few women work in the digital sector. Most new companies are started by men. The CDU wants to change that. There should be special courses for girls and women. Women who start a business should get more advice and money.

The CDU wants women and men to hold leadership positions on equal terms in politics, public administration, business and society. For the state's committees and supervisory boards, it calls for binding targets that lead toward parity.

Women should be leaders as often as men. The CDU wants this in politics, public agencies and companies. State boards should have fixed targets for the share of women. In the end, half of the seats should go to women.

The CDU wants to examine Saarland's high energy costs using an international comparison. It then plans to discuss with the energy industry a concept for competitive energy prices at the industrial location.

Electricity is very expensive in Saarland. That is a problem for industry. The CDU wants to compare costs with other countries. Then it wants to talk with energy companies about better prices.

The CDU backs steel made with climate-neutral hydrogen and calls for public investment support from the federal government and the EU. For a transition period it is also open to hydrogen made from natural gas.

The CDU wants steel that does not harm the climate. This needs hydrogen. The state should support the change with money. For a while, the hydrogen may also come from natural gas.

The CDU wants a major expansion of renewable energy, power grids and storage, along with faster permitting. Sustainability is to become the central yardstick for state government decisions. During the expansion, dialogue with citizens, municipalities and conservation groups is to be sought.

The CDU wants more power from wind and sun. Power grids and storage should grow too. Permits should come faster. The government should consider sustainability in all decisions.

The CDU wants a secure and affordable energy supply and intends to examine all methods of energy generation without ruling any out in advance. Alongside wind and solar, geothermal energy and mine gas are to be assessed in feasibility studies because, according to the platform, industry and baseload demand need reliable sources.

The CDU wants power and heat to be safe and affordable. It wants to look at all kinds of energy. It wants a study on heat from the ground. That heat is there day and night. Gas from old mines should also be studied.

The CDU wants to draft a climate protection law for Saarland and submit it to the state parliament. It is meant to make climate requirements binding in several state regulations because, according to the platform, climate action needs a legal basis at state level.

The CDU wants a climate law for Saarland. The state parliament should vote on it. The law should set firm rules for protecting the climate. These rules would apply to building and to what the state buys, for example.

The CDU wants to establish a state energy agency to advise private individuals, municipalities and businesses. The platform sees greater energy efficiency, especially in buildings, as key to climate neutrality.

The CDU wants to start an energy agency for Saarland. The agency gives advice to people, towns and companies. It shows how to save energy. It also explains what funding is available.

The CDU wants a state "Klima-Bonus-Programm" (climate bonus program) to subsidize environmentally friendly heating systems and solar installations on homes. It is meant to supplement federal funding, raise the renovation rate and, in the platform's words, turn Saarland into a solar state.

The CDU wants to start a state funding program. It is called the climate bonus program. People who install a green heating system get extra money. There is also money for solar panels on the roof. This should get more people to modernize their homes.

The CDU wants to expand solar energy above all, and wind power where this is possible without conflict and with little environmental impact. Residents are to be informed, involved and given a financial share, and a state-owned company is to generate energy itself on public properties.

The CDU wants more power from the sun. Wind turbines should only go where they cause no trouble. Local people should have a say. They should also get money from the power. The state should make power itself.

The CDU wants to do more to revive contaminated industrial brownfields so they become commercial sites or residential areas. It plans to push for a federal funding program and create an advisory body for municipalities.

The Saarland has many old industrial sites with polluted soil. The CDU wants to clean these sites and use them again. The federal government should pay for this. A new office will advise the towns.

The CDU wants to keep negotiating with the federal government to reduce the burden on residents from the noise of military training flights over Saarland. It stands by the existing time restrictions on military aircraft.

Military planes practice over Saarland. This makes a lot of noise. The CDU wants to talk to the federal government about it. There should be less noise. Flights should stay limited in the evening and on holidays.

The CDU wants an open dialogue between those who use nature and those who protect it. It seeks a fair balance among agriculture, hunting, forest ownership and conservation groups, invoking the Christian idea of creation.

Some people use nature, others want to protect it. The CDU wants both sides to talk to each other. Farmers, hunters, forest owners and conservationists should be treated fairly.

The CDU wants to build up the UNESCO Bliesgau biosphere reserve as a showcase region. Costs for the participating municipalities are to be capped so that, in the platform's view, the partnership model is not put at risk.

The Bliesgau is a protected area recognized by UNESCO. The CDU wants to strengthen this area. The towns there should not have to pay more and more. There should also be an information center.

The CDU wants to continue close-to-nature management of state forests and align it more strongly with forest stability and resilience. Forests are to be strengthened as carbon stores, and forest owners are to be paid for this through certificates.

The forest suffers from heat, drought and beetles. The CDU wants to manage the state's forest gently. Heavy machines should be used less. The forest should store a lot of CO2. Forest owners should get money for that.

The CDU wants to expand insect monitoring and support wildflower projects with funding programs. It also affirms hunting and fishing as part of nature conservation and wants to make it legally easier to hunt foxes and corvids.

Insects matter for plants and soil. The CDU wants to protect them better. Towns should plant flowers, trees and shrubs on unused land. Hunters should find it easier to hunt foxes and crows. This should help hares and partridges.

The CDU wants to protect Saarland's groundwater and keep the water supply in public hands. It rejects privatization; water is to be available to everyone at a stable, affordable price.

Drinking water in Saarland comes almost entirely from groundwater. The CDU wants to protect it. Private companies should not take over the water supply. Water should stay affordable for all. More people should drink tap water.

The CDU wants every municipality in Saarland to develop and implement a preparedness plan for floods and heavy rain. The state is to help pay for the measures where possible.

Heavy rain and floods can destroy a lot. The CDU wants every town to have a plan against them. The state should help with money if it can. Maps should show where the danger is high.

The CDU wants to define poor animal keeping in regulatory law so that it can be penalized. It also aims, together with counties and municipalities, for mandatory tagging and neutering of cats, and wants to temporarily waive the dog tax for people who adopt a dog from a shelter.

The CDU wants to protect animals better. Keeping animals badly should be punishable. Cats that live or roam outside should be tagged and neutered. People who take a dog from a shelter should pay no dog tax for two years.

The CDU wants to push at federal level for farmers to be paid through certificates for storing CO2 in the soil. In Saarland, an advisory office is to help farms cope with climate change.

Soil can store the gas CO2. The CDU wants farmers to get money for that. There should also be an advice office. It helps farmers deal with hot and dry summers.

The CDU wants Saarland's cafeterias to use regionally produced food as exclusively as possible. It also wants to strengthen nutrition and consumer education, especially in schools.

The CDU wants more food from the region. Cafeterias should use local food as much as they can. Rest stops should have vending machines with products from farmers. Children should learn more about healthy eating at school.

The CDU backs family-run farms, whether conventional or organic, and wants a much higher compensation payment for naturally disadvantaged land. Funding for organic farming is to be kept or expanded depending on demand.

The CDU wants to strengthen family farms. It does not matter if they are organic or not. Almost all fields in Saarland are hard to farm. Farmers should get more compensation for that. Valuable meadows should stay.

The CDU wants to connect Saarland better to national and international long-distance transport, especially by rail. Saarbrücken Airport is also to be kept as a factor for the location's appeal.

Saarland should get better train connections. There should be more direct trains to big cities. A direct train should also run to Luxembourg. Saarbrücken Airport should stay.

The CDU wants to upgrade the design of roads running through towns when state roads are renovated, rather than only renewing them technically. According to the platform, heavy through traffic contributes to vacancies in town centers.

Many roads run right through towns. The CDU wants to make these roads nicer when they are repaired. There should be more room for cyclists and people on foot. Trees, benches and lights are part of this too. The CDU says heavy traffic leads to empty buildings in towns.

The CDU wants to reduce the dangers caused by parents dropping off and picking up children by car at schools. Traffic-calming measures are to be expanded statewide. A statewide plan for school bus service is also to be developed.

Many parents drive their children to school by car. That can be dangerous. The CDU wants calmer traffic in front of schools. It also wants better school buses across the state.

The CDU wants to build a noise barrier along the urban highway in Saarbrücken and use low-noise road surfacing. According to the platform, the burdens caused by the highway reduce quality of life and the appeal of the city center.

The CDU wants to build a noise wall along the city highway in Saarbrücken. The road should get a quieter surface. This should make the city center quieter.

The CDU wants to maintain and repair the existing road network and build only a few new roads, including the Nordsaarlandstraße. Replacing dilapidated bridges is to be subject to simpler approval rules than building new roads.

The CDU wants to repair roads and bridges in Saarland. Only a few new roads should be built. The Nordsaarlandstraße should be finished. Broken bridges should be replaced faster. The federal government should change the rules for that.

The CDU wants to make buses and trains attractive enough to ease the switch from cars. This includes better service with regular intervals, expansion of the Saarbahn light rail, transfer hubs with parking and, in the longer term, an annual ticket for 365 euros.

The CDU wants better buses and trains. More trips should run at regular times. The Saarbahn should get new routes. Later, a ticket for one year should cost 365 euros. Bikes should ride on trains for free.

The CDU wants a digital platform where all mobility services can be planned, booked and paid for. Anonymized movement data is to help match service to demand, and an e-fare with automatic check-in and check-out is to be examined.

The CDU wants one app for all kinds of transport. People can plan, book and pay for trips there. Later, the phone should buy the right ticket by itself. All trains should have good Wi-Fi. Data without names should show where many people travel.

The CDU wants to expand the bike path network quickly, especially for trips to shops and to work. It wants to examine where bike highways make sense and improve safety for cyclists.

Many people ride bikes or e-bikes. The CDU wants to build more bike paths. The paths should work for daily life, like getting to work. Cycling should become safer. There should be markings and lights for that.

The CDU wants to draw up a joint mobility plan for the Greater Region. Transit operators are to cooperate more closely and link their services at attractive prices so that buses and trains become an alternative to the car.

Many people cross the border every day. Buses and trains there are often not good enough. The CDU wants one shared transportation plan for the whole region. Transit companies should work together better. Prices should be attractive.

The CDU wants administrative procedures to run digitally from application to decision, supported by artificial intelligence. Staff are to be relieved of routine work and have more time for citizens and businesses.

Applications to public offices should be fully digital. This goes from the request to the answer. Computer programs with artificial intelligence should help. Staff then have to type in less data. They have more time for people.

The CDU wants to create a central cyber agency that brings together the state's IT units. It is to develop services for digital modernization of the administration and be available to state and municipal authorities on a voluntary basis.

The CDU wants to set up a cyber agency. This is a central office for the state's computer technology. It should bring all IT units together. State and town offices can use its services. This is voluntary.

The CDU wants to reduce the administration's dependence on outside IT providers and calls for a sovereign cloud for public-sector workplaces. Open-source software and open standards can contribute, but the party rejects a ban on proprietary software.

Public offices often depend on big computer companies. The CDU wants to change that. The administration should get its own secure cloud. A cloud is storage on the internet. Freely available software can help with this. But the CDU does not want to ban other software.

The CDU wants to use digital tools to turn villages, municipalities and mid-sized towns into "smart regions." It cites the "Smart Wendeler Land" project as the model. The goal is equal living conditions across all municipalities.

The CDU wants to make villages and towns more digital. A project in the St. Wendel area is the model. People in the countryside should live as well as people in cities.

The CDU wants to strengthen eGo-Saar, the joint IT association of Saarland's municipalities. Shared standards are meant to cut operating and maintenance effort and improve IT security.

Towns in Saarland share an IT association. It is called eGo-Saar. The CDU wants to make it stronger. This should save work and make computers safer.

The CDU wants gigabit fiber-optic networks to become the standard throughout Saarland. Network operators are to build most of it; where that fails, the state would spend 100 million euros in subsidies.

The CDU wants very fast internet everywhere. That needs fiber-optic cables. Companies should build them first. Where that does not work, the state will add money.

The CDU wants to close the remaining mobile dead zones in Saarland and roll out 5G quickly across the whole state. It plans to do this together with the federal government and network operators.

Some places have no cell phone signal. The CDU wants to close these gaps. The new fast 5G network should soon work everywhere.

The CDU wants to proactively release non-personal government data free of charge for research and business. Saarland is to become an "open government data state." Protection of personal data is to apply without compromise.

Government offices collect a lot of data. Some data is not about single persons. The CDU wants to open this data to everyone for free. Researchers and companies should be able to use it. Personal data stays protected.

The CDU wants data in digital government to be stored only once, in a decentralized way, at the responsible agency. Citizens should be able to see which agency has accessed their data.

Government offices should store data only once. Each office stores only its own data. Other offices ask for the data there. Citizens should see who looked at their data.

The CDU wants to create a "Cyberwehr" (cyber response unit) that also includes volunteer IT security experts. It would support security agencies and operators of critical infrastructure in major incidents.

The CDU wants to start a cyber response unit. It is a group of computer experts. Volunteers should also take part. They help when there are big attacks from the internet.

The CDU supports the call for a nationwide DigitalPaktKita (digital pact for daycare). It is to cover not only technical equipment for daycare centers but also child-appropriate concepts for using digital media.

The CDU wants a program for digital technology in daycare. Daycare centers should get devices. There should also be plans for how children learn well with them. Staff should get training for this.

The CDU wants to push ahead with digitizing the justice system using significantly more staff and resources. Citizens are to get online access to the courts through a virtual legal application office and a virtual service point.

The CDU wants to make the courts digital. There should be more staff and more money for this. People should be able to file requests with a court online. There should also be an online help desk.

The CDU wants to limit the power of large media corporations and set clear legal requirements for internet platforms. Deletions and blocks are to follow media law rather than the operators' discretion. Services should also be usable with little personal data.

The CDU wants to limit the power of big media companies. There should be clear rules for internet platforms. Operators should not decide alone what to delete or block. Users should have to give up only little personal data.

The CDU wants criminal hate speech online to be prosecuted, not just deleted. Age-restricted content is to require secure age verification. In addition, media literacy among children and adults is to grow.

The CDU wants to prosecute hate on the internet when it is a crime. The people behind it should be found. For some content, age should be checked securely. Children and adults should learn to use media well.

The CDU wants to turn the Landesamt für Soziales (State Office for Social Affairs) into a front-runner for digital administration. Application procedures are to be redesigned so that people with disabilities get their benefits simply and quickly.

The State Office for Social Affairs should work digitally. Applications should become easier. People with disabilities should get their support faster. Staff at the office should have more time for advice.

The CDU wants to align police pay and allowances with other states, speed up promotions, and hire 150 trainees every year. The job is to become more attractive, among other things through less overtime and modern equipment.

The CDU wants to pay police officers better. Young officers should move up faster. Each year, 150 new officers should start. The police should get good equipment. There should be less overtime.

The CDU wants to hire about 170 more non-civil-servant employees to relieve police officers of administrative work. The police and municipal public order services are to get broader powers and better training.

Police officers do a lot of office work. The CDU wants to hire about 170 other workers for that. The public order services should get more staff. They should also be allowed to do more. Then officers have more time for their main tasks.

The CDU wants to organize the police so that up to 1,000 officers can be deployed across the state. Security partnerships with municipalities are to be expanded. A new program is meant to push burglary down further.

The CDU wants more police officers on the streets and in towns. Up to 1,000 officers should work close to the people. The state and towns should work together on safety. A new program should prevent burglaries.

The CDU considers video surveillance of public places in Saarland, which the platform calls "video protection," a proven tool. Existing sites are to be reviewed regularly. At the same time, the party wants ongoing checks on whether more crime hotspots should be added.

Some places in Saarland have police video cameras. The CDU thinks this is good. It wants to check these places regularly. It also wants to see if cameras make sense in more places.

The CDU wants to tackle digital and organized crime and online hate with more staff, technology and new surveillance powers. It calls for a real-name requirement on social networks and unencrypted data for investigators. The platform ranks security above data protection.

Many crimes happen online today. The CDU wants people to use their real names on social networks. The networks should give police data without encryption. The CDU says: Safety matters more than data privacy.

The CDU wants entries in the certificate of good conduct for serious sexual offenses against children to no longer be deleted automatically. Internet providers are to store traffic data to the full extent the law allows. The specialized police unit is to get more staff and technology.

The CDU wants to protect children better from sexual violence. Records of such serious crimes should stay in the conduct certificate forever. Internet companies should store connection data as long as the law allows. The police should get more staff and technology for this.

The CDU wants to continue public education on bias-motivated crime and examine whether such offenses, especially against LGBTI people, should be recorded more precisely in crime statistics. Police and justice staff are to receive further training.

Some people are attacked out of hate, for example gay, lesbian or trans people. The CDU wants to count such crimes more exactly. It is looking into this. Police and courts should learn more about it.

The CDU wants to give the state more powers to intervene in the fight against crime. It explicitly includes legally compliant retention of telecommunications traffic data, arguing that offenders in the digital sphere cannot otherwise be identified.

The CDU wants the state to be allowed to store connection data. This is data about who contacted whom online and when. It should help police find offenders on the internet. The storage must follow the law.

The CDU wants to keep adding staff to Saarland's Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence service) and fund modern equipment for it. It sees the agency, alongside the police, as a guarantor of security in the state.

The CDU wants to strengthen the Verfassungsschutz in Saarland. This is an agency that watches enemies of democracy. It should get more staff. It should also get better equipment.

The CDU wants to turn the special cybercrime department at the Saarbrücken public prosecutor's office into an interdisciplinary investigative unit. Alongside lawyers, it is to employ business and IT specialists so that authorities can keep pace with online crime.

The CDU wants to pursue internet crime more effectively. The prosecutor's office already has a department for this. This department should grow. Experts for computers and business should also work there.

The CDU wants to consistently confiscate assets obtained through crime. To that end, an interdisciplinary special unit is to be set up at the public prosecutor's office to secure such assets early and later liquidate them.

The CDU says crime must not pay. The state should take illegal money away from offenders. A new unit at the prosecutor's office should do this. It should secure the money quickly.

The CDU wants to promote alternatives to prison, especially for people jailed because they cannot pay a fine. This is meant to save costs and prison capacity and improve the chances of rehabilitation.

Some people cannot pay their fine. Then they often have to go to prison. The CDU wants to avoid this more often. These people should do community work instead. This saves money and helps them.

The CDU wants to establish Häuser des Jugendrechts (Houses of Juvenile Justice) across Saarland. There, prosecutors, police, youth welfare services and other agencies work together on cases of young offenders in order to respond early and in a way tailored to each case.

The CDU wants Houses of Juvenile Justice all over Saarland. Police, prosecutors and youth welfare offices work together there. They deal with young people who have committed crimes. The young people should get a quick penalty and also help.

The CDU wants to organize disaster and civil protection in Saarland under one roof and equip it better. It cites the 2021 floods as the reason. Volunteer responders are to receive more support and financial compensation.

The CDU wants to improve protection in disasters. Responsibilities should be brought together. There should be more money for equipment and staff. The state fire service school should be rebuilt. Volunteers should get money for their expenses.

The CDU wants to strengthen cooperation between security agencies and neighboring countries to fight crime that exploits open Schengen borders. It will examine setting up an international police post in the tri-border area.

Borders in Europe are open. Some criminals take advantage of that. So the CDU wants police to work more closely with neighboring countries. It is looking into a shared police station in the tri-border area. That is where Germany, France and Luxembourg meet.

The CDU wants to set up a separate ministry for building, infrastructure, and housing that brings together all responsibilities in this field. LEG Kommunal, a company that supports municipalities with construction projects, is to get more money and staff.

The CDU wants a new ministry for building and housing. Everything about building should be in one place there. A company helps towns with building projects. It should get more money and more staff.

The CDU wants to reduce the renovation backlog in public buildings. The state is to own fewer buildings and put the freed-up money into the remaining ones; municipalities are to get a special program for daycare centers, schools and sports facilities.

Many public buildings are in poor shape. The state should give up buildings it does not need. The CDU wants to use that money to modernize the other buildings. Towns and cities should get a special program. With it they can repair or newly build daycare centers, schools and sports halls.

The CDU wants to modernize Saarland's public service and envisions a separate digital ministry. Government and administration are to become simpler, more agile, more digital and more crisis-proof, which the party says the COVID-19 pandemic showed to be necessary.

The CDU wants to make public administration in Saarland more modern. Offices should work in a simpler and faster way. There should be a separate ministry for digital matters. Every ministry should know about digital topics. The administration should be bolder with new things.

The CDU wants state employees to share in general public-sector pay growth and to bring civil service pay gradually up to the level of other German states. A campaign is meant to make the state a more attractive employer.

The CDU wants to pay state employees better. Step by step, pay should match other German states. The state should become a popular employer.

The CDU wants to bundle the management of state-owned buildings and land in a new "Gesellschaft für Landesimmobilien" (state real estate company). Central space management is meant to save costs.

The state owns many buildings. The CDU wants to set up a new company for them. It should manage all the buildings. This should save money.

The CDU wants to continue the Pakt für den Rechtsstaat (Pact for the Rule of Law) permanently so that the justice system has enough staff at all career levels. Digitalizing the justice system is meant to make prosecution more effective and contact with citizens easier.

Courts and prosecutors need enough staff. The CDU wants to secure money and jobs for this for the long term. The justice system should also become more digital. That should make contact easier for citizens.

The CDU wants a fundamental review of how municipal tasks are organized and funded, and wants to standardize and digitize administrative processes. Municipalities that cooperate or merge voluntarily are to receive money and organizational help.

The CDU wants to reorganize the work of towns. Processes in town halls should become simpler and digital. Towns should work together more. They can also merge if they want to. The state gives money for this.

The CDU wants to advance new forms of participation such as representative citizens' assemblies in Saarland. Citizens are to take part in forming opinions on state policy questions without changing the core of representative democracy.

The CDU wants citizens' assemblies in Saarland. Selected citizens talk about important state questions there. They give advice to politicians. Parliament still makes the decisions.

The CDU wants to set up a state youth parliament for Saarland that involves young people in questions of child and youth policy. In municipalities, various participation formats for young people are to be possible.

Young people should have a say in politics. The CDU wants a youth parliament for all of Saarland. Student representatives from all regions will sit there. Young people should also have a say in their towns.

The CDU wants to appoint an independent, full-time protection commissioner at the state parliament. The office is to cover child protection as well as the protection of victims, patients and witnesses. In addition, a standing parliamentary committee is to serve as a commission for children and youth.

Victims of violence should have one contact person. The CDU wants to create an independent office at the state parliament. This person looks after children, victims, patients and witnesses. The parliament should also get a permanent committee for children and youth.

The CDU wants to represent the interests of Saarland's industry, trade unions and mid-sized businesses at the EU level. According to the platform, shifting the economy to climate neutrality can only succeed within the European Green Deal.

The CDU wants to speak up in Europe for companies in Saarland. The economy should become climate neutral. That means it should no longer harm the climate. The CDU says this only works together in Europe. Companies should get rules they can rely on.

The CDU wants to push for Europe-wide fiscal consolidation and strict stability rules for the euro. It rejects a debt union. It calls on the European Central Bank to fulfill its mandate of price stability.

The CDU wants a stable euro. Countries in Europe should take on less debt. The CDU does not want permanent shared debt in Europe. The European Central Bank should make sure prices do not rise sharply.

The CDU wants EU money to flow only when member states respect rule-of-law principles. At the same time, the division of powers set out in the EU treaties is to be preserved, especially for social legislation and the German states' authority over education and culture.

Some EU countries no longer follow important rule-of-law rules. The CDU wants this: Only countries that follow the rules get EU money. But the EU should not decide everything. The German states should keep deciding about schools and culture.

The CDU wants to develop Saarland's Frankreichstrategie (France Strategy) into a broader internationalization strategy. Cooperation with France is to grow at all levels, and the state is to move closer to the organization of French-speaking countries.

Saarland works closely with France. The CDU wants to expand this cooperation. Saarland should also connect more with other countries in the world. Citizens can share their wishes on a participation platform.

The CDU wants to set up a citizens' forum for the Greater Region that can start initiatives and petitions. This is meant to bring European policy closer to people's everyday lives.

The CDU wants to create a citizens' forum for the Greater Region. There, citizens can make proposals and start petitions. A petition is a request or demand to politicians. This should bring European policy closer to people.

The CDU wants to revive and expand town twinning partnerships and start new ones. It also wants to strengthen the Franco-German and German-Polish youth offices and support the creation of further bilateral youth exchange offices.

Many towns have partner towns in other countries. The CDU wants to bring these partnerships back to life. There should also be new ones. Young people should have more exchange with other countries. For this, the CDU wants to strengthen the youth exchange offices and support new ones.

The CDU wants to work to ensure that the Bundeswehr's bases in Saarland remain and are strengthened. It points to the armed forces' help in disasters and during the pandemic.

The Bundeswehr is Germany's military. It has bases in Saarland. The CDU wants these bases to stay. They should even become stronger. The military also helps in disasters at home.

The CDU wants to give lasting support to Saarland's industrial heritage sites and the events held there. It also wants to conclude a preservation pact for culture with the municipalities so that cultural funding does not fall victim to budget cuts after the pandemic.

Saarland has many old industrial sites, such as the Völklingen Ironworks. The CDU wants to strengthen these places. They also host festivals and exhibitions. The CDU also wants a pact for culture with the towns. Culture should not be cut to save money.

The CDU wants to preserve the Saarland's major cultural institutions, including the State Theater with its three divisions. The Musikfestspiele Saar festival is to receive a fixed funding amount again. New cultural projects are also to get reliable conditions.

The CDU wants to keep the big cultural institutions in the Saarland. One of them is the State Theater. The Musikfestspiele Saar festival should get fixed funding again. New cultural projects should also be able to grow.

The CDU wants to build a new Saarlandhalle arena in Saarbrücken that is suitable for large events. The platform justifies this with competition in the Greater Region and with aging venues.

The CDU wants to build a new Saarlandhalle arena in Saarbrücken. Big events should take place there. The CDU says the old venues are too old. The Saarland should keep up with nearby regions.

The CDU wants to provide lasting support for club-based culture and cultural education, partly because of the effects of the pandemic. Funds for more professional structures are to be made permanent and relieve volunteers of administrative work. Offerings for young people are to grow.

The CDU wants to support culture in clubs. Cultural education should also get money. Volunteers should have less paperwork. There should be more offers for children and young people.

The CDU wants to preserve the Saarland's language, customs and traditions and to support local heritage museums and heritage associations for that purpose. In the platform's view, culture and Heimat (homeland) should shape the identity of people in the state.

The CDU wants to preserve language and traditions in the Saarland. Local heritage museums and clubs should get money and recognition. There should also be money for local celebrations.

The CDU wants private broadcasters to coexist with strong public broadcasting. The public broadcaster Saarländischer Rundfunk is to provide information on the state's own topics. The state media authority is to remain independent and be funded appropriately.

The CDU wants both private and public broadcasters. Saarländischer Rundfunk should report on the Saarland. The Saarland should keep its own media authority. This authority should get enough money.

The CDU wants to secure and increase funding for film and media, also with the help of federal and EU money. Movie theaters outside urban centers are to be preserved. The platform points to film festivals and to the Saarland as a filming location.

The CDU wants to give more money to film and media. Some of it should come from the federal government and the EU. Movie theaters in rural areas should stay. The film industry should be better connected.

The CDU wants to give clubs and volunteers more support after the pandemic, especially in recruiting young members. It plans permanent funding programs, tax relief, an advisory agency and a parliamentary study commission on volunteering.

Many clubs have too few young members after Covid. The CDU wants to help the clubs. It plans a campaign for youth work. Clubs should work more with schools. Volunteers should have lower taxes and less paperwork.

The CDU wants to keep funding grassroots sports at the current level and suggests a third weekly PE lesson in schools. Swimming pools are to be covered by statewide planning. The platform sees sports as valuable for health, cohesion and integration.

The CDU wants to keep supporting sports in clubs. Schools should get a third PE lesson each week. The state should make a plan for swimming pools. Clubs and schools should work together more.

The CDU wants to keep funding top clubs and develop the Hermann Neuberger Sports School into a training base for Olympic teams. Major sporting events are to receive state money. The platform expects benefits for the state's image, tourism and the regional economy.

The CDU wants to keep funding elite sports. The Hermann Neuberger Sports School should be upgraded. Teams should train there for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Big sporting events should also get money from the state.

The CDU wants to secure funding for sports, culture and other charitable causes through the state lottery company Saartoto. Online casino games in the Saarland are to be offered only through Saartoto and its casino subsidiary. The Sportachtel (one-eighth share for sports) for the state sports federation is to remain.

Saartoto gives money to sports, culture and other good causes. The CDU wants this to stay. Only Saartoto should be allowed to offer casino games online. The sports federation should keep getting its fixed share.

The CDU wants to keep funding the Saarland consumer advice center, including its digital advice service. The office that people threatened with power cutoffs can turn to is also to keep its support. The aim is protection against fraud, misinformation and harm.

The CDU wants to keep funding the consumer advice center. People get advice there, also online. It also helps when someone's power is about to be cut off. This help should stay.

The CDU wants to continue the project of an Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA, International Building Exhibition) for the Greater Region and launch a cross-border IBA. It sees opportunities for business, research, mobility and culture.

An International Building Exhibition is called IBA for short. It is about new ideas for cities, landscape and the region. The CDU wants to continue such a project together with the neighbors. It expects benefits for business, research, transportation and culture.