CDU on culture and media

The CDU wants to strengthen the culture of remembrance in Saxony and continue examining the GDR, which it calls a state of injustice, including through a dedicated university chair. It also plans a permanent "Zukunftsdialog Heimat.Sachsen" forum and an exchange program between eastern and western German municipalities.

The CDU wants Saxony to remember its history. The time of East Germany should be studied further. A special professorship should be created for that. Towns in East and West should exchange more.

The Saxon State Archive is to become an archive advisory center and a place of learning outside school, in order to promote a fact-based culture of remembrance. Partnerships between German towns are to be revived because the CDU sees a need for more understanding between East and West. Trainees in the police and public administration are to learn, with the help of a research institution, to better understand sociopolitical conflicts. Mining traditions will continue to be supported, including through funding for the state association of miners' and smelters' clubs.

The CDU wants to permanently guarantee the existing institutions for expellees and Spätaussiedler (ethnic German resettlers from Eastern Europe) and keep their culture and history alive as part of German history. Resettlers are to be fully integrated socially and into society.

The CDU wants to keep the institutions for expellees and resettlers. Resettlers are people of German descent from Eastern Europe. Their culture and history should stay alive. They should settle in well in Saxony.

The guarantee covers the full-time commissioner for expellees and resettlers, whose office is to be strengthened, the advisory council, the meeting centers in Chemnitz, Dresden and Leipzig, and the "Transferraum Heimat" in Knappenrode. The latter is to receive more funding and become a research site so that its findings can inform how today's migration movements are handled. For the memorial day for victims of flight and expulsion, the state government is to cooperate more closely with the state association of expellees. The CDU wants to support German minorities abroad in maintaining their culture and language and as bridge builders.

The CDU wants to write protection of Saxony's World Heritage sites explicitly into the state's heritage protection act. This is meant to prevent individual measures from jointly endangering a World Heritage title.

Saxony has places that are World Heritage sites. The CDU wants to protect them by law. The protection should be written into the heritage protection act. That way no place should lose its World Heritage title.

The rule is to apply to current and future World Heritage sites. The existing, mostly municipal management of each site is to be reflected in the act. The CDU also wants to establish the concept of cultural landscape there, understood as an entity shaped by people over centuries. The aim is to limit the cumulative effect of individual interventions that could impair a title. Overall, the World Heritage portfolio is to be expanded and developed.

The CDU wants to preserve Saxony's cultural landscape and reliably secure its funding in cities and rural areas. To that end, the Kulturraumgesetz (Cultural Areas Act) is to be rewritten and a future plan for culture drawn up with the municipalities. The focus is on orchestras, theaters, museums and libraries.

The CDU wants to keep culture alive across Saxony. Theaters, orchestras, museums and libraries should get enough money. This applies to cities and villages. An important law on this will be rewritten. The state makes a plan for the future with the towns.

The Kulturraumgesetz governs how the state and municipalities jointly fund culture in Saxony. The future plan is to draw on the results of the culture dialogue and the evaluation of the law. The CDU wants to support cooperation between institutions in urban and rural areas and between established venues and the independent scene. Cultural education remains a priority, and the cultural and creative industries are to grow as an economic factor. Saxon history and regional characteristics are to play an important role in cultural projects.

The CDU wants to continue and expand broad cultural funding in Saxony, from the state cultural foundation to music schools, festivals and clubs. Culture should be accessible and barrier-free in every region, and cultural heritage should be preserved and protected.

The CDU wants to keep funding culture all over Saxony. This includes music schools, festivals, libraries and clubs. Rural areas should have cultural events too. Everyone should be able to take part. Art treasures should be well protected.

The state cultural foundation is to be strengthened, and the small-projects fund for rural areas will stay. Music schools are to be funded according to need, youth art schools will keep their funding, and the programs "Stimme an!" and "Jedem Kind ein Instrument" will continue, as will the instrument fund and the travel-cost fund. The CDU backs start-up financial aid for clubs and wants to give dance special support in the coming years. Urgent state cultural building projects are to be carried out where possible, including a central depot for the Dresden State Art Collections at Hubertusburg Palace. The impact of Chemnitz as European Capital of Culture 2025 should last beyond that year. To protect art and cultural assets, a resilience strategy is planned, along with digitizing collections and improving the energy efficiency of cultural institutions.

The CDU wants to implement the development plan of the Saxon Memorials Foundation and fund the foundation adequately. It also plans a "Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony" and a state exhibition marking 1,100 years of Saxony.

The CDU wants to strengthen memorial sites in Saxony. Memorial sites remember victims of political violence. The foundation that runs them should get enough money. There will be a Year of Jewish Culture. In 2029 there will be a big exhibition about Saxony.

The platform regards adequate funding for the memorials foundation and its grant-making as the basis for good memorial work. The "Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony" is to be the state's first themed year and to make Jewish life visible in past, present and future. The state exhibition "1,100 Years of Saxony" is to be developed for 2029 together with the state company for palaces, castles and gardens and is to involve all regions. The CDU also wants to support initiatives that maintain and preserve war graves and war memorials.

The CDU supports public broadcasting but sees a need for far-reaching reform of its remit and structures. The license fee should stay stable, and the remit should focus on information, education, advice and culture. The party rejects an index model, meaning automatic adjustment of the fee.

The CDU thinks the public broadcasters ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio are important. But it wants to change them. The license fee should not go up. The broadcasters should mainly inform and educate. They should spend less on sports and entertainment. Parliaments should decide on the fee.

Under the platform, ZDF would mainly offer national programming and ARD mainly regional programming, and the two should complement each other better. The CDU sees high spending on sports rights and entertainment as working against a stable fee. Funding should follow the remit, and parliaments should have a stronger role in defining the remit and setting the fee. The party sees a need for structural reform of ARD's regional broadcasters. A fair share of joint facilities of national importance should be located in eastern Germany. At the regional broadcaster MDR, executive pay should be guided by public-sector levels, regional producers should get more consideration in contracts, and Sorbian-language programming should be secured.

The CDU wants local journalism such as daily newspapers, free weeklies and local broadcasting to be available everywhere in Saxony. It wants to keep the local journalism funding that is paid out at arm's length from the state, and at the federal level it backs a delivery subsidy and lower VAT on press products.

The CDU wants to keep local newspapers and local stations. People everywhere in Saxony should get news from their own area. Funding for this should continue. The state should not decide on the content. Newspapers should pay less sales tax.

The platform describes the shift of daily newspapers from print to digital as a major challenge for local media diversity. The CDU wants to review the rules that limit publishers' stakes in electronic media. In its funding it relies on local broadcasters, supports innovation, and wants to include non-commercial local radio, which it does not want defined only as community radio. At the federal level it supports ideas for a delivery subsidy for daily newspapers and free weeklies and lower VAT rates on periodical press products. Sorbian-language media in the districts of Bautzen and Görlitz are also to receive support.

The CDU wants to bring the differing rules for press, broadcasting and online services closer together. Private broadcasters and local TV should have fair conditions when competing with non-European platforms. To that end, the advertising rules in the Interstate Media Treaty are to be revised.

Newspapers, broadcasters and internet platforms follow different rules today. The CDU wants to make these rules more alike. Private stations should have a fair chance against big platforms. The rules for advertising should be checked again.

The platform justifies this by saying people now use media across all channels and the separate rulebooks no longer fit. The Saxon state media authority (SLM) is to keep its structure and be strengthened. The CDU wants to examine whether its funding from the license fee can be reduced or moved to other sources. The party sees artificial intelligence as an opportunity for the media but insists that intellectual property and copyright stay protected and can still be monetized.

The CDU wants to keep strengthening media literacy in Saxony's school curricula and expand media education for all age groups. It cites complex news situations, false reports and AI-generated fake images, audio and video as the reason.

People should learn how to handle media well. This should stay important in school. Adults and older people should get offers too. The reason is false news and fake pictures and videos.

Beyond the curricula, the party wants to raise awareness of the problem among the general public. The CDU wants to keep the existing division of tasks between schools and the Saxon state media authority. The platform names fake news and forgeries made with artificial intelligence as the reason.

The CDU wants to establish Saxony firmly as an international media and film location and strengthen training for skilled workers in the sector. Movie theaters should be preserved, and the creative industries, esports and gaming should get more weight in economic policy.

The CDU wants more films and media to be made in Saxony. There should be good training for this. Movie theaters should stay, also in rural areas. The CDU sees video games and esports as important industries for the future.

The focus is on the regional film fund Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, the media faculty at Mittweida University of Applied Sciences and non-academic training at the film academy in Görlitz. Conditions for national and international film productions are to be further adapted. The CDU wants to work with the cinema industry on ways to supplement the federal "Zukunftsprogramm Kino," because it sees theaters as meeting places too. The cultural and creative industries, esports and gaming are to be better networked.

The CDU wants to preserve and further develop the Sorbian language and culture, pointing to the mandate in the state constitution. Language programs in daycare and schools, teacher training and bilingualism in public spaces are to be expanded.

The Sorbs are a minority in Saxony with their own language. The CDU wants to keep this language and culture alive. Children should be able to learn Sorbian in daycare and school. This needs more Sorbian teachers. Signs and services should be bilingual more often.

Enough Sorbian teachers and childcare workers are to be available, and training will be strengthened for that purpose. The Witaj concept, a language-learning program in kindergartens and schools, is to grow so that everyone interested finds a place. Sorbian is to be built into digital services in education and public administration, and the Sorbian municipal program with its service office will be expanded. The state is to pay for the commissioners for Sorbian affairs in the future. At the federal level the CDU is pushing for a new funding agreement with inflation adjustment for the Foundation for the Sorbian People. Sorbs are to be involved in the structural transition of Lusatia, and a "Sorbian Knowledge Forum" is planned at the Lauenareal site in Bautzen.