CDU on other topics

The CDU wants to expand funding for the Verbraucherzentrale (consumer advice center) and create a central online portal that pools consumer information from all levels of government. At the federal level, it advocates stronger consumer rights in several sectors.

The CDU wants to protect consumers better. The consumer advice center should get more money. There should be one website with all important information. Consumers should get more rights, for example with phone contracts.

The portal is meant to make everything from food warnings to energy and debt counseling available in one place. The CDU calls for stronger rights in areas including long-term contracts, travel, electric mobility, the digital sphere, the financial market and debt collection. Examples named are abusive websites, discriminatory algorithms and transparent bank fees. Consumer education is to get more room in schools, in out-of-school programs and on social media. The EU Commission's consumer agenda and the recommendations of the Data Ethics Commission are to feed into this work.

The CDU wants to make food safety a priority over the next five years. The structures of food inspection are to be reviewed and expanded together with the municipalities. All consumer protection responsibilities are to be brought together.

The CDU wants food to be safe. So food should be inspected better. The state wants to talk with cities and towns about this. One office should be in charge of consumer protection.

Places that hand out food are to have sufficient knowledge of hygiene and food safety. The platform justifies pooling responsibilities with the EU's approach of viewing the entire food chain from stable to table as one unit. This is meant to make consumer protection more effective overall.

The CDU wants volunteer work to fit better with family life and a job. To that end, parental-leave arrangements in volunteer roles should become possible, and meetings should also take place digitally or in hybrid form.

The CDU wants to make volunteering easier. Volunteering means helping without pay. It should fit better with family and work. Meetings should also be possible online.

The platform plans to adjust the rules so that volunteers can, for example, take parental leave. Joining meetings from home is to become a normal part of volunteer work. The CDU wants to further strengthen time off for volunteering granted by employers, universities and schools. The platform sees project-based volunteering as an attractive way to get started.

The CDU wants to anchor volunteering as a cross-cutting issue in the state administration and name clear responsibilities. Funding for volunteer structures is to remain reliable after the coronavirus pandemic as well.

The CDU wants the state to look after volunteering better. The state offices should have clear contact persons. Clubs should keep getting reliable funding. This should also apply after Covid.

According to the platform, the strategy covers insurance coverage, training, conferences, network meetings, online information, and contact persons at state and local level. The administration and volunteers are to be in regular exchange. A modular toolkit with help for modernization is to be created for clubs and associations, and associations are to get support with digitalization, for example through training. The CDU also wants to win more bonus partners for the Ehrenamtskarte (volunteer card) and make the card better known.

The CDU wants to develop and expand voluntary service programs such as the FSJ, FÖJ and the Federal Volunteer Service. People doing such a service should be exempt from the broadcasting fee and get a low-cost statewide public transit ticket.

Many young people do a year of voluntary service. The CDU wants to expand these programs. These young people should not pay the broadcasting fee. They should get a cheap ticket for buses and trains across the state.

The platform describes these programs as important support for local volunteering. It says they are often young people's entry point into later civic engagement. As part of the expansion, the level of pay is also to be reviewed.

The CDU wants to raise state funding for sports on a regular basis and amend the Sports Promotion Act to do so. Organized sports are also to receive a share of revenue from online gambling and sports betting.

The CDU wants to give more money to sports. The money should go up regularly. It wants to change a law for this. Sports should also get money from online gambling and sports betting.

Funding for the state sports federation is to be indexed, meaning it grows automatically. In the medium term, the CDU also aims for more money for club-owned sports facilities. Other responsible ministries, not just the sports ministry, are to help pay for carrying out the sports development plan. A pact for elite and junior elite sports is meant to strengthen talent and top-level sports, and the state is to commit to more major sporting events. There will also be a statewide "most athletic municipality" contest and a federal-level push to ease the burden of running clubs.

The CDU wants every child to be able to swim safely by the end of elementary school. To achieve this, sports and swimming facilities are to be renovated further, and extra exercise programs created in elementary schools and daycare centers.

The CDU wants every child to swim safely after elementary school. Pools and sports fields should be repaired. Elementary schools should have one more hour of exercise each week. Daycare centers should offer more exercise too.

The drive to renovate and modernize sports facilities and swimming pools is to continue, with accessibility taken into account. In all-day elementary schools, one weekly exercise period is planned on top of regular PE, if possible together with sports clubs and associations. As a pilot project, an accessible "Inclusive Sports Center" with its own hall is to be built. The platform justifies this with the importance of exercise for health, including after the pandemic.

The CDU wants to give more support to pastoral care by religious communities and close funding gaps. A dedicated funding program is planned for the communities' music and youth work after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDU wants to support pastoral care. Pastoral care means comfort and help in hard times. Religious communities should get more help for this. Their work with music and young people should get money too.

The platform sees gaps at regional counseling centers and in Muslim chaplaincy in prisons and deportation detention. Training for health professions is to include basic knowledge of religion so that the faith of people in care homes and hospitals is respected. The state is to provide money to preserve religious monuments and ensure cemeteries are available everywhere. The CDU also proposes a conference of state ministers for religious affairs, which could work out transparency standards for funding and shared recognition procedures.

The CDU wants to keep Sunday as a day of rest, citing its Christian meaning and the rest it gives families and workers. The current Bäderverordnung, which governs Sunday shop openings in resort towns, is to stay unchanged.

The CDU wants to keep Sunday as a day off. Sunday is a Christian holiday. Families and workers should have rest on that day. The rules for open shops in resort towns should stay as they are.

The party calls the current Bäderverordnung a compromise that it does not want to alter. It wants to hold on to the major Christian holidays. At the same time, it wants to help more people in the state understand the holidays of all religious communities.