FDP on Europe

Hesse should press at the federal level for EU financial rules to be implemented without extra national requirements, known as gold plating. The FDP supports a deeper capital markets union with uniform rules across Europe.

The EU makes rules for banks and financial firms. Germany should not add extra rules of its own. The rules should be the same all over Europe. The FDP wants one shared European capital market.

Especially for sustainability rules in the financial sector (ESG), definitions and labels are to be comparable across Europe and national add-on requirements avoided. According to the platform, regulation should be competent and reliable and allow innovation. At the European level, the FDP wants to push for deepening the capital markets union.

The FDP wants to advance European integration in selected core areas and backs a European constitutional convention. The EU should also be open to further European states. The platform justifies this with the EU's growing importance for peace, freedom and prosperity.

The FDP wants to make the EU stronger. The EU should handle crises better. For this, there should be a big meeting called a constitutional convention. It should work out new rules for the EU. More countries should also be able to join the EU.

The platform lists deeper integration in core areas, a review of how EU institutions are set up and operate, effective rules for sound public finances in member states, and a common migration policy. The FDP favors a more active neighborhood policy meant to offer protection to European states with shared values. The convention is to put the results of the Conference on the Future of Europe into practice. The party wants to counter attempts to weaken European institutions, for example through outside support for strongly euroskeptic parties.

The FDP wants regions to take a greater part in European lawmaking and wants subsidiarity respected. The subsidiarity complaint is to be used more effectively and developed further, and Hesse's state representation in Brussels strengthened. EU funding should continue to benefit Hesse.

The FDP wants regions like Hesse to have more say in the EU. The EU should only regulate what it can regulate better. This is called subsidiarity. Regions should get more time to object. Hesse's office in Brussels should become stronger.

As an example of what it sees as looming overregulation, the FDP cites planned EU rules on insulating buildings. The subsidiarity complaint, which lets parliaments object to EU proposals, is to be changed so that regions and their parliaments have enough time to raise concerns. Hesse should keep receiving money from the structural funds ELER, ESF and EFRE. These funds should pursue economic and social goals alongside ecological ones, and their local impact should be reviewed regularly.

The FDP wants to continue, and where possible deepen, Hesse's partnerships with regions in Italy, France and Poland. The partnership with the Turkish region of Bursa is to be kept but focused on civil society. Hesse should also cooperate more with regions in Africa.

Hesse has partner regions in other countries. The FDP wants to keep these partnerships and build on them. Contact with the Bursa region in Turkey should go on. The focus there should be on citizens and local groups. Hesse should also work more with regions in Africa.

The platform regards the partnerships as valuable for understanding between civil societies and politics. The FDP also sees them as a way to make shared concerns better heard in Brussels. The platform calls for a firm stance toward authoritarian tendencies in Turkey. Existing cooperation with economically and socially promising regions in Africa is to be expanded.