FDP: program for the 2022 North Rhine-Westphalia state election

The FDP wants to continue and expand the state's founder stipend. At least 1,000 founders a year are to keep receiving support. The state's start-up policy as a whole is meant to grow and become more visible internationally.

The FDP wants to help people who start a company. The state gives them money and advice. At least 1,000 people should get this help every year. The FDP wants to make this help even bigger.

The FDP wants to introduce young people to entrepreneurship earlier and make it easier to found a company from age 16. New companies should pay no chamber fees in their first two years. Social entrepreneurship is also to be strengthened.

The FDP wants young people to start companies more easily. This should be simpler from age 16. New companies should pay no chamber fee for 2 years. Chambers are groups that companies must be members of.

The FDP wants better conditions for private backers such as business angels and venture capital funds. This is meant to give start-ups financing beyond public channels in their founding and growth phases. They should also find it easier to take part in public tenders.

Young companies need money to grow. The FDP wants more private investors to put money into them. The state should become more attractive for such investors. Young companies should also get public contracts more easily.

The FDP wants private and public spending on research and development to reach 3.5 percent of economic output by 2030. To get there, the state's innovation strategy is to be implemented. Alongside this, the platform calls for a fiscal policy that keeps tax burdens low and lowers them where possible.

The FDP wants more money for research. By 2030, the state and companies together should spend 3.5 percent of economic output on it. The state has a plan for this. The FDP wants to carry out that plan. Taxes should stay as low as possible.

The FDP wants to keep North Rhine-Westphalia an industrial hub and make its industry climate-friendly. It relies on better framework conditions, less red tape, faster permits and equal support for all new technologies. Companies are to shape the transition on their own.

The FDP wants industry in the state to stay strong. Industry should also become climate-friendly. The state should simplify rules and approve projects faster. It should not favor any one technology. Companies should find the best way themselves.

The FDP wants to strengthen the automotive and supplier industry during its structural change and secure jobs. It backs battery-electric drives, hydrogen drives and synthetic fuels alike.

The car industry is changing a lot. The FDP wants to help it. It wants to support electric cars. It also wants to support hydrogen and man-made fuels. This should keep good jobs in the state.

The FDP wants to advocate at the federal and EU level for open markets and a rules-based trading order, including with difficult partners. At the same time, the state is to expand its international location marketing and attract more investors.

Companies in the state sell a lot abroad. So the FDP wants free trade with clear rules. This also applies to difficult partner countries. The state should promote itself more abroad. Then more companies should invest here.

The FDP wants to continue the red-tape reduction of the previous deregulation packages and create a cap on bureaucracy. The core is a mandatory one-in, one-out principle: when a rule is added, an outdated one must be removed. EU requirements are to be transposed one-to-one only.

The FDP wants less red tape. Red tape means many rules and forms. For each new rule, an old rule should go. The state should not make EU rules stricter. Laws should be easier to understand.

The FDP wants to slim down the state development plan considerably and leave more decisions to regions and municipalities. In its view the plan still contains too many restrictions, especially for commercial and industrial land. A land pool is meant to make investment easier.

A state plan sets where building is allowed. The FDP thinks the plan has too many small rules. It wants to remove many of them. Cities and regions should decide more themselves. This should create more land for companies.

The FDP wants to support small and mid-sized firms, the skilled trades and the liberal professions by funding digitalization and reducing red tape. In its view the state should confine itself to setting framework conditions instead of steering in detail.

Small and mid-sized companies matter for the state. The FDP wants to help them become more digital. There is a funding program for this. It should grow. Local offices should work in a uniform and simple way.

The FDP wants to allow more Sunday openings as far as the constitution permits. Municipalities should be able to designate one shopping Sunday every month. This is meant to strengthen brick-and-mortar stores against online retail, which is available around the clock.

Online shops are always open. Shops in town are not. So the FDP wants more open Sundays. Each town should be allowed to pick one Sunday a month for this.

The FDP wants to make North Rhine-Westphalia a leading location for innovation. Within five years, at least 50 pieces of research-based intellectual property are to become companies. To that end, future technologies are to be funded, new professorships created and legal obstacles removed.

The FDP wants more new ideas and new technology in the state. Research should lead to new companies. There should be at least 50 in five years. There should be more professors for future technologies. Rules that slow things down should go.

The FDP wants to avoid new bureaucratic burdens and to put time limits on existing obligations, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, or review them regularly. Laws, bans and rules that are not necessary should be dropped.

The FDP wants less red tape. Red tape means many rules, forms and reports. Rules that are not needed should go. Small firms in particular should have to report and record less.

The FDP wants tighter limits on commercial activities by municipalities. A municipality should be allowed to engage in business only if no private company can provide the service better and more economically.

Cities should run businesses less often. They should only do so if private companies cannot do it better. The FDP says some cities lost a lot of money this way. Taxpayers then bear the loss.

The FDP wants to strengthen tailored labor-market measures for people with disabilities, refugees and people with an immigrant background. People without a school diploma and the long-term unemployed should be able to enter and move up step by step. The platform calls access to the job market a central question of fairness.

The FDP wants to get more people into work. This applies to people with disabilities and to refugees. It also applies to people without a school diploma. Moving from a mini-job to a full-time job should pay off more.

The FDP wants counties and independent cities to be able to pay housing and heating costs for benefit recipients as a monthly flat rate. The state would use the options under federal law to the full for this. The platform sees it as a step toward a "liberal Bürgergeld" (citizen's income).

Some people get money from the state for rent and heating. The FDP wants cities and counties to be able to pay a fixed amount for this. The amount can differ from place to place. Cities and counties should decide this themselves.

The FDP wants to make the Working Hours Act more flexible and expand mobile work beyond the pandemic without constraining it through complicated home-office rules. Total working time and breaks would stay the same; only scheduling would become freer. This is meant to make work, family and leisure easier to combine.

The FDP wants freer rules on working hours. Nobody should work more than today. But people should be able to plan their hours more freely. Working from home should stay simple. That way work and family fit together better.

The FDP sees the shortage of skilled workers as the biggest challenge for the economy in the coming years. It wants to address it through education, integration, participation and targeted immigration of qualified people. More housing is to be created for apprentices.

Companies often cannot find enough skilled workers. The FDP wants to change that. It relies on good education. It also wants skilled workers to come from abroad. There should be more housing for apprentices.

The FDP wants to set up a "one-stop agency" as a central contact and guidance point for support services. People should find and use help more easily. In the party's view, the goal of state aid is for people to get back on their own feet.

The FDP wants one single place for all kinds of help. People in need should get advice there. Social workers should be easy to reach, for example in a neighborhood café. They then connect people with further help.

The FDP wants older people to take a greater part in society and plans a state-level contact person for seniors. Statutory maximum age limits are to be removed and the transition into retirement made more flexible. People should also be able to stay in their own homes as long as possible.

The FDP wants older people to be able to take part fully. The state should have one person for their concerns. Fixed age limits in laws should go. Older people should be able to live at home for a long time.

The FDP wants to integrate people with disabilities more fully into the job market, relying on workplace-based solutions and digital aids. Employers are to receive more information, and work assistance services are to be expanded.

The FDP wants to help people with disabilities at work. Companies should get more information. There should be more assistance in the workplace. Digital technology should help too.

The FDP wants more people with disabilities to use the personal budget. Instead of in-kind services they receive money and decide for themselves who provides their support.

People with disabilities can get money instead of ready-made help. This is called the personal budget. They then choose who helps them. The FDP wants more people to use this.

The FDP rejects any loosening of the debt brake and wants to repay the state's COVID debt faster than legally required. It cites fairness between generations and readiness for future crises.

The state took on a lot of debt during COVID. The FDP wants to pay this debt back quickly. The debt brake should stay strict. The debt brake is a rule against new debt. Young people should not carry the burden for long.

The FDP rejects tax increases because, in its view, they endanger the economic recovery. Subsidies are to expire automatically, and the state budget and all funding programs are to be reviewed critically.

The FDP does not want higher taxes. It says higher taxes hurt the economy. State aid for companies should end after a fixed time. The state should check all spending closely.

The FDP wants to review all state-owned enterprises and holdings and sell whatever is not of overriding public importance. This includes the stakes in the Düsseldorf and Cologne trade fair companies; more privatization is also planned at the state's building and real estate agency.

The state owns shares in companies. The FDP wants to check all of these shares. Anything that is not very important for the public should be sold. This includes the shares in the trade fairs in Düsseldorf and Cologne.

The FDP wants North Rhine-Westphalia to adopt its own property tax model based on land and building area plus location factors. It rejects the federal model, which in its view creates heavy bureaucracy and leads to automatic tax increases as property values rise.

The FDP wants a separate property tax for North Rhine-Westphalia. The tax should mostly depend on the size of the land and building. The value of the property should matter very little. This way the tax should not keep rising on its own.

Municipalities should decide for themselves whether to charge a special rate on plots that are ready for building but left undeveloped. The FDP attaches the condition that the extra revenue be used entirely to lower the regular property tax (Grundsteuer B).

Some plots of land may be built on but stay empty. Towns can charge a higher tax for them. The FDP wants to let towns decide this. In return, towns must lower the normal property tax.

The FDP wants to continue the fight against tax evasion and allow the seizure of assets whose origin clearly cannot be explained. It also wants to work for a fair distribution of the tax burden between small businesses and multinational corporations.

The FDP wants to keep fighting tax fraud. The state should be able to take away wealth if nobody can explain where it came from. Big corporations should not dodge taxes. Small firms should not carry more of the load than big ones.

The FDP wants to raise the municipalities' share of state revenue from 23 to 25 percent over the longer term. More of the money is to flow as lump sums, while the state's many grant programs are reviewed.

Cities and towns should get more money from the state. Their share should rise from 23 to 25 percent. They should decide for themselves how to use it. The FDP wants to review the state's grant programs.

The FDP wants to abolish the Gewerbesteuer (local trade tax) in the long run and give municipalities a larger share of value-added tax instead. Municipalities are to be allowed to set their own rates on further taxes and, in return, be bound by a debt brake.

The FDP wants to end the local trade tax in the long run. That is a tax companies pay to their city. Cities should get more of the sales tax instead. They should also set their own rates on other taxes. In return, they should take on less new debt.

The FDP wants to support over-indebted municipalities with credit assistance based on the principle of helping them help themselves. Each municipality is to remain liable for its own debt; the party rejects pooling the debts.

Some cities have very high debts. The FDP wants to help them manage these debts. But each city should stay responsible for its own debt. Others should not take over the debt. A supervisor should warn early about new debt.

The FDP wants to completely abolish the road improvement charges that have already been halved. This is meant to free property owners and buyers from a cost risk and reduce red tape; municipal fees are also to become easier to compare.

Homeowners often have to pay when their street is renewed. The FDP wants to end these charges completely. This should relieve owners and buyers of homes. City fees should also be easier to compare.

The FDP wants to enable more people to buy a home of their own and to lower the ancillary costs. As soon as federal law permits, an allowance on the property transfer tax is to be introduced for owner-occupied homes. In most cases no property transfer tax would then be due.

Many people want their own house or apartment. Buyers pay a tax on the purchase. The FDP wants to drop this tax for most people who live in the home themselves. This should help young families most. Building should also become faster and easier.

The FDP wants to enable more renters to buy a home, including people who cannot afford it so far. It relies on loans, grants and cheaper interest rates as well as a lower real estate transfer tax.

The FDP wants more renters to be able to buy a home. The state should help with loans and grants. The tax on buying a home should also go down.

The FDP wants to make considerably more land available for construction. State-owned plots are to be used, vacant lots recorded, and the growth of cities and towns supported.

The FDP wants more land for building. The state should offer its own plots. Empty gaps between houses should be listed and built on. Cities should also be allowed to grow.

The FDP wants new high-rise buildings in tight housing markets and in neighborhoods facing particular challenges. They are meant to combine housing with education and community services and include some price-controlled apartments.

The FDP wants more high-rise buildings. They should stand where homes are scarce. The buildings should also have daycare centers and small shops. Some of the apartments should be cheap.

The FDP wants to give more support to new construction technologies and materials so that building becomes cheaper and uses fewer resources. The circular 'Cradle to Cradle' principle is also to apply to the state's own building projects.

The FDP wants to support new building methods. Building should become cheaper and use fewer raw materials. Materials should be used again later. The state should start with its own buildings.

The FDP wants building permits to be issued faster. Procedures are to run fully digitally, deadlines are to be shortened, and the state is to support municipalities that are short of staff.

The FDP wants offices to handle building applications faster. Applications should be digital. The office should check within ten days if all papers are there. The state should help towns with staff.

The FDP wants to put tenant protection rules under review and adjust them as needed. Rules it considers unnecessary are to be dropped.

The FDP wants to check the rules that protect renters. One of them is the rent brake. It limits how high a new rent can be. Rules the FDP sees as unneeded should go.

The FDP wants to keep public funding for price-controlled housing and make it more effective. Obstacles that slow the uptake of funds are to be removed and additional private investment encouraged.

The state gives money for cheap housing. The FDP wants this money to really be used for building. Obstacles should be removed. Private investors should also put more money into cheap housing.

The FDP wants to further relax building rules so that conversions, extensions and densification create more housing. In addition, standards that the party believes make construction more expensive are to be reviewed.

The FDP wants fewer rules for building. Then it is easier to extend roofs and split apartments. The many building standards should also be checked. This should make building cheaper.

The FDP wants to put more public money into building and renovating dormitories for students and apprentices. It says the supply of affordable places has fallen behind demand.

Students and apprentices need cheap rooms. The FDP wants more dorms built and old ones renewed. The state should give more money for this. It should also provide land.

The FDP wants to turn city and village centers into places where retail, housing, restaurants and culture come together. It plans another downtown initiative, simpler building law and support for retailers.

The FDP wants to bring life back to town and village centers. Shops, homes, restaurants and culture should be close together there. Empty shops should get new uses. Shops get help with selling online.

The FDP wants to extend the projects of the state initiative "Endlich ein ZUHAUSE!" (A home at last) to every county and independent city. Homeless people would be placed in permanent housing and people at risk kept from losing their homes.

Some people have no home. The FDP wants to help them everywhere in the state. A state aid program should exist in all cities and counties. Women, young people and immigrants should get help that fits them.

The FDP wants to create more childcare places together with municipalities and providers so that parents' needs are met. This is meant to make it easier to combine family and work and to strengthen early childhood education.

The FDP wants more places in daycare centers and with childminders. Towns and daycare providers should help. This should make it easier for parents to work. Children should be able to learn well from an early age.

The FDP wants to digitize daycare enrollment statewide and develop it further with municipalities and providers. Families who need a place should be offered one by the municipality instead of having to search themselves. After a birth, the youth welfare office is to send parents information on available support.

Parents should be able to sign up their child for daycare online. The town should offer families a place. Parents then no longer have to search for a long time. After a birth, the youth welfare office should send a letter about help.

The FDP wants more flexible daycare opening hours, especially more care early in the morning and in the evening. Where needed, there should also be daycare centers that look after children overnight, for instance for parents on shift work. The aim is to make it easier for mothers and fathers alike to combine family and work.

Daycare centers should be open longer and more flexibly. This applies mainly to early mornings and evenings. Some centers should also care for children overnight. That helps parents who work shifts.

The FDP wants to abolish parental fees for early childhood education step by step in the remaining kindergarten years as well. This is meant to ease the financial burden on families.

Parents often pay for daycare. Two years are already free in the state. The FDP wants to make the other years free too, step by step. Families should have more money left over.

The FDP wants to recruit more childcare staff in the short and medium term. The paid, practice-integrated training for early childhood educators is to become the main training route. Housekeeping and administrative staff are to relieve educators of other tasks.

Daycare centers need more staff. The FDP wants paid training with lots of hands-on work to be the main route. Other workers should take over office work and housekeeping. Then educators have more time for the children.

The FDP wants to expand the family centers attached to daycare facilities and broaden the advice they offer. As quickly as possible, 300 new Familiengrundschulzentren (family centers at primary schools) are to be set up statewide with permanent funding. This is meant to make education fairer.

Family centers advise and support families. The FDP wants more of them and more advice there. New centers for families should be set up at 300 primary schools. The money for them should be secure for the long term.

The FDP wants to keep supporting Kindertagespflege (home-based childminding) and open up access to pedagogical training for childminders. Everywhere in the state, there should be cover arrangements for illness, vacation and training while payments continue. Care contracts are to become more flexible.

Childminders look after children in small groups. The FDP wants to keep supporting them. They should be able to attend training courses. When they are sick or on vacation, there should be a stand-in everywhere. The money should keep coming during that time.

The FDP wants to give targeted support to private providers and company daycare centers and tie them more closely into existing structures. Bureaucratic obstacles to setting up workplace childcare facilities are to be removed.

Some daycare centers belong to private providers or companies. The FDP wants to give them targeted support. They should also get money. Companies should be able to start their own daycare more easily. There should be fewer rules for that.

The FDP wants to develop the state child protection law further and improve prevention, intervention, and support in cases of sexualized violence against children. People who work with minors are to receive regular training, and counseling services are to grow across the state.

The FDP wants to protect children better from violence and abuse. People who work with children should get regular training. Easy-to-reach counseling should exist everywhere. Children should know their rights.

The FDP wants children and adolescents to get therapeutic help quickly after sexualized violence, especially in rural areas. Court proceedings are to be more child-friendly to avoid renewed trauma.

Children who have suffered violence should get help fast. Rural areas should get more therapy services. In court, children should be questioned gently. They should not have to testify several times.

The FDP wants to expand family education and counseling and give particular support to single and separated parents. This includes more childcare, also at off-peak hours, more flexible working time and financial relief. The platform points to the financial difficulties these families face, which affect their children's opportunities.

The FDP wants to help families more. There should be more counseling for parents. Single parents should get more childcare. This includes early mornings and evenings. They should also keep more of their money.

The FDP wants to merge family benefits into a single Kinderchancengeld (child opportunity benefit). It is meant to support low- and middle-income families and reduce child poverty.

There are many different benefits for families. The FDP wants to turn them into one benefit. It is called Kinderchancengeld. It should help families with little money. Children should be able to use education offers on their own.

The FDP wants to strengthen out-of-school child and youth work and increase funding for vacation and education programs, especially for disadvantaged children. The expansion of school psychology services is also to continue because the pandemic has affected young people's mental well-being.

The FDP wants more activities for children and teens outside of school. There should be more money for vacation programs. Club memberships should also get support. This should mainly help disadvantaged children. Schools should offer more psychological counseling.

The FDP wants to create a central online portal where families can find and apply for all benefits. This is meant to reduce trips to government offices, waiting times and red tape.

Parents often have to go to an office to apply for benefits. The FDP wants one website for all family benefits. Parents can find and apply for everything there. Anyone who prefers can still go to the office in person.

The FDP wants to expand language support in early childhood education and set up a state institute for early language learning. Language gaps from the Covid period are to be recorded and made up. The plusKITAS (daycare centers with extra support for children from difficult social backgrounds) are to be strengthened considerably.

Children should learn to speak well early on. The FDP wants to found a new state institute for this. Many children learned less because of Covid. The FDP wants to make up for that with language support. Special daycare centers for disadvantaged children should get more help.

The FDP wants to introduce children to math, computer science, natural sciences and technology as early as daycare and teach them first skills in handling digital media. A 'digital daycare bonus' is to fund devices and training. Educators are to get a training concept for simple experiments.

Children should explore and experiment already in daycare. They should also learn to handle digital media well. The FDP wants to give money for devices and training. Every educator should have a digital device.

Within five years, the FDP wants to launch a statewide scholarship for at least 100,000 students at secondary schools. Talent scouts from universities are to find, advise and accompany these young people. Talent support is to get permanent funding and a legal basis.

The FDP wants a scholarship for at least 100,000 school students. A scholarship is support for gifted young people. Talent scouts should find and advise these young people. Where they come from should not matter.

The FDP wants to take the Talentschulen (specially supported schools in disadvantaged areas) beyond the pilot stage and expand them to 1,000 schools statewide. According to the platform, educational opportunity should not depend on parents' income or the neighborhood a child grows up in.

The FDP wants many more Talentschulen. These schools get extra help in poorer neighborhoods. There should be 1,000 of them across the state. Children should have good chances no matter where they live.

The FDP wants to keep the tiered school system with its different school types and its mix of public and independent schools. It rejects debates about abolishing individual school types, while calling for all types to be treated equally.

North Rhine-Westphalia has many kinds of schools. The FDP wants to keep it that way. No kind of school should be closed down. All kinds of schools should be treated equally well.

The FDP wants to keep strengthening elementary schools through its Masterplan Grundschule, focusing on reading, math and writing. It plans 3,000 social education specialists and wants to end the teacher shortage within five years by adding university places.

The FDP wants to strengthen elementary schools. Children should mainly learn reading, math and writing there. Every elementary school should get an extra social education worker. There should be more university places for future elementary teachers.

The FDP wants to implement the legal entitlement to all-day care and create at least 200,000 additional places. Binding quality standards are to apply statewide, and the federal government is to help fund this permanently.

The FDP wants more places for afternoon care at school. At least 200,000 new places should be created. All programs should follow fixed quality rules. The federal government should pay its share for the long term.

The FDP wants to support Hauptschulen, Realschulen and Sekundarschulen (non-academic-track secondary schools) with a quality drive and a special investment program. Intermediate diplomas are to gain standing and career guidance is to improve in order to secure skilled workers.

The FDP wants to strengthen the secondary schools that do not lead to the Abitur. They should get more staff and better equipment. Students should try out jobs while still at school. Job training should count as much as a university degree.

The FDP wants to expand economic education and offer economics as an advanced course everywhere. Computer science is to be put on a par with the natural sciences in the Abitur (university entrance diploma), and a nationally comparable “Deutschland-Abitur” is to be created for core subjects.

The FDP wants more economics in class. Students should also learn about stocks. Computer science should be easier to choose for the Abitur, the final school exam. The Abitur should be comparable all over Germany.

The FDP wants to create additional programs for gifted students. These include letting groups skip a grade at comprehensive schools as well, and closer cooperation between schools and universities.

The FDP wants to support gifted children better. Groups of students should be able to skip a grade at comprehensive schools too. Schools and universities should work together more. There should be more programs like the student university.

The FDP wants to gradually expand inclusive learning at mainstream schools while keeping special schools. Parents are to decide freely where their child with special needs learns; the platform treats both options as equal.

Children with special needs can learn at regular schools or at special schools. The FDP wants to strengthen both. Parents should decide which school their child attends. There should be more specialists and more advice for this.

The FDP wants to stick with in-person teaching and address the learning gaps and psychological effects of the pandemic among children and teens. Education vouchers are to be continued in order to gradually shift school funding toward the individual student.

The FDP wants schools to stay open. Children should be able to catch up on what they missed. The mental effects of the COVID period should also get attention. The FDP wants to keep using education vouchers. With a voucher, a child gets money for extra tutoring.

The FDP wants an anti-bullying campaign to better protect children and teens and to provide points of contact for those affected. Trainee teachers are to receive mandatory prevention training.

Many students are bullied at school. The FDP wants to protect them better. Students who are bullied should find places that help them. New teachers should learn how to deal with bullying and violence.

The FDP wants to resolve the teacher shortage permanently to allow smaller classes at all school types. To do so, more university places are to be created and admission restrictions for all teacher training programs removed.

There are not enough teachers, especially at elementary schools. The FDP wants more university places for future teachers. Everyone who wants to become a teacher should get a place. Then classes can become smaller.

The FDP wants every school to have fast internet, Wi-Fi and up-to-date technology, and every student and teacher to have their own device. Digital learning is to be anchored in all subjects, starting with coding in elementary school.

The FDP wants all schools to have fast internet. Every student should get their own device, such as a tablet. Parents pay a small share. Families with little money pay nothing. Children should start learning to code in elementary school.

The FDP wants a new investment program to reduce the backlog in school construction and renovation. Private school operators are to be compensated for extra space needed due to the return to the nine-year Gymnasium (G9) just as public ones are.

Many school buildings are old. The FDP wants to start a new program for school construction. It is called Gute Schule 2030. Private schools should also get money for new rooms.

The FDP seeks a new agreement with the federal government and municipalities that clearly defines responsibilities in education. The federal government is to contribute more to the costs.

The federal government, the state and the cities pay for schools together. The FDP wants new rules on who is responsible for what. The federal government should give more money for education.

The FDP wants school social work, school psychology and other specialists to be permanently established alongside teachers. School administration is also to be strengthened so teachers have more time for teaching.

Not only teachers work at schools. There are also social workers and psychologists. The FDP wants to hire more of these specialists. School offices should get more help too. Then teachers have more time for teaching.

The FDP wants more practical phases in teacher training, including a practical semester already in the bachelor's program, and an allowance for it. This is meant to reduce dropouts and keep graduates from avoiding the teaching profession.

People who want to become teachers should practice in schools earlier. There should be a practical semester in the first part of their studies. Students should get money for it. The FDP wants more students to actually become teachers later.

The FDP wants to require teachers to complete a fixed number of training hours each year. The offerings are to be coordinated statewide, supplemented digitally and opened up to private providers.

Teachers should have to take training every year. There should be a fixed number of hours for this. There should be more online courses. Private providers should also be allowed to offer courses for teachers.

The FDP wants teachers in all teaching tracks to receive the same starting pay, because it regards their training as equivalent. Chains of fixed-term contracts in schools are to be reduced and ended where possible.

Teachers at different kinds of schools earn different amounts today. The FDP wants everyone to get the same pay when they start. Teachers should less often have only temporary contracts. This should also apply to career changers.

The FDP wants to make teaching careers more flexible so that people from other professions can teach as “Praxislehrer” (practitioner teachers). In turn, trained teachers are to find it easier to leave temporarily and return later.

People from other jobs should be able to teach at schools. The FDP calls them practitioner teachers. Teachers should also be allowed to do other work for a while. Afterward they can come back to school.

The FDP wants schools to decide more for themselves on teaching, staffing and budgets. The state would focus on statewide standards, basic staffing and teacher training. The platform cites the PISA study, which it says shows that children do better at schools with more decision-making freedom.

The FDP wants to give schools more freedom. Schools should decide on teaching, staff and money themselves. The state should only set important rules for everyone. The FDP says children learn better at schools with more freedom.

The FDP wants the conference of state education ministers (KMK) to give states more freedom in shaping the school year and to rotate vacation dates among all states. North Rhine-Westphalia should be able to start summer vacation later and have a permanent Pentecost break. The platform sees the state as disadvantaged under current rules.

The German states set school vacations together. The FDP wants to change these rules. Summer vacation in North Rhine-Westphalia should be able to start later. Then a break at Pentecost is possible too. The FDP says the state is at a disadvantage today.

The FDP wants to keep supporting European and international student exchanges and school partnerships. A scholarship competition is meant to ensure that taking part does not depend on parents' income.

Students should be able to get to know other countries. The FDP wants to support exchanges and partnerships between schools. There should be scholarships. A scholarship is money for taking part. That way children from poorer families can join too.

The FDP wants to ease entry into vocational training through modular training, partial qualifications and more part-time training. Career guidance should become more youth-oriented, and open training positions should be matched better with applicants.

The FDP wants more young people to start job training. Training should be possible in parts or part-time. Career guidance at school should make young people curious about jobs. Open positions and applicants should find each other more easily.

The FDP wants to abolish school fees in all training occupations, after they were already dropped for several health professions. Every first vocational training should be possible without a financial burden. Support for continuing education and master craftsman qualifications would also grow.

Some job training programs charge school fees. The FDP wants to end these fees for all training programs. A person's first training should cost nothing. There should also be more help for further training.

The FDP wants to strengthen vocational education with an excellence initiative, digital offerings and support for gifted trainees, and to put it on par with academic education. Plans include a fully digital distance training center. Moving between vocational training and university should become easier.

The FDP wants to improve job training. Job training should count as much as a university degree. There should be a digital center for vocational school. Then trainees can learn from anywhere. Switching between job training and university should get easier.

The FDP wants to anchor digital formats that proved useful at universities during the pandemic permanently and on a sound legal basis, while keeping in-person teaching. In addition, a digital university would mainly reach people with vocational qualifications and non-traditional students.

During the pandemic, universities did a lot online. The FDP wants to keep what worked well. In-person classes should continue. There should also be a digital university. It should reach people who already have a job too.

The FDP wants to ease the transition from school to university and remove financial and psychological hurdles. BAföG (state student aid) should be applied for and processed fully digitally. Barriers for students with disabilities or chronic illness should also come down.

The FDP wants to make starting university easier. Students should be able to apply for BAföG fully online. BAföG is state money for students. People with disabilities should also be able to study more easily.

The FDP wants to turn the legally constituted student body into a voluntary one. Students would no longer become members automatically upon enrollment, but only if they actively join. The platform justifies this with more participation and control over their own study costs.

Today, students automatically belong to the student body. That is the organization that represents students. The FDP wants to change this. Students should decide for themselves whether to join. That also gives them a say over their costs.

The FDP wants to advance basic research, applied research and the transfer of knowledge into business and society. An independent institution would systematically promote knowledge transfer. More professorships would study key technologies so that the state ranks among the world's top research locations.

The FDP wants to strengthen research in the state. Knowledge from universities should reach companies and society faster. A separate institution should take care of this. There should be more professors for important new technologies.

The FDP wants more permanent positions for ongoing tasks at universities, but considers fixed-term contracts sensible during the qualification phase. Career barriers for women would be removed without additional quotas. Childcare and the tenure-track program would be expanded.

The FDP wants more permanent jobs at universities. Young researchers should still be able to have fixed-term jobs. Women should have the same chances to move up. The FDP does not want new quotas for this. There should be more childcare at universities.

The FDP wants to expand academic continuing education and open universities to working people. Digital teaching formats would be recognized and expanded, and a continuing-education fund would be tested. The aim is a more permeable education system and lifelong learning.

The FDP wants people to be able to learn all their lives. Universities should also offer courses for working people. Online courses should be recognized. A new fund should help pay for further education. A fund is a pot of money.

The FDP wants universities to be required to end external partnerships that restrict academic freedom. Cooperation with the Chinese Confucius Institutes in North Rhine-Westphalia would be critically reviewed on that basis.

Research should be free. Some university partners limit this freedom. Then universities should have to end the partnership. The FDP wants to take a close look at the Chinese Confucius Institutes in the state.

The FDP wants an "Agenda Hochschulbau" (university construction agenda) to ease investment at universities and clear the renovation backlog faster. To do so, the division of tasks among agencies, ministries and universities, which the platform sees as hampering investment, would be reorganized.

Many university buildings are old and in bad shape. The FDP wants faster building and repairs. For this, the tasks of the agencies should be divided up in a new way. Universities could also use empty buildings in city centers.

The FDP wants to bring together continuing-education courses from different providers and make them bookable on a shared online platform. A uniform certification framework is meant to ensure quality and comparability. The platform treats lifelong learning as a precondition for a self-determined life and free opinion-forming.

The FDP wants to make adult learning easier. All courses should be on one website. People can book them there. One shared certificate system should make courses easy to compare.

The FDP wants all public schools to offer Practical Philosophy as an elective alongside religious education in the long term. Within religion classes, comparing religions and teaching values are to get more room in order to foster tolerance.

The FDP wants the subject Practical Philosophy at all schools. Students can pick it instead of religion class. In religion class, students should learn more about other religions. Every student should visit a church, a mosque and a synagogue.

The FDP wants every student to visit a Nazi-era memorial site and a memorial to East German injustice during their school years. In the party's view, antisemitism is often an education problem that such visits address especially effectively.

All students should visit memorial sites. This should be required. One site should recall the Nazi era. Another should recall injustice in East Germany.

The FDP wants to expand cultural education and grow existing projects such as JeKits into a so-called 3K program. Every child would attend at least three cultural events during their school years. The party sees cultural education as a key to taking part in society.

The FDP wants every child to experience art and culture. Every child should visit at least three cultural events during school. That could be a theater or a museum, for example. This should apply to all types of schools.

The FDP wants to set up a state foundation that enables politically persecuted students from abroad to study in North Rhine-Westphalia. They are to receive a comprehensive scholarship.

In some countries young people cannot study because of their opinions. The FDP wants to help these people. A state foundation should give them money. Then they can study in NRW.

The FDP wants to make law studies in NRW more attractive and lower the dropout rate. Students are to be able to earn a Bachelor of Laws in addition to the first state examination. The two state examinations remain the requirement for becoming a judge.

The FDP wants to improve law studies in NRW. Fewer students should drop out. Students should also be able to get a bachelor's degree. The two state exams will stay.

The FDP supports the federal government's plan to allow the controlled sale of cannabis to adults. Sales are to take place in licensed stores.

The federal government wants to allow cannabis for adults. It should only be sold in special stores. These stores need a license. The FDP in NRW supports this plan.

The FDP wants to implement the reform of hospital planning on the ground. Complex treatments are to be concentrated at suitable sites, duplicate services in urban centers reduced and care in rural areas secured.

The FDP wants to reorganize hospitals. Only especially suitable hospitals should do difficult treatments. In big cities, some services exist twice. That should be reduced. Care in rural areas should stay secure.

The FDP wants to secure local health care, especially in rural areas, and create more places to study medicine for that purpose. Rural doctor programs are to be stepped up, and career changers moving into family medicine are to receive continued support.

Rural areas lack doctors. The FDP wants more places to study medicine. It wants to strengthen programs for rural doctors. In Bielefeld, students should also be able to study pharmacy.

The FDP wants to make greater use of digital tools in health care to treat patients more efficiently. This includes the Virtual Hospital, artificial intelligence in diagnosis and digital networking across all areas of care.

The FDP wants more digital technology in medicine. Computer programs should help with diagnosis. Doctors, hospitals and care services should be linked digitally. The data should be secure. Using it should stay voluntary.

The FDP wants to network local health offices digitally, make them more attractive to young doctors and relieve them of some tasks. A state health office with a rapid response team is to support local offices when needed.

The FDP wants to strengthen public health offices. The offices should work together digitally. Working there should become more attractive for young doctors. A state office should be able to help local offices quickly.

The FDP wants to expand preventive care and health promotion for all age groups so that illnesses are avoided or detected early. Waiting times for psychotherapy are also to fall, and mental illness is to be destigmatized.

The FDP wants more preventive health care. Children and teens should get extra checkups. Schools should teach more about health. Adults should go for a checkup every two years. People who need therapy should wait less.

The FDP wants to improve working conditions in the rescue services and equip them better digitally. A statewide online system is to show hospitals' free capacity in real time, and urgent care practices are to relieve emergency rooms.

The FDP wants to improve the rescue services. Staff should get better working conditions. An online system should show where hospitals have free capacity. Urgent care practices should be located right at emergency rooms.

The FDP wants to enable a self-determined and dignified death and improve hospice and palliative care. Doctors who accompany dying patients should not face the threat of punishment.

People should be able to decide for themselves at the end of life. The FDP wants better care for dying people. Doctors should be allowed to accompany the dying. There should be no punishment for this.

The FDP wants to improve working conditions in nursing care to counter staff shortages. Less red tape, better pay, digital technology, more training places and recruiting professionals from abroad are meant to help.

Nursing care lacks skilled workers. The FDP wants to make the job more attractive. Technology and robots should make the work easier. There should be more training places. Care workers from abroad should come too.

The FDP wants to consistently deport criminal offenders and people deemed security threats who have no grounds for protection, while securing permanent residency for well-integrated people with tolerated status. Legal routes for immigration are to be opened and irregular migration stopped.

The FDP wants to deport offenders who have no right to protection. People who are well integrated and work should be allowed to stay. There should be more legal ways to come to Germany. The FDP wants to stop unregulated immigration.

The FDP wants to simplify immigration for skilled workers in order to address labor shortages. This includes a Blue Card for non-academic skilled workers as well, a points system with a Chancenkarte (opportunity card), and easier naturalization with multiple citizenship.

North Rhine-Westphalia lacks skilled workers. The FDP wants more skilled workers from abroad to be able to come. There should be a points system for this. Immigrants should also become citizens more easily and may keep two passports.

The FDP wants to continue and expand the state's existing integration policy. People with an immigrant background are to receive tailored services, and the civil service is to open up interculturally.

The FDP wants to give better support to people with immigrant roots. Local offices should work closely together for this. There should be special offers for women and for founders. Public service jobs should be more open to immigrants.

The FDP wants more women in leadership positions in companies and the public sector and wants shared leadership to become normal. Training and careers outside traditional gender roles would be promoted. Family time would be better recognized and returning to work made easier.

The FDP wants more women as bosses. Two people should be able to share one leadership job. Girls and boys should choose jobs freely, even unusual ones. People who cared for children should get back into work more easily.

The FDP wants to expand structures for women founders and make North Rhine-Westphalia the leading German state for female entrepreneurship. Networks, new event formats and more seed capital are meant to help.

The FDP wants more women to start companies. A network across the state should help. New events should encourage women. More investors should give women founders starting money.

The FDP wants to replace the state's gender equality act with a diversity act that covers disadvantages faced by all genders. The current quota rule is to give way to binding self-commitments.

The FDP wants a new law on equality. It should apply to women, men and non-binary people. The fixed quota should go. Instead, public bodies should commit themselves to diversity.

The FDP wants to achieve full equality for LGBTIQ* people and rainbow families and to expand counseling and anti-discrimination projects. Police and the justice system are to get better at recognizing and prosecuting anti-queer crimes.

The FDP wants equal rights for queer people. There should be more counseling, mainly in rural areas. Police and courts should spot hate crimes against queer people better. The FDP also backs a federal self-determination law.

The FDP wants to expand civic education on Judaism and antisemitism and make the post of antisemitism commissioner permanent. Jewish institutions are to remain protected.

The FDP wants to fight hatred of Jews. Schools should teach more about Jewish life. There should always be a commissioner against antisemitism. Jewish sites should stay guarded.

The FDP wants to pull together and expand the state's work against discrimination in a new strategy. It opposes racism and group-based hostility and wants more democracy education for everyone living in the state.

The FDP wants a new plan against discrimination. Discrimination means treating people unfairly, for example because of where they come from. The state should do more against it. Everyone should learn more about democracy.

The FDP wants to make support structures for domestic violence crisis-proof. Plans include a coordination office for an overall strategy, an online register of available women's shelter places, and more shelters. Emergency shelter places are also to be created for men.

The FDP wants to protect people better from violence at home. There should be more places in women's shelters. An online list should show free places. Men should get shelter places too. A new office should plan all of this.

The FDP commits to greenhouse gas neutrality for the state by 2045 and wants to get there through research, new technologies and a technology-neutral approach. It rejects climate protection based on sacrifice; climate protection and growth are meant to go together.

NRW should be climate neutral by 2045. That means the state no longer harms the climate. The FDP wants to do this with new technology. It does not want people to have to give things up.

The FDP wants to extend emissions trading to all sectors and as many countries as possible. It considers this the most effective and also the cheapest tool for meeting climate targets.

Anyone who emits CO2 needs certificates for it. This is called emissions trading. The FDP wants to extend this trading to all areas. This should bring CO2 emissions down.

The FDP wants to cut the electricity tax to the minimum allowed in the EU and replace subsidies under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) with a market model. This is meant to offset the added costs of climate protection and relieve people on low incomes.

Climate protection makes some things cost more. So the FDP wants to cut the tax on electricity sharply. Support for green power should also work differently. People with little money should pay less.

The FDP wants an energy supply that is reliable, environmentally friendly and competitively priced. To that end, large power plants are to switch from coal to gas in the short term, grids for electricity, gas and heat are to be expanded quickly, and storage is to be promoted.

The FDP wants safe and clean energy at good prices. Power plants should use gas instead of coal for now. The networks for power, gas and heat should grow quickly. There should be more ways to store energy.

The FDP considers a faster exit from coal-fired power necessary, ideally by 2030. It wants to reach climate neutrality through competitive solutions rather than coercion. State-owned enterprises are to lead by example.

The FDP wants to stop using coal sooner. Ideally this should happen by 2030. The FDP does not want to force people. It relies on competition and new technology. State-owned companies should set an example.

The FDP wants more than 55 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030. Wind energy expansion is to double and photovoltaics to at least triple. To achieve this, permits are to be sped up and new areas opened for use.

The FDP wants much more power from wind and sun. By 2030, more than half of all power should come from them. Permits should be faster. Solar panels should also go on building walls and over highways.

The FDP wants to push the build-up of a hydrogen economy and make North Rhine-Westphalia the leading model region. For the ramp-up, hydrogen from any production method is to be used, including hydrogen from natural gas for a transitional period. It also calls for a European Hydrogen Union.

Hydrogen is a gas that can store energy. The FDP wants the state to be a model for hydrogen. At first, every type of hydrogen should be allowed. Later it should mostly come from wind and solar power. Europe should work together on this.

The FDP wants to advance the digitization of the energy transition and cut red tape to do so. Installing smart meters is to become easier, and more is to be invested in smart grids. Consumers should be able to both produce and use electricity.

The FDP wants to make the energy system digital. Smart power meters should be easier to install. People should be able to make and use their own power. Electric cars should store power and give it back. The data must stay safe.

The FDP wants to promote a circular economy that goes beyond today's recycling and plans for reuse already at the product design stage. It justifies this with rising material prices as well as climate protection and security of raw material supply.

The FDP wants companies to use materials more than once. Reuse should be planned when a product is designed. This protects the climate. It also makes raw materials safer and more affordable.

The FDP wants to review technical flood protection and create more areas where water can spread out. Warning systems should also work during power outages.

Heavy rain can cause floods. The FDP wants more land where water has room. Warning people should work even without electricity. The federal government and the states should cooperate better in emergencies.

The FDP wants to introduce certificate trading through which municipalities trade rights to designate building land. Compensation measures for land use are to be better coordinated, and brownfield sites made usable again.

Land is scarce. The FDP wants certificates for new building land. Cities and towns can trade them with each other. Old industrial sites should be used again.

The FDP wants to improve air quality through new drive systems, more greenery and smart traffic systems. Limit values are to be reviewed scientifically on a regular basis, and measuring stations are to deliver reliable readings.

The air should get cleaner. The FDP relies on new kinds of engines for vehicles. More greenery should help too. Experts should check the pollution limits regularly.

The FDP wants more reforestation, protection of existing forests and rewetting of peatlands. Such natural carbon sinks are to be included in emissions trading so that preserving them pays off.

Forests and peatlands store CO2. The FDP wants to plant more trees and protect forests. Dried-out peatlands should become wet again. Those who create such stores should gain from emissions trading.

The FDP wants to improve existing nature reserves before designating new ones. It rejects national parks created against the wishes of local residents, in particular one in the Senne region. There it favors a shared land-use plan instead.

The FDP wants to improve nature reserves that already exist. This should come before creating new ones. The FDP does not want a national park in the Senne region. Instead, everyone involved should agree on a shared plan.

The FDP wants to support forest owners and the forestry sector with reforestation and pest control so that forests recover from drought, storms and bark beetles. Agriculture and forestry are to be included in the EU emissions trading system. Citizens should be able to take part, for example through community forests.

Many forests were damaged by drought, storms and beetles. The FDP wants to help forest owners. New trees should be planted. Forests should become part of emissions trading. That is a market for permits to emit greenhouse gases.

The FDP wants to prepare large cities for summer heat by expanding water features and green spaces. This includes storing water under the sponge-city approach as well as green roofs and facades. Municipalities are to receive support for this.

Big cities get very hot in summer. The FDP wants more water and more green space in cities. Cities should store rainwater. Roofs and walls should get plants too. The state should help cities do this.

The FDP wants to strengthen the circular economy and favors recycling over product bans. Plastics recycling is to be expanded, including through chemical processes. Collection containers for small electrical devices and metals are to be set up statewide.

The FDP wants waste to become new raw materials. It does not want to ban products. Instead, more should be recycled. There should be containers for recyclables all over the state. People can drop off small electrical devices and metal there.

The FDP wants to give farms more economic independence and long-term planning certainty. Investments are to be written off more quickly. Research into and use of digital technology in farming are to get better conditions.

Farmers plan for many years. The FDP wants to give them reliable rules. Farmers should be able to deduct spending on new things from taxes faster. Farms should use more digital technology. Farm research should grow too.

The FDP wants to include agriculture in trading with CO2 certificates. Research on cutting emissions is to be brought to market. In addition, growing soy in Germany is to be researched more intensively.

The FDP wants farming to take part in CO2 trading. New ideas from research should be put into practice. One example is different feed for cattle. Growing soy in Germany should be studied too.

The FDP wants to protect livestock grazers and demands that the states be allowed to manage wolf populations differently by region. Wolves that repeatedly kill grazing animals should be removable quickly and with legal certainty. It considers the current strict protection, which does not single out such animals, to be wrong.

Wolves kill more and more sheep and other grazing animals. The FDP wants to help the animals' owners. The states should decide for themselves how to deal with wolves. Wolves that kill many animals may be killed.

The FDP wants a uniform animal welfare label across the EU and Europe-wide origin labeling for meat and milk. It rejects additional national requirements for farmers. Farms are to be supported in improving animal welfare, for example through faster permits for open barns.

The FDP wants one animal welfare label for all of Europe. Meat and milk should show where they come from. German farmers should not get extra rules. Farmers who want to build open barns should get permits faster.

The FDP wants North Rhine-Westphalia to remain Germany's leading logistics location. To that end, ports are to be expanded as hubs and a logistics strategy drawn up for the state. This is meant to strengthen supply chains and secure supplies for industry.

The FDP wants to strengthen goods transport in the state. The ports should grow. Ships, trains and trucks meet there. The state should make a plan for logistics. Logistics means storing and moving goods.

The FDP wants to keep investing in maintaining and expanding the road network and to strengthen all modes of transport equally. Climate-neutral road mobility is to be reached in a technology-neutral way and without bans, including through more charging infrastructure.

The FDP wants to repair roads and build new ones. Road works should cause fewer delays. There should be more charging points for electric cars, also in rural areas. The party does not want bans on certain vehicles.

The FDP wants to make regional rail more reliable and expand capacity for commuters and freight. This includes upgrade projects, a review of reopening disused lines, and rebuilding the Eifel line.

The FDP wants trains to run more reliably. There should be more room on the tracks for people and goods. Old lines may be used again. The Eifel line should be rebuilt quickly after the flood.

The FDP wants to move more freight from roads to rivers and canals and to draw up a state waterways strategy for this purpose. It justifies this with climate protection and less congestion.

The FDP wants more goods to travel by ship. Then fewer trucks drive on the roads. This should help the climate and prevent traffic jams. The state should make a plan for rivers and canals.

The FDP wants to keep investment in bike paths at the level reached and create a statewide network. It is to connect all larger cities and link regional routes with municipal ones.

The FDP wants to build more bike paths. A network should connect all larger cities. There should also be more bike parking. The party welcomes e-scooters.

The FDP wants to preserve the state's regional airports and night flights at Cologne. At the same time, noise protection for residents is to be expanded, and air taxis are to become a regular service within five years.

The FDP wants to keep the small airports in the state. Planes should still be allowed to fly at night in Cologne. In return, there should be less noise for neighbors. Air taxis should fly regularly in five years.

The FDP wants to redesign local public transit around the customer: one uniform fare system statewide, digital access by app, and on-demand services everywhere, especially in rural areas. The structure of the transit associations is to be reviewed and the ride-service market opened to more competition.

The FDP wants to make buses and trains simpler to use. One fare system should apply in the whole state. People should be able to board anywhere with a phone app. In rural areas, buses should come when ordered. This is called on-demand.

The FDP wants infrastructure projects to be planned and approved faster, especially major rail projects and bridge replacements such as on the A45 autobahn. To that end, red tape is to be cut and the right to sue tied to raising objections early.

The FDP wants roads, bridges, and rail lines to be built faster. There should be less red tape. People who want to sue should have to raise objections early. The A45 bridge should be rebuilt especially fast.

The FDP wants full recognition of esports and to classify it legally as a charitable (nonprofit) purpose. Clubs should also be able to use digital tools to simplify their administration.

Esports means competing in computer games. The FDP wants to treat esports as a nonprofit activity. Clubs then get advantages for it. Clubs should also be able to run their paperwork digitally.

The FDP wants to designate selected regions as digital freedom zones with especially favorable conditions. This is meant to encourage new clusters in technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. Existing clusters are to be expanded and linked through an innovation and transformation agency.

The FDP wants special regions for digital technology. It calls them digital freedom zones. Conditions there should be especially good. Companies and researchers should work closely together there. An agency should connect everything.

The FDP wants to introduce electronic case files at all courts and prosecutors' offices and expand video hearings. Artificial intelligence and legal tech are to support the justice system, while final decisions stay with humans.

Courts should work with digital files instead of paper. Hearings should be possible by video more often. Computer programs should help the justice system with its work. But in the end, people still decide.

The FDP wants a digital-first principle for all public administration services. Every contact with an agency should also be possible online, and a digital citizen portal should bundle access.

The FDP wants people to be able to do all government paperwork online. There should be a right to this. People should rarely have to go to an office in person. An online portal for citizens should help with this.

Citizens and businesses should have to submit standard data to public agencies only once. The FDP wants to prevent digitalization from becoming a burden through repeated data entry.

The FDP wants to introduce a guarantee. People should give their data to the government only once. After that, agencies should share the data with each other. This should save time and paperwork.

The FDP wants to use blockchain, artificial intelligence and large cloud services in public administration. A hyperscaler data center should be located in North Rhine-Westphalia and serve as the central hub of the nationwide government cloud.

The FDP wants to use new technology in government offices. This includes artificial intelligence and blockchain. A very large data center should come to North Rhine-Westphalia. Government data should be stored safely there.

The FDP wants to regulate how public agencies handle data they collect with drones. Rules on storage and deletion are meant to protect personal data and privacy.

Government agencies sometimes use drones with cameras. They may film people while doing so. The FDP wants rules for this. The rules should say how long data is kept and when it is deleted.

The FDP wants effective data protection for private individuals and businesses and more awareness of it in society. At the same time, data protection rules from the analog era should not hinder digital services.

The FDP wants to protect private data well. This applies to people and to companies. But the rules should not block new digital services. Each person should decide about their own data.

The FDP wants to make digital solutions from the model regions and central state services available to every city and town. Municipalities should be able to keep using online services on state portals free of charge after 2022.

Some regions have tested new digital services. The FDP wants to bring these services to all cities and towns. Towns should keep using the state's online services for free. By 2025, everyone should notice the digital administration.

The FDP wants to go beyond mere online access and supports a federal law on fully digital processing of government services. With artificial intelligence, services are to be delivered entirely automatically.

Today people can file some applications online. The FDP wants more: the office should handle the whole process digitally. Computers should do many tasks on their own. Staff then have time for other work.

The FDP wants to merge the fragmented landscape of public IT providers in North Rhine-Westphalia into one overall solution. A cross-ministry digital agency is meant to expand the digital check for new legislation.

North Rhine-Westphalia has many different public IT providers. The FDP wants to bring them together better. A new digital agency should advise the ministries. The ministries must use this advice.

The FDP wants to complete the gigabit broadband rollout in every part of the state by 2025 and close remaining gaps in mobile coverage. The aim is equal access and an end to locational disadvantages for rural areas.

The FDP wants fast internet everywhere in the state. The rollout should be finished by 2025. Cell phone coverage should also work well everywhere. This should help villages and rural businesses most.

The FDP wants to strengthen programs that help people leave extremist structures. Such services should also reach people in clan crime and the Querdenker (COVID-skeptic) scene who have so far been out of reach for state agencies.

Some people end up in extreme groups. Getting out is often hard. The FDP wants to strengthen programs that help with this. This should also cover criminal clans and the Querdenker scene.

The FDP wants security policy not to come at the expense of the fundamental rights of law-abiding citizens. It rejects the Staatstrojaner, meaning government spyware on private devices. At the same time, it wants a state under the rule of law that acts firmly against extremism, terrorism and organized crime.

The FDP wants to protect safety and freedom together. The state should not spy on innocent people. The FDP rejects the Staatstrojaner. That is government spy software for phones and computers. Still, the state should act firmly against criminals.

The FDP wants to raise annual police hiring to 3,000, provided there are enough suitable applicants. This is meant to ease the heavy workload on officers. In addition, dropout rates in police training are to be lowered and a teaching bonus introduced for officers who train recruits.

The police in the state have a lot of work. The FDP wants to hire 3,000 new officers every year. This applies if there are enough good applicants. Fewer people should drop out of police studies. Officers who train young colleagues should get extra pay.

The FDP wants to keep police recruit numbers high and bring more specialists and career changers into the force. It points to rising professional demands on the police. It also wants to make specialization and promotion within the police easier.

The FDP wants to train many new police officers. Experts from other jobs should be able to join the police too. Officers should find it easier to specialize. Moving up in the police should become simpler.

The FDP wants to make the office of the Polizeibeauftragte (police commissioner) more independent and have the state parliament fill it in the future. The police complaints system is to be developed further. The party backs rotating ID markings for officers in closed units only under one condition.

The police have a commissioner. Police officers can turn to this person. The FDP wants the state parliament to elect this person. Complaints from citizens should also be handled better.

The FDP wants to improve lifetime working-time accounts for police, fire, and rescue services and modernize the system of allowances. It sees this as a sign of appreciation and a way to make public service more attractive.

Emergency workers do a lot of overtime. The FDP wants these hours saved in an account. Extra pay should also be brought up to date. This applies to police, fire, and rescue services.

The FDP wants to examine where tasks of the county police authorities can be pooled without reducing the police on the ground. The minimum number of officers in rural counties is to rise.

The FDP wants the police to be visible in the countryside too. Rural counties should get more police officers. Some tasks should be handled together in one place. But local police should not shrink.

The FDP wants to speed up the digitization of police work and train officers broadly for it. Digital processes are meant to cut paperwork and free up staff for duty on the ground. More technology and personnel are planned for law enforcement online.

The police should get modern computers and digital tools. That means less paperwork. Officers then have more time for work on the street. The police should also get stronger against crime on the internet.

The FDP wants to equip all county police authorities in NRW with tasers right away. It points out that, based on experience so far, attacks on officers drop sharply through the deterrent effect alone.

A taser is a device that stops people with electric shocks. The FDP wants police all over NRW to get tasers. This should happen right away. The FDP says officers are then attacked less often.

The FDP wants to continue the cross-agency approach against organized crime and criminal clans and combine it with prevention. Financial investigations are to be strengthened so that assets of unexplained origin can be confiscated.

The FDP wants to keep cracking down on criminal gangs and clans. Many agencies should work together. Children should be protected from these groups. Investigators should look more closely at the criminals' money.

The FDP wants to step up both prevention and prosecution of extremism and politically motivated violence. Studies of unreported crime are meant to capture such offenses better. Extremism in public service is to be pursued consistently without placing the police under blanket suspicion.

The FDP wants to do more against extremism, racism, and hatred of Jews. Studies should show how many such crimes really happen. Police and courts should learn more about hatred of Jews. Right-wing extremists in the police should be pursued.

The FDP wants a fundamental review of how federal and state security agencies cooperate against terrorism and extremism, and wants a third federalism commission set up for this. The counter-terrorism database is to be shut down because the party considers it unsuccessful.

Germany has up to 40 security agencies. The FDP wants to check how well they work together. A commission of the federal and state governments should do this. The FDP wants to shut down the counter-terrorism database.

The FDP wants to strengthen the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence service) in NRW through redesigned training and more experts. At the same time, a parliamentary commissioner for the service is to improve oversight by the state parliament without limiting the agency's ability to work.

The domestic intelligence service watches extremists. The FDP wants to train its staff better. There should be a special degree program for this. The state parliament should be able to check the service better. A special commissioner should help with that.

The FDP calls on the federal government to carry out a full review of gun law. In its view, the latest tightening burdened legal gun owners such as hunters and sport shooters with needless red tape. People deemed dangerous and extremists should not be allowed to have guns.

The FDP wants the federal government to rework gun law. Hunters and sport shooters should face less red tape. Extremists and dangerous people should not own guns. Agencies should share data better for this.

The FDP wants to train and equip municipal public order services better and expand cooperation with the police across the state. The services are to be available at night and on weekends as well.

Cities and towns have their own public order services. The FDP wants to train and equip them better. They should work more closely with the police. They should also be on duty at night and on weekends.

The FDP wants to put disaster protection on a broader footing because it expects more floods and wildfires as well as risks from hazardous substances and attacks on critical infrastructure. Volunteer work in fire brigades and aid organizations is to be strengthened.

The FDP wants the state to be better prepared for disasters. These include floods and wildfires. Warnings to the public should get better. Volunteers in the fire brigade should get more support.

The FDP wants to replace the term "child pornography" in the Criminal Code because, in its view, the word trivializes abuse. It also wants to expand prevention services for people with pedophilic tendencies.

The law uses the term "child pornography." The FDP thinks this term sounds too harmless. It wants a different term in the law. It also wants more help for people with pedophilic tendencies. This should stop crimes before they happen.

Violence against public sector employees should be consistently prosecuted in every office. Those affected should be able to demand that their employer file a criminal complaint on their behalf.

Some people attack or insult government employees. The FDP wants such acts to always be prosecuted. The employer should file the complaint if the employee wishes. Those affected should not have to give their home address.

The FDP wants to substantially roll back the restrictions on so-called silent holidays. Leaving a church is to become possible digitally and free of charge.

On some holidays, dance events are banned. The FDP wants to loosen this ban a lot. People who leave the church should be able to do it online. Leaving should no longer cost money.

The FDP wants 16-year-olds to vote in state elections and to be able to run in local elections. It argues that young people already bear responsibility, work and pay taxes. Children and teenagers are also to get binding participation rights in municipalities and at state level.

The FDP wants to lower the voting age. At 16, people should be allowed to vote for the state parliament. At 16, they should also be able to run for the city council. Children and teenagers should have more say in their town.

The FDP wants a review of whether state structures meet today's demands and will propose a cross-party commission at the state parliament. The goal is a comprehensive modernization of public administration. This includes reallocating responsibilities among the state, district governments, counties and municipalities.

The FDP wants to review how the state works. A group from all parties should do this in the state parliament. It should check whether offices work well and in a modern way. After that, tasks should be divided up anew.

The FDP wants to cut the number of districts in state elections from 127 to 90 or 91. This is meant to make overhang and compensatory seats less likely and keep parliament workable.

The FDP wants fewer election districts for state elections. Instead of 127, there should be only 90 or 91. That way the state parliament does not grow too large. The new parliament should deal with this soon.

The FDP wants a waiting period before members of parliament, state secretaries and ministers can become judges on the state constitutional court. This is meant to safeguard judicial independence and the separation of powers.

Politicians should not become constitutional judges right away. The FDP wants a waiting period for this. Judges should not rule on matters they were involved in themselves. This keeps courts independent.

The FDP wants to give the justice system more staff, renovate its buildings, and continue the federal-state Pakt für den Rechtsstaat (pact for the rule of law) for this purpose. Jobs in the justice system are to become more attractive through better pay, and legal trainees are to be civil servants again.

The FDP wants more staff for courts and prosecutors. Justice buildings should be renovated. Pay should get better. That way more young people should want to work in the justice system.

The FDP wants to cut the length of criminal and civil proceedings substantially by equipping the justice system better. For young offenders in particular, punishment is to follow quickly after the offense. In prisons, more treatment is meant to lower reoffending rates.

Court cases should go faster. The FDP finds this especially important for young people. They should see the link between crime and punishment. Prisons should offer more help to stop reoffending.

English should become a second administrative language in the state's public agencies. The FDP wants this to make the state more attractive for founders and for internationally active companies.

The FDP wants government offices to use English as well. This should help people and companies from abroad. They should be able to deal with offices more easily. This way more companies should come to North Rhine-Westphalia.

The FDP wants to reform pay and service law in the public sector and tie advancement more closely to performance. Moving between public administration and the private sector should become easier in both directions.

The FDP wants to change the rules for government employees. People who do good work should move up faster and earn more. Switching between a government job and a company should be easier. Employees should also be able to do internships in companies.

The FDP wants to make volunteer work on city and county councils more flexible and digital. Digital meetings are to be possible in certain cases, but in-person meetings remain the norm.

Many people serve on city councils as volunteers. The FDP wants to make this work easier. Some meetings should be allowed online. Meetings should end on time and start at suitable hours.

The FDP wants to introduce a two-vote system for local elections. Mayors and county executives are to be elected by ranked-choice voting with a built-in runoff in order to strengthen their legitimacy.

In elections for city and county councils, everyone should have two votes. That is already the case in federal elections. When electing mayors, voters should rank the candidates. Then no second election is needed.

The FDP wants to turn the cooperation with Belgium and the Netherlands that arose during the Covid pandemic into a permanent "Borderless EU" task force. It is to identify obstacles at the border and propose ways to remove them.

NRW works with Belgium and the Netherlands. The FDP wants to make this a permanent working group. The group should find problems at the border. Then it suggests solutions.

The FDP wants to increase and permanently secure funding for the German-Dutch youth exchange organization. Ties with the United Kingdom are to grow closer despite Brexit, including through a German-British youth exchange organization.

Young people should get to know other countries. The FDP wants more support for exchange with the Netherlands. There should also be more exchange with the UK. A new youth organization should be set up for that.

The FDP wants to push at the federal and EU level for member states that seriously violate the rule of law to automatically receive less EU money. Those who benefit from membership must share its basic principles, the party argues.

The EU has rules about the rule of law. Some countries do not follow them. The FDP wants these countries to get less EU money automatically.

The FDP wants to expand North Rhine-Westphalia's partnerships with Ghana, Israel and European regions. Town twinning arrangements are also to receive advice and project funding.

NRW has partners in other countries. These include Ghana and Israel. The FDP wants to work more closely with these partners. Partnerships between cities should also get help.

The FDP wants to update the state media law for the digital age so that publishers and private radio stations get more room to operate. This is meant to keep local journalism financially viable. The party opposes extensive media offerings run by cities and counties.

The FDP wants to change the rules for private media. Newspaper publishers should find it easier to offer radio and TV. Local radio stations should be able to earn money more easily. Cities should not run large media services themselves.

The FDP wants a fundamental reform of public broadcasting, limiting it to a few channels with a clear profile. News, education and culture should take priority, while expensive entertainment should be cut back. The party expects this to hold down the broadcasting fee.

The FDP wants to make public broadcasters smaller. There should be fewer channels. They should mainly inform and educate. There should be fewer expensive shows. This should keep the broadcasting fee from rising so much.

The FDP wants journalistic work to be eligible for nonprofit status. Nonprofit investigative projects and local press outlets could then fund themselves through donations. The party also wants to support training and networking for young journalists.

The FDP wants journalism to count as nonprofit work. Nonprofit means the work serves everyone and gets tax benefits. Then projects that do not seek profit can get donations more easily. Young journalists should also get more help with training.

The FDP wants to keep promoting media literacy across all age groups to counter fake news, hate messages and conspiracy theories. Existing projects are to be expanded, with a particular focus on schools.

The FDP wants people to handle media better. That way they can spot false news more easily. Good projects on this should grow. Schools matter most to the FDP here. Students should be able to make their own papers and blogs.

The FDP wants to keep increasing the state's culture budget, by 20 million euros every year. This is meant to strengthen the breadth and diversity of the cultural scene, from theaters and museums to independent artists.

The FDP wants to spend more money on culture. Every year, 20 million euros should be added. The money should help theaters, museums and independent artists. Clubs and amateur culture should benefit too.

The FDP wants to create a state fund to preserve and strengthen cultural venues in rural areas. Local initiatives would receive money to renovate, reopen or keep running venues such as small stages or art-house cinemas. The "Dritte Orte" (third places) program is also to be strengthened.

The FDP wants to strengthen culture in the countryside. The state should set up a new fund for this. Local groups can use it to save small stages or cinemas. The state works together with towns and cities on this.

The FDP wants to tie public arts funding to fair fees being paid in the funded projects. The platform points to often difficult financial conditions in the independent scene. At the same time, artists' entrepreneurial mindset is to be strengthened.

Many independent artists earn little. The FDP wants to change that. State money should only go to projects that pay fairly. Art students should also learn how to work as entrepreneurs.

The FDP wants balanced funding for elite and grassroots sports and secure financing for the state sports federation. North Rhine-Westphalia should keep hosting major sporting events, and the party views a later Olympic bid favorably.

The FDP wants to support sports in NRW. Top-level sports and sports for everyone should both get money. NRW should host big sports events. The FDP also likes the idea of an Olympic bid.

The FDP wants to ensure protection from physical and psychological violence in sports. Measures against sexualized violence, bullying, discrimination and racism are to remain part of the state's sports plan.

There is sometimes violence and exclusion in sports. The FDP wants to protect children and young people from this. Clubs should treat people with care. The state should keep helping with that.

The FDP wants every child to be a safe swimmer by the end of elementary school and plans a "Year of Swimming." It also wants to roll out the "Sportplatz Kommune" program statewide to counter physical deficits in children.

Many children cannot swim well. The FDP wants to change that. Every child should swim safely after elementary school. Children should also move more in general.

The FDP wants to evaluate the state program "Moderne Sportstätte 2022" and keep renovating and expanding sports facilities. Swimming pools are a particular focus.

The FDP wants to keep renewing sports facilities. The state should check what the current program has achieved. Swimming pools above all should get better.

The FDP wants to cut food waste by informing consumers and creating incentives for supermarkets and restaurants. Nutrition education is to begin in early childhood education and increase appreciation for food.

A lot of food ends up in the trash in Germany. The FDP wants to inform people better. One example is what the best-before date means. Supermarkets and restaurants should get incentives. Children should learn early about healthy food.

The FDP wants to relax burial law. It wants to examine whether urns may in future be buried on private property, and private operators should be allowed to run cemeteries.

The FDP wants to relax the rules for burials. It wants to check whether urns may be buried on private land. Private companies should also be allowed to run cemeteries.

The FDP wants to expand digital counseling by consumer advice centers and strengthen debt counseling in municipalities. It relies on information and advice rather than paternalism.

The FDP wants more online advice for consumers. People should get an appointment faster. People with debts should also get better help. The FDP wants to inform people, not tell them what to do.