Grüne on democracy and the state

The Greens want to preserve places where people meet, such as town centers, village pubs, clubs and volunteer fire departments. In the platform's view, democracy needs exchange and debate among people with different opinions.

The Greens want to keep meeting places in the state. These include town centers, village pubs and sports clubs. People with different opinions meet there. The party says this is important for democracy.

The platform lists lively town centers, the village pub, sports clubs, citizens' initiatives and the volunteer fire department as such places. People meet neighbors there who think differently. Cem Özdemir pledges to look after keeping these places alive. The platform also stresses that an especially large number of people in the state do volunteer work.

The Greens want to make public administration simpler, more digital and faster, and to place responsibility for this with the state premier. Local authorities are to get more discretion, while paperwork and inspections are to be reduced.

The Greens want government offices to be faster and simpler. The head of government should take care of this himself. There should be one login for all online services. Citizens and companies should need fewer documents. Offices should only do spot checks.

The goal is to make the state the most modern and most digital in Germany. Plans include a single login for all online services, fully digital applications, pre-filled forms and automated standard decisions. Duplicate structures, repeated reviews and parallel processes are to end, with responsibilities clearly assigned. Self-declarations are to replace supporting documents, and risk-based spot checks are to replace blanket inspections. Local authorities are to decide pragmatically with considerably more leeway.

The Greens want to keep removing unnecessary rules, simplifying procedures and clarifying responsibilities. Rules that ensure fair procedures and protect health and the climate are to remain.

The Greens want fewer unnecessary rules. Procedures in government offices should become simpler. Rules for health and climate should stay. Associations and towns should have a say.

The platform sees the Entlastungsallianz (relief alliance) and the Regelungsbefreiungsgesetz (an act allowing exemptions from rules) as a first step. The process is to continue with municipal umbrella organizations, unions, and business and conservation groups. The platform names accumulated reporting duties, duplicate responsibilities and unclear accountability as problems. Practical experience is to be brought in deliberately.

The Greens want to make the state a more attractive employer with a staffing strategy for 2040. According to the platform, the background is demographic change, which means fewer employees have to shoulder more tasks.

The state needs good workers in its offices. The Greens want to make these jobs more attractive. Working hours should become more flexible. People from other jobs should be able to join too.

Plans include flexible working-time models and a better balance of family and work, also for municipal employees. The universities of public administration are to grow and open up to varied career paths. Lateral entry and career development prospects are to open new routes into public service. The party wants to counter workplace discrimination and points to the Charta der Vielfalt (diversity charter).

The Greens want to set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry on volunteering to find ways of better combining civic engagement with work and family. The Ehrenamtskarte (volunteer card) is to continue and be extended to more fields and offers.

Many people volunteer in clubs. The Greens want to make this easier. A commission in the state parliament is to collect ideas. The volunteer card will stay and offer more benefits.

The commission is to involve all groups in society. The volunteering initiative is to continue with a focus on older people, and seniors' councils in municipalities are to be supported. Training is planned for volunteer local politicians, and violence prevention measures for clubs. Digital engagement such as open-source development or contributions to online encyclopedias is also to be taken into account. Immigrants are to find it easier to volunteer, and nonprofit and cooperative initiatives are to face less red tape.

The Greens want to keep funding the contact point for threatened officeholders at the State Office of Criminal Investigation. Digital municipal council meetings are to be expanded so that more people can get involved in local politics.

Some local politicians are threatened. An office at the police helps them day and night. The Greens want to keep paying for this office. Local councils should be able to meet online more often.

The central contact point, ZAMAT, offers full-time and volunteer local politicians police, legal and psychosocial support. The platform justifies this by noting that many people active in local politics are insulted, threatened or attacked. Municipalities are to be able to publish recorded digital council meetings on a state-run Fediverse platform.

The Greens want to create a statewide body that gives young people a binding role in political decisions. Youth associations and mobile and open child and youth work are to be strengthened.

Young people should have a say in politics. The Greens want a new youth body for the whole state. It is a fixed group that gives advice. Youth centers and youth groups should also get more support.

The state youth advisory council at the Ministry of Education is to be developed further, and the state government is to commit to responding to its findings. Laws affecting children and young people are to go through practical checks and participation formats. Youth councils in the counties are to move from pilot project to statewide fixture, and the Masterplan Jugend (youth master plan) is to continue. According to the platform, professionals who work against the far right should not be hindered by demands for neutrality. In rural areas, clubs, youth centers and mobile services are to be strengthened.

The Greens want to continue their "policy of being heard" and make local and statewide citizens' initiatives more flexible. Referendums are also to be possible at county level. Mayors would no longer be allowed to sit on county councils.

People should have more say. Citizens' votes should become easier. Counties should also hold such votes. Mayors should no longer sit on county councils.

Important laws and government projects are to keep being prepared with citizens' forums and other consultation formats. Dialogue-based participation and direct democracy are to be linked more closely, and local referendums should allow votes on alternative proposals. The platform sees a mayor's seat on the county council as hard to reconcile with heading a municipal administration. At the federal level, the Greens want political information to be allowed in every mailbox.

The Greens want to develop the state freedom of information act into a transparency law. A state transparency portal is meant to ease the load on administrations and strengthen public trust in government.

Public offices should show more openly what they do. A new law should make this happen. The state should build a website for public information. This should help people trust the state.

The platform promises more transparency in local and state administration in the next legislative term. A statewide transparency portal is meant to cut the workload for municipalities. Automated solutions are to be tested in pilot projects first.

The Greens call right-wing extremism the greatest danger to democracy. They want to disarm the scene, break up its structures and advocate proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court to ban the AfD.

The Greens see right-wing extremism as the biggest danger to democracy. Right-wing extremists should have no weapons. Their groups should be broken up. A court should check whether the AfD gets banned.

Right-wing extremist propaganda is to be named and stopped both offline and online. The platform points to the institute for research on right-wing extremism at the University of Tübingen and the documentation center at the state archive as a basis for understanding causes and strategies. It classifies the AfD as the political arm of right-wing extremism, to be fought with the tools of the rule of law.

The Greens want the justice and interior ministries to no longer be able to issue instructions in individual investigations. This is meant to guarantee independent investigations and shield the justice system from influence.

Today ministries can give orders in single investigations. The Greens want to end that. Investigators should work independently. The justice system should be free from political pressure.

The platform sees a well-resourced justice system and a capable administration as the foundation of an open society. Attacks on judicial independence are to be countered early. It points to investments in police, justice and cybersecurity and to the state security and counterterrorism center and the cybersecurity agency.

The Greens want to give courts and public prosecutors more staff, better technology and better organization. Proceedings are to become faster and workloads lower. Legal training and the law on pardons are also to be reformed.

The Greens want more staff for courts and prosecutors. The technology should get better too. This should make court cases faster. Young lawyers in the justice system should earn more at the start. There should be fixed rules for pardons.

A Rechtsstaatspakt (rule-of-law pact) is to create new positions and speed up proceedings. Starting salaries are to rise so the judiciary can compete with the private sector for young talent. Digitalization is to advance, and AI is to ease the workload without affecting judicial independence. In the long run, all court decisions in the state are to be published in anonymized form in the "Landesrecht BW" database. Legal traineeships are to include IT law, data protection law and migration law. For pardons, the platform calls for statutory minimum criteria and documentation that allows later review.

The Greens want a routine inquiry with the domestic intelligence agency before anyone is hired by the police, the judiciary or the state parliament, even without specific suspicion. This is meant to keep enemies of the constitution out of these areas. The state intelligence agency is to be strengthened and also more closely overseen.

People who want to work for the police, the courts or the state parliament should be checked. The intelligence agency looks at whether the person respects the constitution. This should happen for all applicants. The agency should become stronger. A new office should also watch over it.

The routine inquiry is meant as an additional element in the selection process; the platform explicitly says it is no cure-all. The Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz (state domestic intelligence agency) is to be strengthened. As far as the constitution allows, the state criminal police office and the intelligence agency are to share information better. The parliamentary oversight panel is to get its own oversight office to monitor the agency independently.

The Greens want to fund civil-society engagement for democracy reliably and create a dedicated state law for it. People who are engaged are also to be better protected against threats.

Many clubs and groups work for democracy. The Greens want to give them reliable funding. A new state law should make this possible. Engaged people should also be better protected from threats.

The law is to give the funding a firm mandate and framework. The platform points to the Demokratiezentrum Baden-Württemberg with its specialist offices and the state agency for civic education as existing structures. Tailored protection and security concepts for civil society are to be examined; the contact point for officeholders at the state criminal police office serves as a model. Nobody should withdraw from politics or civic education out of fear of hostility.