SPD: program for the 2023 Bavaria state election

The SPD wants to manage the changes in the economy and the world of work with a new transformation agency, regional networks and a fund. Bavaria's economy is to stay strong, become climate neutral and be more balanced regionally and socially.

The economy is changing a lot, for example because of climate and computers. The SPD wants to start a new agency for this. The agency advises companies and brings help and courses together. There should be networks in the regions. A new fund should pay for this.

The SPD wants to keep Bavaria an industrial state and invest in research, digitalization, startups and the skilled trades. It commits to sustainable growth and rejects a policy of degrowth. Support for the trades is to be tied to collective bargaining coverage.

The SPD wants Bavaria's economy to stay strong. It wants to spend more on research. Young companies should get more help. Skilled trades should get grants when someone takes over a business. Bavaria should lead in recycling.

The SPD wants international trade agreements to contain enforceable rules on sustainability, human rights and decent work. The Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz (Supply Chain Due Diligence Act) is to be complied with and tightened. Bavaria's offices abroad are to help companies meet such standards and build partnerships that include civil society.

The SPD wants stricter rules for trade with other countries. Companies should respect human rights, the environment and fair work. The supply chain law should become stricter. This law makes companies check human rights at their suppliers too. Bavaria's offices abroad should help companies with this.

The SPD wants a law for Bavaria under which only companies that comply with collective bargaining agreements can win state contracts. A minimum wage of initially 15 euros would also apply to these contracts. The party says this ensures tax money is invested in good jobs.

The state of Bavaria gives contracts to companies. The SPD wants new rules for this. Companies must follow collective agreements. These are deals between unions and employers on pay and hours. For these contracts, pay should be at least 15 euros an hour.

The SPD wants to give works councils and staff councils more say and have obstruction of their work prosecuted. It plans a specialized prosecutor's office for this. The aim is more democratic co-determination in companies.

Works councils speak for the workers in a company. The SPD wants to give them more rights. Some state grants should only be paid if the works council agrees. People who block works councils should be punished. Special prosecutors should handle these cases.

The SPD wants to back unions in pushing for a 30-hour week with no loss of pay. It rejects raising the daily maximum working time, shortening rest periods, and expanding Sunday work or store opening hours.

The SPD wants people to work fewer hours. It backs the unions' goal of 30 hours a week. Pay should stay the same. A workday should not be allowed to exceed 10 hours. Stores should not stay open longer.

Together with the federal government, the SPD wants to create a public employment sector offering regular jobs to people with poor prospects on the labor market. The platform says no one should be left behind.

Some people find it hard to get a job or training. The SPD wants to help them. The state itself should create jobs for them. These jobs come with social insurance. In job applications, the name should stay hidden.

The SPD wants to recruit skilled workers abroad as well, but link work permits to collectively agreed conditions and the consent of the works council. This is meant to keep immigration from pushing down wages and social standards.

Bavaria needs more skilled workers, also from other countries. The SPD wants them to be treated fairly. Companies should pay them union-level wages. The works council should have to agree. Authorities should check more and get more staff for that.

The SPD wants to create guidance offices that direct people in need to the right assistance and funding. The aim is for existing benefits to be claimed more often. The party also wants to give the state's social affairs ministry more weight.

The SPD wants new advice offices. People in need get help there. The offices show what support exists. They also help with applications. Every county should get one.

The SPD wants to support neighborhoods and towns so that people can connect with each other more easily. To counter loneliness in old age, community guides would advise older people.

The SPD wants to fight loneliness. People should be able to meet more easily where they live. Older people should get advisers in their town. The SPD also wants to support meeting places and village shops.

The SPD wants to launch cold-weather protection programs and make counseling centers for people at risk of losing their home available statewide. The state would support municipalities financially.

The SPD wants to help people without a home. In winter there should be warm places for them. They can sleep and shower there. Advice should be available all over Bavaria. The state gives towns money for this.

The SPD wants to create a Bavarian allowance for deaf people that offsets costs caused by their disability. The compensation payment that blind, deafblind, and severely visually impaired people receive today would be extended to all severely disabled people.

The SPD wants a new payment for deaf people. They can use it for interpreters or hearing aids, for example. Blind people already get a payment today. Soon all people with a severe disability should get it.

The SPD wants people with disabilities to decide freely about their work and to earn more than basic income support. It backs a higher compensatory levy for employers who employ too few people with disabilities.

People with disabilities should decide about their own work. They should earn more than basic income support. Companies without disabled workers pay a levy today. The SPD wants this levy to go up. The state should also hire more people with disabilities.

The SPD wants a more family-friendly world of work with better conditions after parental leave and wider collective bargaining coverage. Through the Bundesrat, it wants all employment to be subject to social insurance from the first euro earned, so that working mothers in particular are better protected in old age.

The SPD wants work to fit families better. Mothers should be able to return well after parental leave and move up. Every job should pay into social insurance, even small jobs. This gives mothers a better pension later.

The SPD wants to involve older people more fully in all areas of life. It plans a funding program for accessibility, a digital fund, a digital education voucher for people over 60 and a state law on services for the elderly.

Older people should be able to take part everywhere. The SPD wants buildings, buses and trains without barriers. Older people should get a voucher for digital courses. Guides should help them with online forms.

The SPD wants employees of church employers to be covered by the same labor law as everyone else, except in roles involving preaching and ministry. This is to include co-determination and collective bargaining.

Many people work for the churches. Special rules apply to them today. The SPD wants them to have the same rights as other workers. Exceptions should only apply to jobs like preaching.

The SPD wants to raise the municipalities' share of shared tax revenue from 12.75 to 15 percent. At the same time, there should be fewer grant programs and higher lump-sum investment payments so that cities and towns can decide more for themselves.

Cities and towns should get more money. Their share of certain taxes should rise from 12.75 to 15 percent. There should be fewer separate grant programs. Instead, towns get more money they can freely use for investments.

The SPD wants to abolish the Schuldenbremse (debt brake) at the federal level and in Bavaria and launch a decade of investment. In its view, a capable state is needed, and neglected investment amounts to hidden debt at the expense of future generations.

Today the state may take on only a little new debt. This rule is called the debt brake. The SPD wants to get rid of it. Then the state can put more money into schools, housing, buses and trains.

The SPD wants to keep the Gewerbesteuer (local trade tax) as a revenue source for municipalities and make it fairer. It wants to counter so-called trade tax havens with stricter audits and a higher minimum rate.

Companies pay a trade tax to their town. The SPD wants to keep this tax. Some towns attract companies with very low taxes. The SPD wants to make that harder and raise the lowest allowed tax rate.

The SPD wants to strengthen Bavaria's tax authorities in staffing and organization so that tax evasion and money laundering are detected more effectively. Vacant positions would be filled and the workforce substantially increased. The party also backs a national reporting requirement for tax arrangements and mandatory cash registers.

The SPD wants more staff in the tax offices. That way the state can find tax fraud more easily. Companies would have to report tax tricks. Shops would have to use a cash register.

The SPD wants to levy the wealth tax again and reform the inheritance tax so that very large fortunes contribute more to funding public tasks. Low and middle incomes would get relief, while the top five percent of earners would pay more. The party bases this on the ability-to-pay principle and on strengthening Bavaria's finances.

The SPD wants a tax on very large fortunes again. People who inherit very large fortunes would also pay more tax. People with low and middle incomes would pay less tax. People with very high incomes would pay more.

The SPD wants to give land owned by the Free State of Bavaria to municipalities and housing cooperatives so that affordable housing can be built there. It sets a target of 80,000 affordable homes per year.

The state of Bavaria owns land. The SPD wants to give this land to cities and towns. Housing cooperatives should get land too. 80,000 low-cost homes should be built there each year.

The SPD wants to enshrine a social land law and a public-interest approach to state property in the Bavarian constitution. The state would stop selling its own land and buildings and lease them out under long-term ground leases instead. A state land fund would help municipalities acquire land.

The SPD wants Bavaria to stop selling its land. The state should lease the land instead, mostly to towns and cities. A new land fund should help towns buy land. This is meant to create affordable homes.

The SPD wants to introduce the Grundsteuer C (a property tax on undeveloped building plots) in Bavaria so that vacant, ready-to-build land is used for housing. It also wants to streamline the Bavarian building code and align it with the national model code to speed up construction of affordable homes.

The SPD wants a tax on empty building plots. Owners should then be more likely to build homes there. Building rules in Bavaria should become simpler. Building permits should be handled digitally. This is meant to make building faster.

The SPD wants the construction sector to contribute to making Bavaria climate neutral by 2035. To that end, sustainable and reusable building materials would be promoted, and renovation would take priority over demolition and new construction.

The SPD wants building to harm the climate less. Bavaria should support wood and other sustainable building materials. Old buildings should be renovated rather than torn down. Used building materials should be passed on through exchanges.

The SPD wants to support socially oriented housing construction with a billion euros of state money and stop cutting state funds whenever the federal government raises its own. Subsidized apartments would stay rent-restricted for 60 years. Cooperatives, municipal housing companies, and families buying a home would also receive support.

The SPD wants to spend more money on affordable homes. Bavaria should provide one billion euros for this. Subsidized homes should stay affordable for 60 years. Homes for trainees, students, and older people should also be built.

The SPD wants no rent increases in state-owned apartments for one legislative term and will press the rest of the housing sector for a temporary rent moratorium. It also wants to ban the conversion of rental apartments into condominiums in tight markets and to act more firmly against the misuse of housing.

The SPD wants no rent increases in state-owned homes for five years. Other landlords should do the same for a while. In expensive areas, rental homes should not be turned into owned apartments. Towns should get better tools against vacation rentals.

The SPD wants every Bavarian municipality to be able to offer young people places for leisure and recreation where they do not have to spend money. The state should also provide funding for youth hostels.

The SPD wants more places for young people. They should be able to spend free time there without spending money. Nobody should push them out. Bavaria should also give money to youth hostels.

The SPD wants to make daycare centers (Kitas) free of charge for all children, fund them better and set binding quality standards. It also wants more places in daycare, after-school centers and all-day programs to make it easier to combine work and family.

The SPD wants daycare to be free for all children. There should be more places in daycare and all-day care. Daycare centers should get more money. Fixed rules for good quality should apply to all centers.

The SPD wants to raise the quality of child and youth services through better training and working conditions for educational staff. More training and university places are meant to make the profession more attractive and bring in new skilled workers.

Daycare centers and youth services lack trained staff. The SPD wants to make work there better. There should be more staff for the children. There should also be more places for training.

The SPD wants to support families in emergencies quickly and without red tape. Preventive assistance, social work in schools, counseling and crisis services would be expanded so that families are supported from a child's birth until the child starts a career.

Some families need help. The SPD wants them to get this help quickly and easily. There should be more counseling and more social work in schools. There should also be more help in a mental health crisis.

The SPD wants to write children's rights into the Bavarian constitution and set up a children's rights agency. To fight child poverty, a Bavarian supplement would top up the federal Kindergrundsicherung (basic child allowance), and children would be better protected from violence.

The SPD wants to put children's rights into Bavaria's constitution. A new office should look after these rights. Poor children in Bavaria should get extra money. Children should be better protected from violence.

The SPD wants a Bavarian continuing education law that entitles employees and apprentices to time off for job-related training. Training would additionally be financed through levy-based funds.

The SPD wants a new law on job training. Workers and apprentices should get time off for courses. This should be their right. Works councils should be allowed to propose courses. Shared funds should help pay for courses.

The SPD wants to guarantee every young person in Bavaria a vocational training place and pay for it through a levy on companies. Vocational education is to be free of charge up to the master craftsman level, as the party sees it as equal to academic degrees.

Every young person in Bavaria should get vocational training. The SPD wants to guarantee this. Companies pay into a shared fund for it. Training should cost nothing, up to the master craftsman level. There should be more dorms for apprentices.

The SPD wants to equip vocational schools better, recruit more teachers and expand school social work. Uniform rights are to apply to students in dual study programs. The party argues that practical and theoretical training are of equal value.

The SPD wants better vocational schools. They should get more money and more teachers. Students with another first language should get courses in job-related German. They should get more time in exams. Students in work-study programs should be paid fairly.

The SPD wants to introduce the Gemeinschaftsschule (comprehensive school) as an additional school type alongside the existing ones so that children learn together longer. Until then, the transfer report card would be dropped; parents and teachers would decide on a child's school path in a mandatory meeting.

The SPD wants a new type of school, the Gemeinschaftsschule. All children learn together there. The other school types stay. The transfer report card after primary school should go away. Parents and teachers then talk together about the right school.

The SPD wants to cap classes at 20 children in the medium term and give schools additional specialist and administrative staff. Teacher training would be restructured, and all teachers would be paid at the A13 civil-service grade from the start of their careers.

The SPD wants smaller classes. A class should have 20 children at most. Schools should get more experts, such as school psychologists. All teachers should earn the same. Schools with many poor children should get more money.

The SPD wants education to be free of charge from daycare through to a master craftsman certificate or master's degree. Learning materials, including digital devices, would be free for students so that parents' income does not determine education.

The SPD wants education to cost nothing. This goes from daycare to university or master craftsman training. Books and tablets should also be free for students. Teachers should get work devices.

The SPD wants to create a legal right to a place at an integrated all-day school, including beyond primary school. All students would get a healthy breakfast and lunch at no cost. According to the program, the goal is fairer opportunities.

The SPD wants every child to have a right to a place at an all-day school. This also applies after primary school. All students get breakfast and lunch for free. All children should learn to swim.

The SPD wants to strengthen universities' core funding so that teaching and research depend less on third-party grants. Staffing structures would be reformed so that ongoing tasks are filled with permanent positions.

The SPD wants to give universities more steady money. Tasks that always exist should have permanent jobs. Young researchers should be able to plan better. There should be more dorm places for students and apprentices.

The SPD wants to introduce a statutory student body at Bavaria's universities and four-way parity, under which four university groups hold equal weight on committees. Women's representatives would get more powers, and studying would become more accessible.

The SPD wants more say for people at universities. Students should get their own representation set in law. All groups should have the same number of votes on committees. Women's representatives should get more rights. Victims of harassment should get permanent advice offices.

The SPD wants more civic education in class and a required visit to a memorial site or a place of democracy for every student. Civic education is to run from daycare into adulthood. The platform says this is meant to anchor democratic values and counter far-right tendencies.

The SPD wants more civic education in schools. Every student should visit a memorial site once. A memorial site remembers, for example, the victims of the Nazi era. Even children in daycare should learn about democracy. Adults should get courses too.

The SPD wants education in Bavaria to be free of fees regardless of citizenship and more strongly oriented toward Europe. English would be a focus throughout schooling, and every student would get at least one free trip abroad. A housing guarantee is planned for international students, researchers and teaching staff.

The SPD wants education in Bavaria to cost nothing. This should apply to everyone, no matter which country they come from. English should matter in every grade. Every school child should get one free week-long trip abroad.

The SPD wants to increase state funding for hospitals to about one billion euros and fund nursing homes better. Pediatric care and obstetrics are to be financed according to medical need.

The SPD wants to give hospitals more money. The state should pay about one billion euros. Nursing homes should also get enough money. The same goes for children's medicine and for births.

The SPD wants to use the hospital reform to reduce the weight of per-case flat rates and secure care across the whole state. Small municipal hospitals in rural areas and maternity wards are to be kept. To that end, it seeks statewide health planning across all areas of care.

The SPD wants to keep hospitals all over Bavaria. Small rural hospitals should get help. Maternity wards and midwives should be available everywhere. Today hospitals mostly get a fixed sum per treatment. That should matter less.

The SPD wants to phase out temporary agency work in nursing care completely and achieve collective bargaining coverage across the health and care sector. Binding staffing rules and better training conditions are meant to ease the load on workers. The platform cites staff shortages and chronic overwork as the reason.

The SPD wants to end temp work in nursing care. In temp work, an agency lends workers to other employers. All workers should get equal pay. There should be fixed rules on how many staff are needed. Training should get better.

The SPD wants to lower costs for people needing care and push at the federal level for long-term care insurance that covers all costs, starting with a cap on out-of-pocket payments. Family caregivers are to get a wage-replacement benefit and more relief services, among other things. In the SPD's view, care must be left neither to the market nor to municipalities alone.

The SPD wants care to cost less for those who need it. Later, care insurance should pay all care costs. First, people's own share should get an upper limit. People who care for relatives should get money to replace lost wages. Every county should have a place for advice.

The SPD wants to expand the public health service in staff and digital equipment and focus it on reducing health inequality. Health kiosks offering advice in several languages are to open in disadvantaged areas. Women with unwanted pregnancies are also to have access to abortion services close to home.

The SPD wants to strengthen public health offices. They should get more staff and better technology. Poorer areas should get health kiosks. People can get advice there in several languages. Women with an unwanted pregnancy should be able to get an abortion near home.

The SPD wants to close gaps in psychotherapy care, especially for children and adolescents, and anchor crisis services in law. The number of involuntary psychiatric placements is to fall, and coercive measures are to be avoided as far as possible. A state psychiatry advisory board is to safeguard quality.

The SPD wants more help for people with mental illness. Children and teens should get therapy faster. Crisis services should be written into law. Fewer people should be placed in psychiatric care against their will. A new advisory board should advise politicians.

The SPD wants to set up supervised drug consumption rooms in Bavaria and allow drug checking, meaning the testing of drugs for their contents. It intends to vote for cannabis legalization in the Bundesrat. The platform calls this a progressive drug and addiction policy.

The SPD wants rooms where people can take drugs under supervision. People should be able to have drugs tested for dangerous substances. The SPD wants to vote for legal cannabis in the Bundesrat. Schools should teach more about addiction.

The SPD wants to regulate how much profit private operators of hospitals, nursing homes and medical care centers may take out. Hospitals and homes are to return to municipal ownership more often, and privatizations are to be made harder. The platform argues that health is a human right, not a commodity.

The SPD wants to limit profits of private hospitals and nursing homes. The money should first go into better care. Cities and counties should be able to run hospitals themselves again. A new complaints office should help uncover fraud.

The SPD wants state-owned hospitals to provide good care for women with unwanted pregnancies and to offer abortions. It also wants to keep maternity services in rural areas, improve midwife coverage and create a professorship for gender-sensitive medicine.

Some women are pregnant and do not want to be. State hospitals should help them well, including with an abortion. Rural areas should keep their maternity wards. There should be enough midwives everywhere.

The SPD wants to reform long-term care insurance so that all occupational groups and types of income pay in. The state of Bavaria is to cover investment costs, residents' own contributions in care homes are to be capped, and age-appropriate housing is to be promoted.

Care in a nursing home costs a lot of money. The SPD wants everyone to pay into care insurance. There should be a limit on what residents pay themselves. Older people should be able to stay in their homes for a long time.

The SPD wants people without a German passport to be able to vote in local and state elections after three years of residence. It also plans a statewide representative body for migrants, local integration councils, and a participation law. The party argues that integration only works through participation.

The SPD wants people without a German passport to vote. This should apply after three years in Germany. It covers local elections and state elections. There should also be a body that speaks for immigrants in Bavaria. The SPD says integration only works if everyone can take part.

The SPD wants immigrants to get work permits faster and have their qualifications recognized more easily. New arrivals would be entitled to schooling, vocational training or courses, along with childcare. According to the platform, children's success in school should not depend on their parents' background.

Immigrants should be allowed to work sooner. Their foreign degrees should be accepted more easily. People new to Bavaria should have a right to school, training or a language course. This includes care for their children. There should be more teachers with a migration background.

The SPD wants no one deported from Bavaria to war and crisis zones, including people with criminal convictions. Deportations without compelling criminal-law grounds would end, especially for schoolchildren and people in training or work. Immigration offices would become “welcome offices,” and a state admission program would allow safe entry.

The SPD does not want to deport anyone to war zones. This also applies to people who committed crimes. Schoolchildren and people in training or work should be allowed to stay. Immigration offices should welcome newcomers. Bavaria should get its own program to take in refugees safely.

The SPD wants to abolish the Ankerzentren (large centralized asylum facilities), arguing that they block integration and make refugees ill. It favors decentralized housing and German classes from day one instead. All refugees would be treated the same way as those from Ukraine.

The SPD wants to close the Anker centers. These are large shared shelters for asylum seekers. Refugees should live spread across many places. They should be able to learn German right away. All refugees should be treated like people from Ukraine.

The SPD wants to push for a restructuring of the EU border agency Frontex. Besides border protection, the agency should work with civilian initiatives in sea rescue to protect people who are fleeing. Bavarian security forces should not take part in operations where refugees are unlawfully pushed back.

Frontex is the EU's border agency. The SPD wants to change Frontex. Frontex should also protect people who are fleeing and help with rescue at sea. Police from Bavaria should not take part when refugees are illegally pushed back at the border.

The SPD wants to launch a special program for inclusion and expand Bavaria's disability equality law. Its benchmark is the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Accessibility is to cover communication, housing construction, culture, and political participation.

The SPD wants to do more for people with disabilities. It plans a special program for inclusion. Inclusion means everyone can take part everywhere. Public offices should offer more in easy language and sign language. New homes should be built without barriers.

The SPD wants to revise the Bavarian Equal Opportunities Act so that the public sector leads the way on equality between women and men. Equal opportunities officers would get more powers, and violations would have consequences.

The SPD wants a new equality law in Bavaria. Equality means women and men have the same chances. Public offices should set an example. Breaking the law should have consequences.

The SPD wants public money to benefit all genders equally. To that end, the state budget is to be planned and managed according to gender equality criteria (gender budgeting).

The state spends a lot of money. The SPD wants this money to help women and men equally. So Bavaria should check this for every spending decision. This is called gender budgeting.

The SPD wants to help children and young adults move beyond conventional gender roles. In the platform's view, such stereotypes entrench existing inequalities.

Many people think girls should be quiet and boys should be tough. The SPD wants to break down these fixed ideas. There should be campaigns in daycare centers, schools and universities. Everyone there should talk about sexism.

The SPD wants to write equal representation of women and men into Bavarian election law. Leadership bodies of state-owned companies and professorships are also to be filled half by women.

The SPD wants as many women as men in the state parliament. This should be written into election law. Women should also hold half of the top posts in state-owned companies. At universities, every second professor should be a woman.

The SPD wants to draw up a state action plan for the acceptance of sexual diversity to curb discrimination and violence against queer people. It also plans more services for queer youth, police training and a statewide coordination office.

Queer people are, for example, lesbian, gay or trans. The SPD wants to protect them better from hate and violence. Bavaria should get an action plan for this. There should be more safe places for queer young people. Police officers should get training on this.

The SPD wants to fight racism at every level and sees this as the basis for integration. It plans a state anti-discrimination law and legally mandated anti-discrimination offices. It also wants the term “race” removed from the Basic Law, Germany's constitution.

The SPD wants to act against racism. Bavaria should get a law against discrimination. Discrimination means people are treated worse, for example because of where they come from. There should be offices everywhere that help those affected. The word “race” should be removed from the German constitution.

The SPD wants to fully implement the Istanbul Convention on protecting women from violence in Bavaria and to fund women's shelters and counseling services reliably. Gender equality policy is to follow the EU Gender Equality Strategy. EU rules on equal pay and pay transparency are also to be implemented.

The SPD wants to protect women better from violence. Women's shelters should have enough money and enough places. Women and men should get the same pay for the same work. To do this, the SPD wants to apply EU rules in Bavaria.

The SPD wants all of Bavaria's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2035 at the latest and aims for a climate-neutral Bavaria by then. Climate protection would become a mandatory task for municipalities so that they gain legal certainty and a financial basis.

The SPD wants Bavaria to use only clean power from 2035. The power should come from wind, sun, and water. Climate protection should become a fixed duty for towns and cities. They should get money and clear rules for it.

The SPD wants to return the generation and distribution of electricity, gas, and heat to state or municipal ownership as far as possible. It cites the Bavarian hydropower plants of the Uniper group as an example. In the program's view, energy supply must not be left to private shareholders' pursuit of profit.

The SPD wants energy to belong to the state or to towns again. This covers power plants and grids. For example, Bavaria should take over Uniper's hydropower plants. The state should also help shape prices.

The SPD wants to abolish Bavaria's 10-H distance rule for wind turbines and speed up permits considerably. It aims to set aside two percent of Bavaria's land area for wind power. Operators would be required to give municipalities and citizens a stake in their turbines.

The SPD wants more wind turbines in Bavaria. It wants to scrap the 10-H rule. This rule requires a large distance between turbines and homes. Permits should be faster. Towns and citizens should share in the earnings from wind turbines.

The SPD wants to introduce a solar panel requirement for all new buildings and conversions, both commercial and private. In addition, solar installations on other surfaces would be subsidized and made possible on listed historic buildings.

The SPD wants a solar mandate. Anyone who builds or converts a building must then install solar panels. This applies to businesses and private homes. Bavaria should also support solar panels over parking lots and on lakes.

The SPD wants to speed up the expansion of power lines, distribution grids, and large energy storage facilities. A Bavarian heat strategy would advance heating networks, waste heat, and geothermal energy. Hydrogen production, especially for industry, would also be supported.

The SPD wants to build new power lines faster. This should bring wind power from the north to Bavaria. Bavaria should build large energy storage sites. More heat should come from the ground. This is called geothermal energy. Hydrogen for industry should also get support.

The SPD wants to sharply limit land consumption in Bavaria and, in the long run, reach a circular approach to land use. Drinking water should stay clean, affordable, and publicly owned. Rivers, streams, and peatlands would be restored to a natural state.

The SPD wants Bavaria to build over less land. Towns should build inside their limits first, not at the edges. Drinking water should stay clean and affordable. It should belong to the public. Rivers and peatlands should become more natural again.

The SPD wants to protect the Bavarian Alps and shift tourism there toward a year-round, climate-friendly and sustainable model. Mountain and alpine pasture farming is to receive much more support because, in the platform's view, it helped create and maintains this landscape.

The SPD wants to protect the Alps in Bavaria. Tourism should run all year and harm the climate less. Mountain farmers should get more money. No tax money should go to snow cannons.

The SPD wants to stop species loss in Bavaria as quickly as possible because, in its view, it threatens people's livelihoods. Protected areas are to be better protected, enlarged and linked, and at least one more national park is to be created.

The SPD wants to stop animal and plant species from dying out. Protected areas should grow and be better connected. Bavaria should get at least one new national park. The SPD suggests the Steigerwald forest. Wolves may return, and the SPD wants to pay for damage quickly.

The SPD wants to secure the water supply across Bavaria and invest in pipes and wastewater systems. Drinking water supply should stay in municipal hands and take priority over other uses of water and land.

The SPD wants safe drinking water everywhere in Bavaria. The state should spend money on water pipes. Towns should stay in charge of drinking water. Private companies should not take it over.

The SPD wants to preserve an agriculture shaped by owner-run family farms and counter the decline of small farms. It wants to support young farmers and prevent farmland from accumulating in the hands of large operations and corporations from outside agriculture.

The SPD wants to keep small and mid-sized farms. Young farmers should get help. Big companies should not buy up more and more farmland. The SPD says farmland belongs in farmers' hands.

The SPD wants at least 30 percent of Bavaria's farmland to be farmed organically by 2030. Subsidies are to flow less as flat per-area payments and more as rewards for services to nature and the common good.

The SPD wants more organic farming in Bavaria. By 2030 it should cover at least 30 percent of farmland. Farmers who do more for nature should get more money. State cafeterias should mostly buy organic food from the region.

The SPD advocates species-appropriate livestock farming and wants to give more support to alternative husbandry methods. Husbandry method and origin are to be labeled on a mandatory basis so that farms benefit from the quality of their products.

The SPD wants farm animals to live better. Products should show how and where the animal lived. Animals should only be transported short distances. Animal testing in research should stop as far as possible.

The SPD wants to create minimum standards for agricultural workers and penalize farms that exploit their labor. It also wants to protect local farms from unfair trading practices and dumping prices.

The SPD wants to protect people who work on farms. Farms that exploit workers should get less subsidy money. Farmers themselves should also be protected. Retailers should not be allowed to demand dumping prices. These are prices that are unfairly low.

The SPD wants a mobility guarantee: every town in Bavaria should be served hourly by bus, train, or on-call taxi. To achieve this, rural services would be expanded, funding for local transit sharply increased, and the rail network enlarged.

The SPD wants a bus or train in every town every hour. It calls this a mobility guarantee. There should be more buses and trains in rural areas. Towns should get much more money for this. Old rail lines should run again.

The SPD wants to introduce a Bavaria-wide local transit pass for 29 euros that lets holders take their own children along for free. School students, university students, and trainees would ride for free, and there would be a senior pass and a reduced-fare social pass. In the long run, the party aims for free local transit.

The SPD wants a 29-euro ticket for all of Bavaria. Parents can take their children along for free. School students, university students, and trainees should ride for free. Older and poorer people should get their own tickets. Later, buses and trains should be free for everyone.

The SPD wants to promote zero-emission mobility, above all electric cars and cycling, and to push for a speed limit at the federal level. It rejects a third runway at Munich Airport and wants to remove it from the state development program.

The SPD wants more electric cars and more charging stations. Bavaria should get a cycling law and fast bike routes. The SPD supports a speed limit in Germany. Munich Airport should not get a third runway.

The SPD wants fiber-to-the-home connections and the latest mobile standard everywhere in Bavaria, in cities, villages and border regions. It intends to achieve this through statutory rollout and coverage obligations with interim targets, since mid-sized rural companies in particular depend on fast internet.

The SPD wants fast internet everywhere in Bavaria. This should apply in cities and in villages. A law should require companies to build the networks. The 5G mobile network should also be available everywhere.

The SPD wants the main government services to be available digitally and without barriers. Benefits a person is entitled to are to be paid automatically or with a single click, and people are to control for themselves who may access their data.

The SPD wants people to handle government business online. Some benefits should come automatically, without an application. Everyone should decide who may see their data. The services should be easy for all to use.

The SPD wants to press for a digital tax on the revenue of large digital companies so that society shares in the internet's economic power. In addition, Bavaria is to lead in using and developing European digital technology to strengthen technological sovereignty.

The SPD wants a new tax for big internet companies. The companies should hand over part of their revenue. Bavaria should also use and develop more technology from Europe. This includes a European cloud and a platform for artificial intelligence.

The SPD wants to take firm action against hate and crime online and set up a task force against right-wing extremism on the internet within the Bavarian police. Awareness campaigns are also to show people how to defend themselves against online offenses.

The SPD wants to fight hate and crime on the internet. The police in Bavaria should get a special team for this. The team deals with right-wing extremism online. There should also be information on how people can defend themselves.

The SPD wants to increase Bavarian police staffing by ten percent within five years and make the job more family-friendly. At the same time, all officers would have to wear identification so that police do not act anonymously. The stated goal is to renew public trust in the police.

The SPD wants more police officers in Bavaria. In five years there should be ten percent more. Police work should fit better with family life. All officers should wear an ID marking. This should help people trust the police more.

The SPD wants to rewrite the Bavarian Police Powers Act and the Bavarian domestic intelligence law and set up an independent “freedom commission.” The Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence agency) would face stronger oversight and focus on right-wing extremist structures. The party invokes the idea of a democracy able to defend itself.

The SPD wants to rewrite two Bavarian security laws. They should respect citizens' rights better. An independent commission should advise the state parliament on new laws. The domestic intelligence agency should mainly watch right-wing extremists. Right-wing extremists should no longer have weapons.

The SPD wants to add positions at courts and public prosecutors' offices to shorten proceedings. Prosecutors would set up specialized units for serious crimes and gender-based violence. Prisons would be run humanely, with better support for inmates and appropriate pay for work done in custody.

The SPD wants more staff for courts and prosecutors. Cases should then move faster. Special teams should deal with serious crimes and violence against women. Prisoners should get better support. They should be paid fairly for their work in prison.

The SPD wants to give fire departments, rescue services and disaster response more funding and better equipment. Volunteers would receive a firefighter pension or a rescuer pension. The platform points to more extreme weather caused by global heating.

The SPD wants better equipment for fire and rescue services. Volunteer helpers should get their own pension. In an emergency, help should arrive within 12 minutes. Bavaria should get supply depots and a control center for disasters. The SPD says global heating brings more severe weather.

The SPD wants to strengthen the public sector in staff and resources and update the law on staff representation. In its view, austerity and privatization have weakened municipalities and public administration, and it wants to reverse this.

Public offices, schools and police are part of the public sector. The SPD says they lack money and staff. First it wants to check what is needed everywhere. Employees should have more say. The state should be a good employer.

The SPD wants a state law to strengthen democracy and diversity, along with a state program to promote democracy. New forms of public participation such as citizens' assemblies are to be tested as pilot projects. In the platform's view, engaged citizens are the best protection for democracy.

The SPD wants a new law for democracy and diversity in Bavaria. A state program should support civic engagement and civic education. Bavaria should try out citizens' assemblies. In a citizens' assembly, randomly chosen people discuss political questions.

The SPD wants to create a comprehensive freedom of information and transparency law for Bavaria. Everyone is to have free digital access to information on government action without having to give a reason, because the party sees this as a core part of a living democracy.

The SPD wants a new law for more openness. Government offices should put information about their work online on their own. Everyone should be able to read it for free. Nobody has to say why they want to see it.

The SPD wants to introduce a youth check in Bavaria. Future bills would be reviewed for their effects on young people. The platform argues that decisions made today will shape the coming decades.

The SPD wants a youth check for Bavaria. This is a test for new laws. The test asks: Is the law good for young people? The SPD wants politics to pay more attention to the young.

The SPD wants to lower the voting age for local, state and federal elections to 16 as a first step. Young people should not only learn about democracy in class but be able to take part in decisions themselves.

The SPD wants young people to vote from age 16. This should apply to all elections. Today they can only vote in Bavaria from age 18. The SPD says young people should have a say.

The SPD wants to involve young people more closely in local government and anchor youth issues in the municipal code. Clubs and associations doing youth work would receive more money from the state budget.

The SPD wants young people to have more say in their town. Local councils should have to discuss youth topics. This should be written into law. Youth clubs and groups should get more money.

The SPD wants a state law that gives older people a binding say in politics. Municipalities are to be required to set up seniors' advisory councils.

Older people should have more say in politics. The SPD wants a new law for this. Every town must then have a seniors' council. The council may speak and submit motions.

The SPD stands by the Bezirke (Bavaria's districts) as the third level of local government and wants to give citizens of EU countries the right to vote in district elections. It rejects privatizing district-run institutions.

Bavaria has seven districts with their own assemblies. People from other EU countries cannot vote there today. The SPD wants to change that. District institutions should not go to private companies.

The SPD supports the EU membership bids of Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkan states and commits to European integration. Governments that violate the EU's values should face effective sanctions. The party recognizes conscientious objection to military service as grounds for seeking refuge.

The SPD wants Ukraine to be able to join the EU. The same goes for Moldova and the Western Balkan countries. Governments that act against EU values should be punished. People who refuse military service and are persecuted for it should get protection.

The SPD wants to permit fixed border checks toward neighboring countries only in short-term emergencies and to expand cooperation with the Czech Republic and Austria. Plans include closer cooperation between police forces and emergency services, a Bavarian-Czech regional council and a shared labor market in the border regions. The free movement of people and goods within the EU should not be restricted.

The SPD wants fixed checks at Bavaria's borders only in real emergencies. Bavaria should work more closely with the Czech Republic and Austria. Fire crews and ambulances should be allowed to help across the border. People should find it easier to work in the neighboring country.

The SPD wants the EU to become a fiscal and social union with a common fiscal policy and its own budget. The unanimity rule would be dropped for tax matters and largely abolished in the Council. The European Parliament would get its own right of initiative, and EU funds would be fully tied to the rule of law.

The SPD wants the EU to decide more things together. The EU should get its own budget for a shared financial policy. It should no longer take every country's yes to pass something. The EU Parliament should be able to propose laws itself. EU money should go only to countries that respect the rule of law.

The SPD wants to modernize cultural funding, increase the Kulturfonds (state culture fund), and launch a statewide culture program for all regions. Providing basic cultural services should become a mandatory task for municipalities, and access to culture should not depend on social background.

The SPD wants to spend more money on culture. All regions of Bavaria should benefit. Towns should be required to provide cultural offerings. Everyone should be able to enjoy culture, no matter how much money they have.

The SPD wants cultural and creative workers to be able to live from their work. Minimum and base pay rates should therefore apply to public contracts and publicly funded projects, and social protection should be strengthened.

Artists should be able to live from their work. For jobs paid by the state, there should be a minimum pay. This also applies to projects with public funding. The SPD also wants better protection for them in old age.

The SPD wants to give memorial sites more support, examine Bavaria's colonial past, and encourage a critical approach to monuments and street names. It also wants to preserve the cultural heritage of expellees, refugees and ethnic German resettlers.

The SPD wants Bavaria to remember its history. Memorial sites should get more help. The colonial era should also be examined. The SPD wants to take a critical look at some street names and monuments.

The SPD wants to preserve basic local services: village and neighborhood shops, neighborhood aid groups, rural doctors, and postal and banking services. It justifies this with the goal of equal living conditions in urban and rural areas.

The SPD wants important services everywhere in Bavaria. These include small shops, doctors, post offices and banks. Groups where neighbors help each other should get more money. People in the countryside should live as well as people in cities.

The SPD wants to give more support to school sports, recreational sports and elite sports and to raise grants for clubs. Together with municipalities, sports facilities, especially swimming pools, are to be built, expanded and renovated.

The SPD wants to give more money to sports. Sports clubs should get higher grants. Swimming pools should be built and repaired. This way, more children can learn to swim.