SPD: program for the 2026 Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state election

The SPD wants to push at the federal level for small and mid-sized companies to be exempt from reporting obligations for two years. After that, a review would determine which obligations are actually necessary.

Companies have to send many reports to the government. The SPD wants to stop this for small and mid-sized companies. The stop should last two years. After that, the SPD wants to check which reports are really needed.

The SPD wants to create a development bank owned by the state. It is meant to make funding programs more flexible and better suited to the regional economy.

The SPD wants the state to have its own development bank. A development bank gives money and cheap loans for certain goals. The support should fit local companies better. Families should also get cheap loans.

The SPD wants to expand Rostock's overseas port and speed up development of the energy ports in Rostock, Sassnitz-Mukran and Lubmin. The state is to take a more active role and commits to its shipyards.

The SPD wants to expand the ports in the state. The overseas port in Rostock should get bigger. The state should help more with the ports. The SPD also wants to support the shipyards. Shipyards are places where ships are built.

The SPD wants to continue the "Industrieland Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 2030" concept beyond 2030. The goals are a more diversified economy and well-paid industrial jobs; to that end, the state is to market itself more actively to investors, companies and skilled workers.

The SPD wants more industry in the state. There is a plan for this until 2030. The SPD wants to extend the plan. This should create well-paid jobs. The state should advertise itself more as a place to work.

The SPD wants to move away from an economy that mainly consumes fossil raw materials toward a bio-based circular economy. Value creation from the field to the finished product is to stay in the state, which is meant to benefit rural areas in particular.

The SPD wants to use less oil, gas and coal as raw materials. Plants and leftovers should be the basis instead. This is called the bioeconomy. The products should be made in the state. This should bring jobs to rural areas.

The SPD wants to give targeted support to small and medium-sized businesses and the skilled trades and to make funding applications simpler. The program argues that small firms in particular struggle to find the resources for digitalization, climate neutrality and innovation.

The SPD wants to help small companies and skilled trades. Applying for state funding should become easier. Companies should get good advice. There should also be help with artificial intelligence.

The SPD wants tourism levies to give visitors something tangible in return, mainly through guest cards with discounts and free local public transit. People living in a vacation region should be able to use these offers at no extra charge and should not pay a visitor tax in neighboring towns. Tourist municipalities should also be better placed to invest in their infrastructure.

Tourists pay a fee in many towns. In return, they should get a guest card. With the card, they ride buses and trains for free. People who live in the region should get these offers too. Locals should not pay a visitor tax in the next town.

The SPD wants to review and rewrite the state's tourism strategy together with the industry. The aim is for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to become Germany's most popular travel destination with the best value for money. This includes higher quality, year-round offerings and better conditions for employees.

The SPD wants a new plan for tourism. Tourism companies should help write it. Vacations in the state should be good and not too expensive. There should be things to do all year. Workers should get better training.

The SPD wants to designate sites for technology-oriented companies and build them up with regional competence centers. These are meant to connect research, the regional economy and practical application, working closely with universities and research institutes.

The SPD wants to pick places for new tech companies. Centers there should help the companies. The centers work with universities. This should bring new firms and skilled workers to the state.

The SPD wants to strengthen and connect advisory services for new businesses and add easily accessible venture and equity capital to the funding mix. Fast-growing young companies, known as scale-ups, are to get their own funding and financing tools. Digital start-ups, e-sports and streaming should also find a place in the state's economy.

The SPD wants to help new companies. They should get good advice. They should also get start-up money more easily. Fast-growing young companies should get help too. Digital firms and e-sports should be able to grow in the state.

The SPD wants to keep enough land available for commerce and industry through forward-looking planning so that companies can continue to set up quickly. At the same time, state marketing under the slogan “MV tut gut” (MV does you good) is to promote the location's advantages at home and abroad.

Companies need space. The state should plan enough land for companies. Then new companies can come quickly. The state should also advertise itself. The slogan is “MV tut gut,” meaning MV does you good.

The SPD wants to make planning and permitting procedures for companies faster, simpler and more reliable, including through digitalization. For large industrial and infrastructure projects, a central state government task force is to bundle the procedures.

Companies often wait a long time for permits. The SPD wants to speed this up. Building applications should be possible online across the state. A central working group should handle big projects. Local people should still have a say.

The SPD wants to expand the state's foreign trade relations over the next five years to open new markets for companies and secure jobs. A cross-industry concept is to bundle the individual measures. The focus is on the democratic countries around the Baltic Sea.

Companies from the state should sell more abroad. The SPD wants an overall plan for this. Small companies get advice and funding. The democratic countries on the Baltic Sea matter most.

The SPD wants to expand the state's seaports as sites for the energy transition. Manufacturers that rely on renewable energy are to settle there and create value locally.

The SPD wants to expand the ports in the state. The ports should become important for the energy supply. New companies and jobs should come there. This is about Rostock, Sassnitz-Mukran and Lubmin.

The SPD wants to expand the state's ports so that industry can settle there and secure jobs are created. It calls on the federal government to provide at least 500 million euros a year on a permanent basis for all German sea and inland ports.

The SPD wants to expand the ports in the state. Companies should settle there. This should create new jobs. The federal government should give a lot of money for ports every year.

The SPD wants to strengthen the cultural and creative industries as an economic factor. Film funding is to be expanded, and the state's still small gaming industry is to get more support. The party wants to examine a statewide program for studios, rehearsal rooms and venues.

The SPD wants to strengthen creative jobs in the state. These include film, music, design and video games. Film funding should grow. Video game companies should get more help. Artists should find more spaces to work in.

The SPD wants to turn Mecklenburg-Vorpommern into a location for resource efficiency, recycling technology and raw material recovery. To that end, the circular economy is to be promoted and companies in this field helped to set up in the state.

Raw materials should be used more than once. This is called a circular economy. The SPD wants to bring companies to the state that recycle waste. These companies should get help.

The SPD wants to strengthen the state's food industry, which it describes as one of the most important sectors of the economy. New, innovative companies are to emerge, and small processors are to get help developing and marketing their products.

The SPD wants to help companies that make food. Many of these companies are small. They should get help when they develop new products. Very small companies in the countryside should also get money.

The SPD wants to keep implementing the state's skilled-labor strategy and tie young people, families and skilled workers to the state. This includes help with handing over businesses, stronger vocational training and more skills in dealing with artificial intelligence.

The state lacks skilled workers. The SPD wants more young people to stay in the state. It wants to strengthen job training. People who train as master craftsmen keep getting money. Businesses should find a successor more easily.

The SPD wants to strengthen training and career changes and support employment agencies and job centers. For the long-term unemployed it calls for subsidized jobs with social insurance, and for people under 25 a statewide program modeled on one in Schwerin.

The SPD wants to get more people into work. People who have been jobless for a long time should get special job offers. Young people under 25 should get special help. Everyone should finish school or job training.

The SPD wants more collective bargaining coverage, better protection for setting up works councils and more co-determination. Public contracts are to stay tied to paying collectively agreed wages, and the party wants to defend the eight-hour day at the federal level.

The SPD wants good pay and secure jobs. More companies should pay union-agreed wages. Works councils should be better protected. A works council speaks for the workers in a company. The working day should stay at eight hours.

The SPD wants to achieve at the federal level that all citizens pay into the social insurance systems. Everyone is to contribute according to their means, explicitly including members of the Bundestag and the state parliaments.

The SPD wants this: all people pay into social insurance. Those who have more pay more. This should apply to lawmakers too. Lawmakers are elected politicians in parliament.

The SPD wants older people to be able to stay in their homes and take part in social life, even when they need care. It also wants to counter loneliness in all age groups with meeting places and other measures.

Older people should be able to stay in their homes. They should keep taking part in life. Seniors with little money should get help and care too. The SPD also wants to fight loneliness. There are meeting places for everyone.

The SPD wants to make Mecklenburg-Vorpommern accessible in all areas of life and to update the action plan on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities together with those affected. More people with disabilities are to work in the regular labor market.

The SPD wants a state without barriers for people with disabilities. This covers transport, housing, health care and the internet. People with disabilities should have a say in the plans. More of them should work and train in regular companies.

The SPD wants to support new professional approaches in services for homeless people in the state. It names Housing First as an example, an approach in which people first receive a home of their own.

Some people have no home. The SPD wants to help them in new ways. One example is called Housing First. People get a home first. Other help comes after that.

The SPD backs strong collective bargaining coverage at universities and wants a collective agreement for student employees. The obligation for Privatdozenten (habilitated lecturers without a professorship) to teach without pay is to be dropped.

The SPD wants good work at universities. Students with university jobs should get a collective agreement. Such an agreement sets pay and working conditions. Private lecturers should no longer have to teach without pay.

The SPD rejects any loosening of the minimum wage rules. It wants good working conditions for all employees in agriculture and the food industry, regardless of where they come from.

The SPD does not want to loosen the minimum wage. The minimum wage is the lowest pay a business may give. It should also apply on farms and in food companies. This should apply to all workers, no matter what country they come from.

The SPD commits to a pension that secures people's standard of living and points to the pension level of at least 48 percent. The state is to campaign more actively for employers to offer workplace pensions.

The SPD wants pensions people can rely on. People who worked for a long time should be able to live on their pension. The state should ask companies to offer workplace pensions. A workplace pension is extra pension money through the employer.

The SPD wants volunteer service in fire departments and disaster response to count toward pensions. It plans to raise this in federal pension talks and, if necessary, implement it at the state level.

Many people help for free in the fire department. The SPD wants them to get more pension later for this. The federal government should set the rule. If that fails, the state wants to do it itself. But there must be enough money for it.

The SPD wants to keep the reduced value-added tax rate of 7 percent for restaurants and hotels. It says it will oppose any return to 19 percent.

Restaurants and hotels have a low sales tax. It is 7 percent. The SPD wants to keep it that way. It is against raising it to 19 percent.

Facing a need for savings in the billions, the SPD wants to prioritize policy projects by fixed criteria while continuing to invest. Structural reforms and a modernization of the state are to accompany the savings.

The state has to save a lot of money in the coming years. So the SPD wants to choose carefully what to pay for. Money should still go to education, roads, networks and climate protection. The administration should work more efficiently.

The SPD wants to achieve at the federal level that large fortunes contribute more to funding public tasks and that work is taxed less heavily. A reinstated wealth tax is to have high exemptions and spare business assets.

The SPD wants very rich people to pay more tax. For that, a tax on large fortunes should return. Small and medium fortunes should stay tax-free. The money should lower the charges on work.

With the MV-Plan 2035, the SPD wants to invest about 1.92 billion euros in additional funds together with the municipalities. Faster planning, less bureaucracy and simpler procurement are meant to make the money take effect quickly.

The SPD wants to invest a lot of money with the MV-Plan 2035. It is about 1.92 billion euros. The money comes from a special federal fund. Small and poor towns should also benefit.

The SPD wants to subsidize the construction of homes with affordable rents and apply the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) in urban centers. Families are to get help buying a home, and 1,000 dorm places are planned for apprentices and students.

Housing should stay affordable. The SPD wants to support building cheap homes. In popular places, the rent brake should apply. It limits how high a new rent can be. Young people should get 1,000 places in dorms.

The SPD wants new hotel projects to be linked to housing for tourism workers. To that end, the state is to lobby the federal government for corresponding rules in building law. Tourism should develop in a way that gives equal weight to locals' interests in affordable housing and quality of life.

Tourist towns often lack affordable homes. Whoever builds a hotel should also build homes for the workers. The SPD wants new federal rules for this. The wishes of locals should count as much as those of guests.

The SPD wants to keep the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) in Rostock, Greifswald and several tourist towns until housing markets there ease. In heavily strained tourist regions, local bylaws against misuse of housing are to keep limiting the conversion of homes into vacation rentals.

In some places, homes are scarce and costly. A rent brake applies there. It limits the rent in new leases. The SPD wants to keep it. Fewer homes should become vacation rentals.

The SPD wants to further develop funding for housing aimed at young people, using federal money. The focus is on building new dorms and expanding existing ones for apprentices and students.

Young people need affordable rooms. The SPD wants more dorms for apprentices and students. The state will use federal money for this. Getting the funding should be simple.

The SPD relies on social housing and mixed neighborhoods to prevent displacement. Municipalities are to get support in buying land to hold in reserve, and modular and serial construction is to receive more funding.

The SPD wants more social housing. Poorer and richer people should live in the same neighborhood. Towns should buy land and keep it for housing. Homes made from ready-made parts should get more funding.

The SPD wants to keep funding the construction and renovation of affordable, accessible homes in rural areas too. This is meant to let older people stay in familiar surroundings; energy retrofits are to remain affordable.

Rural areas should have suitable homes too. Older people need homes without steps or barriers. The SPD wants to fund such homes. That way, older people can stay in their village.

The SPD wants to improve midwifery care and anchor midwife-led delivery rooms in federal law. The goal is for every woman to be cared for by her own midwife during birth.

The SPD wants to support midwives. Midwives help women give birth. Every woman should have her own midwife during birth. Midwives should earn enough money.

The SPD wants to push at the federal level for a higher Elterngeld (parental allowance): 80 percent of previous income, capped at 3,200 euros. The minimum rate is also to rise, and the amounts are to be adjusted for inflation every year.

The SPD wants higher parental allowance. Parents should get 80 percent of their earlier pay. The top amount should be 3,200 euros. The allowance should rise with prices every year. The federal government decides on this.

The SPD wants a second Childhood-Haus for children who have experienced violence in the state and seeks federal funding for it. The state office KipsFam, which supports children from families affected by mental illness or addiction, is to be funded beyond 2027.

The SPD wants to protect children better. There should be a second Childhood-Haus in the state. Children who suffered violence get help there. Children with sick or addicted parents should also keep getting help.

The SPD regards places for young people as part of basic public services and wants to strengthen youth clubs, sociocultural centers and open meeting places, especially in rural areas. The 50-50 taxi ticket for young people is to continue.

The SPD wants more meeting places for young people. These include youth clubs and open spaces. This matters most in the countryside. Young people should still get taxi rides at half price at night.

The SPD wants to keep nursery, kindergarten and after-school care, including during school vacations, free for parents even under pressure to save. In the platform's view, this relieves families, increases equal opportunity and makes adequate pay for staff possible.

Parents in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern pay nothing for daycare. The SPD wants to keep it that way. This applies to nursery, kindergarten and after-school care. The SPD says all children should have equal chances.

The SPD wants to keep reducing group sizes in daycare and retain staff in the system despite falling numbers of children. Support needs are to be identified earlier and language education strengthened.

The SPD wants smaller groups in daycare. Staff should stay even if there are fewer children. Children who need support should get help earlier. Children should learn to speak better.

Together with the federal government and municipalities, the SPD wants to put more than one billion euros into schools and vocational schools. It also wants to secure teaching across the state and reduce the workload of teachers.

The SPD wants to spend a lot of money on schools. It is more than one billion euros. Vocational schools and their dorms get money too. Teachers should have to teach fewer hours.

The SPD wants to continue state funding for youth and school social work at a high level and to examine a central coordination office. Produktionsschulen (work-based training schools) are to be kept and adequately funded as a path into training and work.

The SPD wants to keep paying for school social work. Social workers help children and teenagers with problems. Production schools should also stay. Young people learn practical job skills there.

The SPD wants to make the training of lawyers in the state, especially the Referendariat (post-university legal clerkship), more attractive. The aim is to meet the statewide need for new legal professionals.

The SPD wants to improve training for lawyers in the state. Lawyers include judges and attorneys. The exam rules will be reviewed. Training should cause less needless pressure.

The SPD wants to expand teams of different professions at schools and make all school-leaving qualifications attainable close to home. The school construction program is to grow; 600 million euros from the MV-Plan are earmarked for schools.

The SPD wants more experts from different professions at schools. They should work as a team. People should be able to earn every school diploma near home. 600 million euros are planned for schools.

The SPD wants to give democracy education and lessons on extremism more room in everyday school life. It argues that extremist actors are putting schools under growing pressure. Democracy education is to be part of every subject and of staff training.

The SPD wants more democracy education in schools. Students should learn more about extremism. Extremism means that people reject democracy. Teachers should also learn more about this.

The SPD wants a school system in which children learn together as far as possible and receive individual support regardless of their background. Staff positions freed up by falling birth rates are to stay in the education system and be used to improve quality.

The SPD wants children to learn together where possible. Every child should get good support. Fewer children are being born. The staff no longer needed should stay in schools. This should make schools better.

The SPD wants to promote media literacy and the handling of artificial intelligence in all school types in an age-appropriate way. The school system as a whole is to be developed digitally, including with federal money.

The SPD wants students to learn how to handle media. This includes artificial intelligence. Teachers get training and materials for this. Schools should become more digital.

The SPD wants to gradually make teams of different professions part of the basic staffing of daycare centers and schools. Institutions facing particular learning challenges are to come first.

The SPD wants teams from different professions in daycare centers and schools. These include social workers and psychologists, for example. Schools with many problems get such teams first. Later all should have them.

The SPD wants to support sites where several school types and institutions work together, in order to make it easier to move between tracks. Two model schools are to test new educational concepts, and grading is to be reformed.

The SPD wants to link several school types in one place. This is called an education campus. Children should be able to change school type more easily. Two schools should try out new ideas. Grades and feedback should also change.

The SPD wants to develop a social index of its own for the state. Staff and money are to go specifically to schools where many children need more support.

The SPD wants to share out school money differently. Some schools have many children who need more help. These schools should get more money and staff. The SPD wants to use data for this.

The SPD wants to record teachers' working hours and clearly describe their duties to protect them from overload. Principals and teaching staff are to be relieved of administrative tasks.

The SPD wants to measure teachers' working hours. This should stop teachers from working too much. First there will be a trial. More office staff should help schools.

The SPD wants to tackle the teacher shortage with more qualified student teachers and teachers, backed by high-quality lateral entry from other careers. The reform of teacher education is to be completed with an adapted Referendariat (practical training phase).

The state lacks teachers. The SPD wants to win more people for teaching. People from other jobs should also be able to become teachers. Training should get better.

The SPD wants to help schools maintain partnerships across Europe. Exchange programs and the state's network of Europaschulen (Europe-focused schools) are to be strengthened.

The SPD wants more exchange with schools in Europe. Students should get to know other countries. There are programs like Erasmus+ for this. The state should make better use of EU money.

The SPD wants to better equip all-day schools and improve their quality. In the long run, the "gebundene Ganztagsschule" (an all-day school where the full day is mandatory for all students) is to become the standard statewide.

The SPD wants better all-day schools. Children spend the whole day at school there. Later all schools should work this way. All children should get a healthy and cheap lunch.

The SPD wants to strengthen dual vocational training and put 250 million euros into vocational schools and skilled-trades training centers by 2037. The network of vocational schools is to be preserved across the state.

The SPD wants to strengthen job training. The state should invest 250 million euros. The money goes to vocational schools and training centers for trades. The vocational schools in the state should stay.

The SPD wants to make the Jugendberufsagenturen (youth employment agencies) the central point of contact for young people so that no one is lost when moving from school to work. Career guidance in schools is to be developed systematically.

After school, young people start working life. That is often hard. The SPD wants one fixed place for help. Schools should give better information about jobs.

The SPD wants to keep supporting Volkshochschulen (adult education centers) and evening high schools and to strengthen adult education for the long term. The state's educational leave law is to cover federal employees as well and allow educational trips abroad.

The SPD wants to strengthen education for adults. Adult education centers should stay in town and country. Workers can get time off for education. This should soon apply to more people. Educational trips abroad should also be possible.

The SPD wants to keep all university locations in the state and channel additional investment into universities and research. It wants to protect academic freedom and continue promoting women in academia.

The SPD wants to keep all universities in the state. It wants to spend more money on research. Researchers should work freely and without pressure. Women should get more chances in science.

The SPD wants to keep the first course of study through the master's degree free of tuition, arguing that education must not depend on parents' income. The Studierendenwerke (student services organizations) are to keep receiving support for food, housing and psychosocial counseling.

The first degree should stay free of charge. This applies up to the master's degree. The SPD also wants to support student services. They provide cheap food and housing.

The SPD wants to support universities in going international and in building European University Alliances. The goal is a shared knowledge area around the Baltic Sea that keeps talent in the state and attracts more.

The SPD wants to connect universities with other countries. Countries on the Baltic Sea matter most. There should be joint research and degree programs. More young people should study abroad.

The SPD wants research results to reach businesses faster and aims for more start-ups spun off from universities and institutes. Artificial intelligence is to be researched and used more widely across disciplines. Top-level research and early-career researchers are to keep receiving support.

The SPD wants to strengthen research in the state. New ideas should reach companies faster. More new companies should grow out of universities. Artificial intelligence should also be researched more.

The SPD wants to further step up fusion research in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The program points to the state as home of the Wendelstein 7-X and sees it as a world leader in this field. Laser fusion research is also to grow.

The SPD wants to do more for fusion research. In nuclear fusion, atomic cores merge and release energy. The state has a large research facility for this. Research on fusion with lasers should also grow.

The SPD wants to keep funding university construction adequately after 2030 and to promote climate-neutral campuses. Academic libraries, open access and data centers are to be strengthened. At the same time, university administration is to face less red tape.

The SPD wants to keep paying for university buildings. This should also apply after 2030. Universities should become climate-neutral. Libraries and data centers should get support. There should be less red tape.

The SPD wants to guarantee basic hospital care in every region of the state. At the same time, hospitals are to specialize more and cooperate more closely to raise quality in particular fields.

The SPD wants to keep hospitals in all regions. Everyone should have a hospital nearby. Some hospitals should focus on certain treatments. Hospitals should work together more.

The SPD wants to use state programs to attract more doctors and other health professionals, especially to rural areas. Among other things, the rural doctor quota for medical school admission is to continue.

The SPD wants to bring more doctors to the state. Doctors are missing mostly in villages. There is a rural doctor quota for this. It means: people who will later work in the countryside get a place in medical school more easily.

The SPD wants to support medical care centers that are not run for profit and make it easier for municipalities to set up their own. Combined with mobile medical teams and telemedicine, this is meant to cover even remote places.

The SPD wants more medical centers in the countryside. Towns should be able to set up such centers more easily. Teams of doctors travel from there to the villages. Video appointments should help too.

The SPD wants to push for a statewide model that makes it easier for people without adequate health insurance to see a doctor. At its core are an anonymous treatment voucher and outpatient services.

Some people have no health insurance. The SPD wants to help them. They should get a voucher for the doctor. They do not have to give their name. Advice centers help them get back into insurance.

The SPD wants to continue preventive health work in the state and calls on the federal government for an addiction prevention program whose funds go to municipalities. It also pushes for more research on Long Covid and related illnesses and for a strong public health service.

The SPD wants people to stay healthy. Children should learn about healthy food. The federal government should give money to fight addiction. Illnesses like Long Covid should be studied more. Public health offices should stay strong.

The SPD wants to press at the federal level for a comprehensive reform of long-term care insurance because, in its view, needing care is a poverty risk. In the state, the Pakt für Pflege (care pact) is to continue permanently, and care in familiar surroundings is to take priority.

Care costs a lot of money. Some people become poor because of it. So the SPD wants to change long-term care insurance. People should be cared for at home when possible. There should be new forms of housing and more help from neighbors.

The SPD wants to push for legally guaranteed care leave during which family caregivers receive wage replacement payments. It argues that most care is provided at home.

Many people care for relatives at home. The SPD wants to help them. They should get care leave. During that time they get money to replace their wages.

The SPD wants to further develop the two university medical centers in Greifswald and Rostock and invest in buildings and equipment. They are to play a central role in the state's health care planning. They are also to train skilled staff and keep them in the state.

The SPD wants to strengthen the university hospitals in Greifswald and Rostock. The state should pay for buildings and equipment. The hospitals should be important for care across the state. They should also train doctors and nurses.

The SPD supports a health data platform in the state so that researchers can exchange data more easily. Telemedicine is to be expanded because, in the program's view, this is the only way to secure care across the whole state in the long run.

The SPD wants a platform for health data. Researchers should be able to share data there more easily. Telemedicine should also grow. Telemedicine means doctors treat patients by video or online. This should secure care in rural areas.

The SPD wants to press the federal government for a tax on soft drinks and other foods with a lot of sugar. The higher price is meant to steer buying behavior. The program cites other European countries as a model.

The SPD wants a tax on drinks and food with a lot of sugar. Then these products cost more. That way people should buy less of them. Other countries in Europe already have such a tax. The federal government decides on this.

The SPD wants to keep recruiting foreign skilled workers and trainees through a central service office. It also wants to keep funding a campaign for a welcoming culture in business, because the program sees right-wing extremism as a risk to the state as a business location.

The SPD wants to win skilled workers from other countries. One central office helps them and the companies. It helps with residence, diplomas and language. The SPD also wants newcomers to feel welcome.

The SPD commits to the immigration of trainees, workers and skilled professionals because the care sector still lacks staff. It wants to examine how foreign professional qualifications can be recognized faster.

There are not enough care workers. So the SPD wants to attract people from abroad. Their job qualifications should be recognized faster. This applies to medicine, care and administration.

The SPD wants to keep making public administration, education, the police and social services interculturally open and free of discrimination. Participation bodies for people with an immigration background are to be strengthened, and the party wants to counter hate online.

Public offices should treat everyone equally well. Staff should understand different cultures. This also applies to schools and the police. People with an immigrant background should have more say. The SPD wants to act against hate on the internet.

The SPD wants Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to grant protection and to enforce existing law consistently. Refugee children and teenagers should quickly get into daycare, schools, sports and culture, and families should move early from initial reception centers into municipalities.

The SPD wants to keep giving protection to refugees. Children should get into daycare and school quickly. Families should stay only briefly in the first shelter. The SPD expects everyone to follow the rules.

The SPD wants to expand language support and interpreting and to keep and extend counseling services for immigrants. The platform sees language as a precondition for participation.

The SPD wants more help with learning German. Daycare centers, schools and offices should have more interpreters. Counseling for immigrants should stay and grow. Volunteers should also get support.

The SPD wants to ease immigrants' path into work, including by allowing a switch from the asylum system to labor migration and by recognizing qualifications faster. The platform justifies this with the need for workers and skilled staff and with relief for public budgets.

The SPD wants immigrants to be able to work sooner. Degrees from abroad should be recognized faster. Women in particular should get help. The SPD says the state needs more workers.

The SPD wants to push at the federal level for a new voluntary year that combines language support with social engagement and practical experience. It is to be open to young people with and without an immigrant background and to foster encounters.

The SPD wants a new voluntary year for young people. They learn German and help in social institutions. Young people with and without an immigrant background can join. Nobody has to take part.

The SPD wants to implement the state's framework program on gender equality and counter the structural disadvantaging of women. The focus is on fair pay, the sharing of care work and more women in leadership positions.

The SPD wants women and men to have equal chances. Women should get fair pay. More women should become bosses. The state has a plan for this. The SPD wants to carry out that plan.

The SPD wants to implement the federal Gewalthilfegesetz (violence assistance act) and expand the support system in the state, including women's shelters and counseling centers. The judiciary is to be made more aware of gender-based violence, and the SPD calls for a federal law against digital violence.

The SPD wants to protect women better from violence. Women's shelters should be modernized and made bigger. Counseling centers should get better conditions. Judges should learn more about violence against women. There should also be a law against violence on the internet.

The SPD wants to push at the federal level to stop treating abortion as a crime and to delete Sections 218 and 218a of the Criminal Code. Universities in the state are also to teach abortion as a medical procedure.

Abortion is in the criminal law today. The SPD wants to change that. The rules on it should be removed from the criminal law. The federal government decides on this. Future doctors in the state should learn how to perform an abortion.

The SPD wants to defend marriage equality and the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz (Self-Determination Act) and better protect queer people from discrimination. At the federal level it calls for adding sexual identity to the Basic Law and for full legal equality for rainbow families.

The SPD wants to protect queer people better. Queer people include lesbians, gay men and trans people. Marriage for all should stay. The constitution should ban unfair treatment because of sexual identity. Families with two mothers or two fathers should get the same rights.

The SPD wants renewable power generated in the state to reach households and businesses in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at low prices. At the same time, the energy sector is supposed to grow, including through a local hydrogen economy.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern makes a lot of power from wind and sun. The SPD wants people in the state to get this power cheaply. Companies should benefit too. The energy industry in the state should also keep growing.

The SPD wants to keep expanding wind, solar, bio and geothermal energy while relying on clear rules. Residents and municipalities near wind turbines and solar parks are to benefit financially, and this participation is to grow further through energy cooperatives. The program treats energy policy as both climate and industrial policy.

The SPD wants more power from wind and sun. Bioenergy and heat from the ground should grow too. People living near wind turbines or solar parks should get money from them. Towns should get money too. Wind turbines must be 1,000 meters from villages.

The SPD wants to make the energy system more flexible and link electricity, heating and mobility more closely to keep energy costs in check. Alongside electricity, biogas, hydrogen and geothermal energy are to be part of the energy mix. Municipal utilities are to play the central role in local heat planning and be secured for the long term.

Power, heat and transport should work together better. This should make energy cheaper. Biogas, hydrogen and heat from the ground should be used too. Towns plan their own heating. Local public utilities should play a big part.

The SPD wants to build a green hydrogen economy in the state together with the federal government and the EU. Surplus wind and solar power is to be converted into hydrogen, creating jobs and value in industry. Pipelines, distribution grids and import capacity through the ports are to be developed for this.

Wind and solar power can be turned into hydrogen. Hydrogen is a gas that stores energy. The SPD wants to create new jobs with it. New pipelines should be built for this. Hydrogen should also come in through the ports.

The SPD names security of supply and resilience of energy infrastructure as its top priority. It wants to push grid expansion and speed up the construction and permitting of storage. Existing facilities such as liquefied natural gas terminals are to be integrated into the overall system.

The energy supply should be secure. The SPD wants to build more power lines for this. Energy storage should also be built faster. The terminals for liquid gas should stay part of the system.

The SPD wants to keep expanding renewable energy and use it to attract businesses. The program argues this makes the state less dependent on fossil fuels and creates economic opportunities.

The SPD wants more power from wind and sun. Companies should be able to get this power straight from the producer. There should be more charging stations for electric cars. The state should depend less on oil and gas.

The SPD wants to change energy market rules so that Mecklenburg-Vorpommern stays competitive with neighboring regions. It rejects new surcharges that would make electricity more expensive for households.

The SPD wants power to stay affordable. It does not want new extra charges on the power price. The rules for the power market should change. Power made in the state should also be used in the state.

The SPD wants to support municipalities with heat planning, sustainable construction and renovation, and the expansion of renewable energy. Geothermal energy is to become easier to use, and climate adaptation measures are to receive lasting support.

Towns have many tasks in energy and climate. The SPD wants to help them. For example with planning how homes get heat. Heat from the ground should be easier to use. Towns should be better protected from extreme weather.

The SPD wants to continue protecting and rewetting peatlands in order to retain water in the landscape, preserve soils and cut greenhouse gases. Farmers are to receive support and should also be able to earn income from solar power on peatland.

Peatlands should become wet again. Wet peatlands hold water and protect the climate. Farmers get help from the state for this. They should also be allowed to make solar power on peatlands.

The SPD wants to maintain the state's protected areas as refuges for species and expand them as places of environmental education. The Green Belt is to be tied more closely into the network of protected areas, and tree-lined avenues are to be replanted.

The state has many protected areas for nature. The SPD wants to look after them well. People should also learn about nature there. New trees should grow along roads where old ones are missing.

The SPD wants to protect groundwater from contamination and strengthen the natural water balance. Rivers and streams should be passable and water should be retained in the landscape, also in view of longer dry spells.

The SPD wants to keep groundwater clean. Rivers and streams should become more natural again. Water should stay in the landscape longer. That matters because dry periods are getting longer.

The SPD wants to protect all contiguous built-up areas on the coast and along rivers from flooding. Water and soil associations are to keep receiving support for investments in dikes and pipes.

Floods can happen on the coast and along rivers. The SPD wants to protect towns there. Dikes should become stronger. Broken pipes should be repaired.

The SPD wants to further cut the nutrients and pollutants entering the Baltic Sea and monitor its waters continuously. It also wants action against microplastics and ghost nets and demands that the federal government fully clear old munitions from the Baltic.

The Baltic Sea should become healthier. Less fertilizer and fewer toxins should get into the sea. Old fishing nets and plastic should come out of the water. The federal government should remove old war munitions from the sea.

The SPD wants less new land to be sealed over and gives development inside existing towns priority over new building zones. Measures to adapt to climate change should in future also be payable through eco-accounts (compensation credits).

Less soil should be built over. Empty houses and old sites in town should be used first. New building areas come only after that. Trees and water should cool cities in hot weather.

The SPD wants to convert forests into species-rich, climate-stable deciduous and mixed forests and to continue the reforestation program. Forest owners are to be specially rewarded for such measures, with the federal government providing part of its carbon pricing revenue for this.

The SPD wants to change the forests in the state. There should be more leafy trees and mixed forests. Such forests cope better with drought and pests. Forest owners should get money for this. Part of the money should come from the federal government.

The SPD wants comprehensive monitoring of wolves and the quick, legally secure removal of animals that cause problems. Protecting livestock herds is to remain the top priority. On hunting, the party continues to rely on hunters and on monitoring the impact of game on forests.

The SPD wants to watch wolves closely. Wolves that cause problems should be killed quickly. This should be legally safe. Protecting sheep and other farm animals stays very important. Hunters in the state should keep looking after healthy game populations.

The SPD wants to improve conditions for animals transported to slaughter, allow more inspections and limit transport times. It rejects transporting animals from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for slaughter to countries outside the EU. Animal shelters, volunteer animal welfare work and zoos are to keep receiving support.

The SPD wants animals to be treated better during transport. The trips should be shorter. There should be more checks. Animals from the state should not go to countries outside the EU for slaughter. Animal shelters and zoos should keep getting money.

The SPD wants to examine whether a farm structure law requiring approval for sales of farmland and farms would be useful. The background is its concern about land concentration and purchases by investors from outside agriculture.

Farmland is getting more expensive. Often companies buy it that are not farmers. The SPD wants to look into a new law. Selling farmland would then need a permit. This should keep the land with local farmers.

The SPD wants the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (GAP) to remain a separate policy area with its own budget. It rejects capping or gradually reducing direct payments for large farms, on the principle that every hectare should count the same.

The EU pays farmers money for their land. The SPD wants a separate pot of money for this to stay. The EU plans to pay big farms less per area. The SPD is against that. Every piece of land should get the same amount.

The SPD wants to focus farm subsidies on soil-friendly, precise cultivation to protect waters, soils and biodiversity. It also backs animal-welfare-friendly livestock keeping and wants to keep supporting organic farming in line with demand.

Farmers should be gentle on the soil. They should use fertilizer and pesticides precisely and sparingly. That protects water, soil and wildlife. The SPD also wants to keep supporting good animal care and organic farms.

The SPD wants to give more support to digitalization, artificial intelligence and other innovations in agriculture. Agricultural and environmental research in the state is to be secured and mid-sized plant breeders supported.

Farmers should use modern technology. For example robots and computer programs. That way they can harvest more and protect nature. The SPD also wants to keep farm research in the state.

The SPD commits to livestock farming that is tied to available land, compatible with the region and appropriate to the animals. New and converted barns for better animal welfare are to keep receiving support. To fight bird flu, the party wants to press the federal government for new vaccines.

The SPD wants farm animals to be kept well. Farmers should keep getting money for better barns. Diseases like bird flu are hard on animal keepers. The SPD wants new vaccines against bird flu.

The SPD wants to preserve coastal and inland fishing as a defining part of the state. The remaining coastal fishers are to get help with infrastructure and new fishing gear, and training for the profession is to be secured. Damage caused by protected species such as seals and cormorants is to be compensated.

The SPD wants to keep fishing alive in the state. Fishers on the coast should get help. For example, for new nets that catch fewer unwanted animals. Seals and cormorants cause damage for fishers. Fishers should get money to make up for that.

The SPD wants to keep the senior ticket and the apprentice ticket and discuss a statewide youth ticket with the municipalities. In addition, an interest-free loan is meant to help young people pay for their first driver's license.

There are cheap tickets for seniors and apprentices. The SPD wants to keep them. It also plans a youth ticket for students and apprentices. With it, they can travel across the whole state. There should be a loan with no interest for the first driver's license.

The SPD wants to strengthen local public transit in vacation regions so visitors do not need their cars at their destination. This is meant to calm traffic and ease the burden on communities. It also wants to press Deutsche Bahn for better long-distance rail service to the state.

Tourists should be able to leave their cars parked. For that, there should be good buses and trains. This helps locals too. The SPD also wants better long-distance trains to the state.

The SPD wants to keep supporting the Deutschlandticket (nationwide transit pass) with state money and press the federal government to keep it. It sees local transit as an essential public service, especially for people with little money and in rural areas.

The SPD wants to keep the Deutschlandticket. This is a pass for buses and trains all over Germany. The state will keep paying money for it. Buses and trains should be affordable for all. The SPD also wants to support new technology, such as driverless buses.

The SPD demands more Regionalisierungsmittel (federal funds for regional rail) and additional funding for disused lines. The rail network is also to be expanded, electrified and made more resilient in a crisis.

The SPD wants more money from the federal government for trains. Old rail lines should run again. Important lines should become faster and better. Trains should run without CO2.

The SPD wants to stop Deutsche Bahn from withdrawing long-distance connections from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and to strengthen long-distance service statewide. It argues that essential public services take priority.

The SPD wants long-distance trains to keep coming to the state. The rail company should not cut connections. Neubrandenburg should get long-distance trains again. People with a Deutschlandticket should be able to use these trains for an extra fee.

The SPD wants to align the on-call bus system statewide and make it usable across district lines. Regional bus lines are to be strengthened, and tickets from all transit operators are to be available in one shared app.

An on-call bus only runs when you order it. The SPD wants the same rules for on-call buses across the state. The bus should also cross district lines. Tickets should be available in one app. Tickets without a phone should stay available.

The SPD wants to work with municipalities to build bike paths faster and maintain existing ones. The goal is a statewide network that safely links cities, villages and small communities and makes people less dependent on cars.

The SPD wants to build more bike paths. The paths should connect the whole state. Old bike paths should stay in good shape. Then people need their cars less often.

The SPD wants to keep providing additional state money for building and repairing roads and to help municipalities maintain their roads and sidewalks. The focus is on preserving roads and bridges and on upgrading roads that run through towns.

The SPD wants to repair roads and bridges. The state should keep paying for this. Towns should get help too. Roads that run through towns should be upgraded first.

The SPD wants to continue the subsidized fiber-optic rollout until all eligible connections are reached. The program sees fast internet as the basis for working from home, competitive businesses and attractive places to live.

The SPD wants fast internet everywhere. The state will keep building fiber-optic lines. Villages should get a connection too. This helps people who work from home, and it helps companies.

The SPD wants to make digital tools in the social sector usable for all generations while keeping non-digital services. In its view, data should neither make participation harder nor restrict access to benefits.

Digital tools can make daily life easier. The SPD wants everyone to be able to use them. There should be courses and local help for this. People who are not online should still get services without a computer.

The SPD wants to review the state data protection law and other rules to see whether the effort is in proportion to the benefit. Public agencies, associations and businesses are to be relieved while protection of personal data stays in place.

Data protection rules sometimes cause a lot of work. The SPD wants to check these rules. Offices, clubs and companies should have less work. Personal data should still stay protected.

The SPD wants to examine whether the state administration can switch its software to European vendors or open-source solutions. The state is to keep control over data and technology and depend less on global software corporations.

State offices use programs from big global companies. The SPD wants to check whether other programs could work. For example programs from Europe or open programs. Anyone may use and change open programs. This should save money and make the state more independent.

The SPD wants to fully implement the Onlinezugangsgesetz (Online Access Act) so that dealings with government can be handled entirely online through one central account. The state and municipalities are to use shared IT systems and be protected by a joint shield against cyberattacks.

People and companies should be able to file requests fully online. There will be one central account for this. You only have to enter your data once. Offices should be better protected from online attacks. Paper services will also remain.

In the coming term, the SPD wants a review of which standardizable administrative processes artificial intelligence can support or partly automate. Decisions that affect fundamental rights are not to be handed over to AI in automated form.

Artificial intelligence can help offices with simple tasks. The SPD wants to check where that works. Staff should then have more time for advice. People will still make important decisions about people. A machine may not do that alone.

The SPD wants to better protect the state's digital infrastructure against cyberattacks and strengthen data protection in public administration. According to the platform, people who use digital government services should be able to rely on their data being safe.

The SPD wants to protect government computers and data better. Attacks from the internet should do less harm. All agencies should follow fixed safety rules. A state expert team should help when attacks happen.

The SPD wants many dealings with public offices to be possible online, while leaving more time for personal advice on site. The solutions are to be developed together with the municipalities.

The SPD wants more government services on the internet. Many trips to an office should no longer be needed. People should still get advice in person. The state wants to work with towns and cities on this.

The SPD wants to fight right-wing extremist networks and violence using the tools of the rule of law as well as political means. Gun ownership would be checked more strictly and extremists disarmed wherever possible. Against antisemitism, the platform relies on education, memorial sites and awareness work.

The SPD wants to act against right-wing extremists. It wants stricter checks on who owns guns. Extremists should lose their weapons. There should be more education against hatred of Jews.

The SPD wants to raise the state police force to at least 6,183 officers and keep all existing stations. Police should be close to citizens and present across the whole state. The platform also sees safety as a matter of social justice.

The SPD wants more police officers in the state. There should be at least 6,183. All police stations stay open. Police should be close to the people. Train stations, buses and trains should become safer.

The SPD wants to keep digitizing the police and build up its online capabilities, mainly against child sexual abuse material and cybercrime. Artificial intelligence should make the work easier, but the party rejects automated decision systems. It wants to do without Palantir software and use a European solution.

The police should work more digitally. They should be better at fighting crime on the internet. Artificial intelligence may help with this. But computers should not decide alone. The SPD does not want to use software from the company Palantir.

The SPD wants to keep training capacity high at the Güstrow police college and improve working conditions in the police. That includes flexible hours, pay that reflects shift and weekend duty, and protection from attacks. Officers are also to be relieved of tasks outside their core work.

The SPD wants to train many new police officers. Officers should be able to combine job and family better. Shift work and weekend work should show in their pay. The state should protect its workers from violence.

The SPD wants to continue modernizing fire department vehicles, equipment and stations and to support both career and volunteer firefighters. The state fire academy in Malchow is to be rebuilt. The goal, according to the platform, is fast help everywhere in the state.

Fire departments should keep getting new vehicles and buildings. The state helps towns with this. The fire school in Malchow will be newly built. Children and adults should learn more about fire safety.

The SPD wants reliable funding and good equipment for rescue services and disaster protection units. Extra investment is meant to make the state more resilient in crises, for example through emergency power and mobile infrastructure. Vehicles and equipment are to be bought in as uniform a way as possible.

The SPD wants disaster protection to be well equipped. There should be emergency power and gas stations for emergencies. All helpers should have the same equipment where possible. People should learn more about first aid.

The SPD wants to build up the state's civil defense capability and organize the administration so the state can keep working in crises. The federal government should fully cover the costs of civil protection, including public shelters and facilities for emergency power and heat.

The state should be well prepared for crises. There should be modern shelters. The federal government should pay for this in full. Hospitals, schools and public offices should be able to work in an emergency too.

The SPD wants attacks on public service employees to be prosecuted consistently. It says the state must protect its staff because, according to the platform, such violence is on the rise.

Some people attack state workers. The SPD rejects this. Police and prosecutors should pursue these crimes firmly. The state should protect its workers.

The SPD wants to introduce a "qualified Volksbefragung" (a consultative popular vote) so that citizens have a greater say in decisions. Overall, it emphasizes more citizen participation.

The SPD wants to ask people in the state for their opinion more often. For this, there should be a public vote. In it, citizens give their view on an important question. The SPD also wants to support citizens' councils.

The SPD wants to review the state's child and youth participation law and widen young people's say. A children and youth report and the findings of the inquiry commission "Jung sein in MV" (Being Young in MV) are to form the basis of youth policy.

The SPD wants young people to have more say. It will check how well the youth participation law works. A report will show what is on offer for children and teenagers. The ideas of a commission on youth should be put into practice.

The SPD wants to examine how red tape for volunteers can be cut and whether a volunteering law would help. Volunteering is to be expanded for young people, working people and seniors, and voluntary service programs are to remain financially secured.

Many people help for free in clubs and groups. This is called volunteering. The SPD wants to spare them paperwork. It is looking at a special law for this. More people should be able to volunteer. Voluntary service programs should keep getting money.

The SPD says people who do not share the values of the Basic Law, such as human dignity, democracy and the rule of law, should not work in public administration or the executive. The party announces measures to enforce this.

The SPD says people who work for the state must support the constitution. People who reject democracy should not work in public offices. The SPD wants to take steps to make sure of this.

The SPD wants to keep funding and update the state program "Demokratie und Toleranz gemeinsam stärken!" (strengthening democracy and tolerance together). It sees promoting democracy as a permanent public task. Municipalities would also get support for setting up citizen participation procedures.

The state has a program for democracy and tolerance. The SPD wants to keep paying for it and update it. Local groups get help from it. Citizens should have more say in their towns.

The SPD wants to shield state and democratic institutions from anti-constitutional influence and attacks. The state constitutional court is to be protected in its ability to function. At the same time the party stands by the separation of domestic intelligence and police.

The SPD wants to protect public offices and courts. Enemies of the constitution should not gain influence there. The state's highest court should always be able to work. Police and the domestic intelligence service stay separate.

The SPD wants to expand civic education, remembrance culture and the work of memorial sites in the state. The platform counts dealing with National Socialism, the Soviet occupation and East Germany among the foundations of democracy.

The SPD wants more civic education in the state. Memorial sites remember the victims of dictatorships. These places should get more help. School classes should be able to visit them more easily.

The SPD wants to keep working conditions in the public service attractive because many positions will need to be refilled as staff retire. Civil servants' pay is to keep following collective bargaining results so the state stays competitive with other German states.

Many state workers will retire soon. The SPD wants good working conditions in public service. Civil servants should keep getting the same raises as other public employees. Unions should have a say.

The SPD wants to keep municipal funding reliable and strengthen local self-government. Whoever hands new tasks to municipalities should also provide the money; the SPD wants to press the federal government to put this principle into practice.

Towns and villages should have enough money for their tasks. The rule is: whoever orders, pays. If the federal government gives towns new tasks, it should pay for them. The SPD wants to demand this.

The SPD wants to strengthen basic services in municipalities and use money from the MV investment plan for schools, culture, sports facilities and infrastructure. People should have fair chances regardless of where they live.

The SPD wants to put money into towns and villages. The money should go to schools, sports facilities and culture. Doctors, buses and social services should exist everywhere. Fire and rescue services should be well equipped.

The SPD wants the water supply to remain in public hands. It supports returning strategic areas of basic public services to municipal ownership where this makes economic and structural sense.

Water should belong to the state or the towns. Private companies should not take over the water supply. Towns can buy back important services. The SPD will help if it makes sense.

The SPD wants to develop the municipal code further and make public participation in local decisions the norm. Advisory councils and participation tools are to be strengthened, and conditions for local elected officials improved.

People should have more say in their town. The SPD wants to strengthen advisory councils. These are groups that advise local politicians. There should also be more citizen budgets. There, citizens help decide how money is spent.

The SPD wants to keep the justice system well staffed and continue its digitization. This is meant to make proceedings simpler and faster while keeping them sound under the rule of law.

The SPD wants enough staff at courts and prosecutors' offices. Working there should stay attractive. Courts should work more digitally. This should make cases go faster.

The SPD wants to make sure no one gives up a court case because of the cost, and to expand protection for victims. This includes a federal-level initiative to allow contact rights with children to be suspended when one parent is the victim of the other.

The SPD wants everyone to be able to go to court. Money should not stand in the way. Victims of crime should be better protected. They should get compensation more easily.

The SPD wants to keep implementing the state's action plan against antisemitism and protect Jewish life. It also wants to continue its exchange with the churches and with other religious and secular communities.

The SPD wants to protect Jewish people in the state. There is a plan against hatred of Jews. The SPD wants to keep working on this plan. It also wants to keep talking with churches and other faith groups.

The SPD wants the EU's next multiannual budget to provide enough money for regional funding and wants the state to keep its classification as a “transition region.” The state government and municipalities are to keep deciding how money from the regional and social funds is used. The party wants to strengthen European programs for exchange and encounters.

The SPD wants the state to keep getting a lot of funding from the EU. It wants to push the federal government on this. The state and the towns should decide themselves how to use the money. Programs for exchange in Europe should also stay strong.

The SPD wants to expand cooperation with the democratic countries around the Baltic Sea and jointly improve the protection of critical infrastructure there. It calls cooperation with Poland the centerpiece of the state's international relations and wants to deepen it institutionally. A comprehensive neighborhood strategy is to be developed for this.

The SPD wants to work more closely with the countries around the Baltic Sea. Together they should better protect important cables and networks. Working with Poland is especially important to the SPD. It wants to make a new plan for the neighborhood.

The SPD wants to promote media literacy statewide and for all age groups. In the platform's view it should become as natural as arithmetic and writing, also because of the growing use of artificial intelligence. Campaigns against misinformation are part of the plan.

People should be able to check news and sources well. This is called media literacy. The SPD wants to promote it for young and old. Teachers and child care workers should get more help for this. There should be campaigns against false news.

The SPD is committed to strong, independent public broadcasting, which it sees as irreplaceable for informing the public. At the same time its structures should be efficient so that the shared funding model stays accepted.

The SPD wants to keep public TV and radio independent. They should inform people well. But the broadcasters should work in a thrifty way. Then people will keep accepting the broadcasting fee.

The SPD wants to secure local and regional media and community media for the long term because they report on what happens locally. Delivery of printed newspapers in rural areas is to get federal support. The state media authority would gain more powers on youth protection.

Local newspapers and stations report on your own town. The SPD wants to keep them. Community media keep getting money. The federal government should help so newspapers still reach rural areas.

The SPD wants cultural offerings to be accessible and inclusive, regardless of income, age, origin or disability. Apprentices and students are to get reduced admission to state-owned institutions. Cultural education and volunteer work are to be supported.

The SPD wants everyone to be able to enjoy culture. Offerings should be free of barriers. There should be offerings in easy language and sign language. Apprentices and students should pay less for entry.

The SPD wants to defend the freedom of art and support artists who deal with social issues. Projects in civic and intercultural education are to be funded. The program sees culture as a tool against exclusion, hatred and extremism.

The SPD says: art is free. It wants to protect this freedom. It wants to fund projects that strengthen democracy and diversity. Remembering history should also stay alive.

The SPD wants to keep supporting the Low German language, regional history and the state's cultural heritage. Paid staff and volunteers working in heritage preservation are to receive support.

The SPD wants to preserve the Low German language. It is also called Plattdeutsch. The history of the region should also be researched. People who care for local heritage should get help.

The SPD wants to continue and adapt the Theaterpakt (theater pact) between the state and municipalities beyond 2028. State cultural funding is to be updated in light of rising staff and material costs. Libraries, archives and museums are to be strengthened and made more accessible digitally.

The SPD wants to continue the theater pact after 2028. The pact secures money for the big theaters. Cultural funding should stay effective despite higher costs. Libraries, archives and museums should get more digital offerings.

The SPD wants to push for fair pay and good working conditions in the cultural sector and points to the minimum fees already introduced. It also wants to start a debate on anchoring art and culture as a state objective of the Federal Republic.

The SPD wants artists to be paid fairly. There are already minimum fees. The SPD also wants to start a debate. It is about making culture a state objective. A state objective is a fixed task of the state.

The SPD wants to use European funds in a targeted way for cultural heritage and small cultural initiatives. EU programs are to be used more for cross-border encounters. The program sees culture as a bridge to neighboring countries.

The SPD wants to use more EU money for culture. It wants to preserve cultural heritage with it. Small cultural groups and village halls should also get money. People from neighboring countries should meet through culture.

The SPD wants to give targeted support to cultural projects that bring offerings to villages and small towns. The Bürgerfonds Kultur (citizens' culture fund) is to stay and gain a regional focus. Volunteer cultural work is to face less red tape.

The SPD wants to support culture in villages and small towns. The citizens' culture fund should stay and grow. There should be book buses, mobile stages and traveling cinemas. Volunteers should have less paperwork.

The SPD wants to support volunteer work with funding, recognition, advice and less red tape. Clubs are to be reimbursed for GEMA music licensing fees, and investment in fire departments and sports is to continue.

Many people volunteer in clubs or fire departments. The SPD wants to support them with money and advice. Clubs pay fees to GEMA for music at events. The state should pay back these fees for three events a year. Fire departments and sports clubs should keep getting money.

The SPD wants to continue and refine the state's programs for rural areas. In the long run, there should be a village shop for everyday needs within reach of every municipality.

The SPD wants to keep supporting villages. There should be a shop near every village. People can buy everyday things there. The village center should be a meeting place for people.

The SPD wants equal living conditions in cities and rural areas to guide political decisions. Vorpommern and eastern Mecklenburg are to keep receiving special attention, as are city districts with social problems.

The SPD wants people to live well everywhere in the state. Vorpommern and the east of Mecklenburg should keep getting special help. Poor city districts should also get more help. The state should be easy to reach there.

The SPD wants to keep funding sports facilities in need of repair and to use money from the MV-Plan 2035 for this as well. Olympic and federal training centers are to be kept, and Rostock-Warnemünde is to host Olympic sailing events.

Many sports fields and gyms need repairs. The SPD wants to pay for that. Clubs and top athletes should keep getting help. Children should learn to swim safely. The SPD hopes for Olympic sailing in Rostock-Warnemünde.

The SPD wants to keep the state's Verbraucherzentrale (consumer advice center) as the central point of contact and continue funding it. Counseling is to reach more of the state, for example digitally, through mobile services and with fixed local offices. The party counts strong consumer rights among essential public services.

The SPD wants to keep supporting the consumer advice center in the state. People get advice there, for example on contracts and prices. The advice should also be offered in the countryside. It should also be possible online and through mobile services.

The SPD wants to achieve at the federal level that the country of production and the manufacturer's address must appear on food products. Labels are to show clearly and accessibly where a product comes from, how it was produced and how healthy it is. Meals in daycare centers and schools are to meet the standards of the German Nutrition Society.

The SPD wants clear information on food. The package should say in which country the product was made. The address of the maker should be there too. Daycare centers and schools should serve healthy food. Nutrition experts have rules for this.