SPD on democracy and the state

The SPD wants to transfer collective pay settlements for state public employees promptly to the pay and pensions of civil servants. This is meant to keep the state competitive with other German states on civil-service pay.

Civil servants are paid by the state. The SPD wants this: when public-sector wages go up, civil servants' pay goes up too. This should happen quickly. That way the state stays a good employer.

According to the platform, the state should set an example as an employer, a contracting authority and a training provider. The settlements are to be applied to both pay and pensions. The SPD also sees this as a way to counter the shortage of skilled staff in state service.

The SPD wants to expand cooperation with Hamburg and continue joint regional planning. The office of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region is to become an innovation agency with more resources and powers.

Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg work together a lot. The SPD wants even more of this. Both states should keep planning together. The office of the metro region should get more tasks and more resources.

The SPD plans new initiatives in digital infrastructure. It takes its bearings from a 2019 OECD report on the Hamburg Metropolitan Region's competitiveness and capacity for innovation and on sustainable urban and regional development. The upgraded office is to receive sufficient capacity, resources and powers. This is to be complemented by a coordinated focus on clusters based in the metropolitan region.

The SPD wants to relieve the justice system through more positions, better organization and digitalization, and to offer the best working conditions in Germany. It adds plans for juvenile detention, prison staff and prosecutors.

The SPD wants to modernize the courts. Staff should get better working conditions. There should be more positions and more digital tools. Prosecutors should act more strongly when employers block works councils.

Digital court proceedings are meant to spare people in rural areas long trips. A public campaign is to promote careers in the justice system. The juvenile detention facility stays independent and physically separate from prisons; detention is to be purely educational, and juvenile prisons are to get inmate representation. Prison staff, like police, are to get shorter weekly and lifetime working hours. Prosecutors' offices are to be staffed and equipped so they can act against obstruction of works council elections and union busting.

The SPD wants a digital pact to help clubs and associations with digital work and wants to digitize and expand the Ehrenamtskarte (a benefits card for volunteers). Voluntary service programs are to receive greater financial recognition and more state funding.

Many people help others for free. The SPD wants to give clubs free digital tools. The volunteer card should become digital. Young people in voluntary service should get more money and discounts.

Clubs are to receive free, easy-to-use open-source software and be able to keep the digital infrastructure they built during the COVID period. For the Juleica youth leader card, applications for leave and lost earnings are to be possible online. The SPD wants to keep supporting the volunteer fire departments with their more than 50,000 members. The party treats the various service programs such as FSJ, FÖJ, FPJ, BFD and EFD as equal. For participants, it plans a state-funded digital platform, discounts on local transit, swimming pools, museums and movie theaters, access to the NAH.SH job ticket, and uniform recognition by universities.

The SPD wants to write participation rights for young people and the primacy of the child's best interests into the state constitution. Children's and young people's say in cities and towns is to become binding. Daycare centers and schools are also to teach more about democracy.

Children and teenagers should have more of a say. The SPD wants to write this into the state constitution. Cities and towns should have to truly involve children. Children should also learn about democracy in daycare and school.

Participation at the local level is to be supported by social workers and covered in the school subject of economics and politics. A democracy campaign is meant to ensure that every daycare center has a democracy plan and that children know their rights before starting school. Civic education and education for sustainable development are to be strengthened from elementary through vocational school, along with training for educators. The SPD wants to support student councils and youth associations. It argues that issues such as climate protection especially affect future generations.

The SPD wants to extend the counseling network against right-wing extremism to all regions and step up the work of the police and the domestic intelligence service against extremist violence. The platform justifies this by saying democracy regularly comes under pressure.

The SPD wants to do more against right-wing extremism. There should be counseling offices all over the state. The police and the domestic intelligence service should do more against extremist violence. That service is an agency that watches enemies of democracy. Research should also get money.

The counseling network is meant to give civil society nearby contacts everywhere in the state. The police and the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence service) are to act more strongly against extremist violence because, in the SPD's view, terrorist attacks and far-right murders can threaten Schleswig-Holstein too. The party also wants to fund research and prevention and enable new research and counseling services. Education, prevention and campaigns are to counter racism, for example toward Muslims.

The SPD wants to work with municipalities on a "Democratic Municipality 2030" program to make local self-government and volunteer office more attractive. Every full-time local administration is to have advisory councils for certain groups so that their perspectives feed into decisions.

The SPD wants to strengthen politics in towns and villages. It plans a program with the municipalities for this. More people should be able to join local councils. There should be advisory councils everywhere, for example for young and older people. An advisory council is a group that advises politicians.

The program is to address, among other things, how family life and a local council seat can be combined, how large councils should be, and what training and trial offers exist for interested people. Council groups in counties and independent cities are to have at least three members. Advisory councils are planned for young people, seniors, integration and people with disabilities; the right to vote for them is not to depend on citizenship alone. Mock elections for students (Juniorwahl) are to be supported statewide. The municipal code's provision on involving young people in planning is to be applied consistently.