What do the parties in Baden-Württemberg say on democracy and the state?

The AfD wants to declare Baden-Württemberg a "space of free speech." Prosecutors would generally drop cases based purely on statements of opinion, and the special criminal protection for politicians would go. The AfD would have EU rules on online content reviewed and, where warranted, stop enforcing them in the state.

The AfD wants more freedom to speak and write. Prosecutors should usually drop cases about things people said. One law gives politicians extra protection from insults. The AfD wants to end this law. It wants to stop using some EU internet rules in the state.

The AfD wants to reduce the number of state ministries from twelve to seven or eight and cut at least 250 positions in the state administration every year. It justifies this with sharply increased personnel and pension costs, which in its view will restrict the state's financial leeway for a long time.

The AfD wants fewer ministries in the state. Twelve should become seven or eight. At least 250 jobs should also be cut each year. The AfD says staff cost the state too much money.

The AfD wants the state not to use its resources to strengthen particular political positions and wants to end funding for NGOs it sees as one-sided and for favored media. It also opposes a widening of the term extremism, which it regards as a restriction of free speech.

The AfD says the state must be politically neutral. It should not give money to groups that back only one political side. It should not favor certain media either. The AfD wants to protect free speech.

The AfD wants administrative procedures to be handled fully digitally and data to be requested only once. Uniform IT standards, consolidated registers and the use of AI are meant to speed up processing and ease the load on businesses and citizens.

The AfD wants government offices to work digitally. People and businesses should only have to give their data once. All offices should use the same technology. Computer programs should help with the work. This should make applications go faster.

The CDU supports a compulsory year of service for all young people, which it calls the Deutschlandjahr. In its view, this would foster community spirit, responsibility and solidarity.

All young people should serve the community for one year. The CDU calls this the Germany Year. The service would be required. Until then, the CDU wants more places in voluntary services.

The CDU wants to shorten court proceedings through specialization and fast-track procedures. The justice system is to work digitally and use artificial intelligence as a tool, while decisions stay with humans.

The CDU wants courts to decide faster. There should be more specialized courts. The justice system should work digitally. Artificial intelligence should help, but people still decide.

The CDU wants to put one member of the state government in charge of coordinating support for volunteering and to relieve clubs of bureaucracy. The volunteer card is to be improved and funding for youth volunteer services increased.

Many people volunteer in clubs. The CDU wants to support them better. One member of the government should take care of this. Clubs should have less paperwork.

The CDU wants to give public agencies more discretion so they can decide faster and more practically. At the same time, all state tasks are to be reviewed so that government limits itself to its essential functions.

The CDU wants public offices to decide more freely. Decisions should be faster. There should be less bureaucracy. The state should only do what is really needed.

The CDU wants a leaner state and aims to cut staff in the core administration by ten percent within five years. Responsibilities are to be clearly assigned and duplicate structures removed. The party cites demographic change and digitalization as reasons.

The CDU wants a smaller administration. In five years, it should have ten percent fewer staff. Nobody should be fired. Jobs go away when people retire. Agencies should not do the same work twice.

The CDU wants to review all state regulations for necessity and generally give laws an expiration date. For every new rule, two old ones are to be dropped, and state law should not go beyond federal and EU requirements. The party wants to abolish the state Freedom of Information Act.

The CDU wants fewer rules in the state. Laws should apply only for a set time. After that they end on their own unless someone extends them. For every new rule, two old ones should go. The law on information from public offices should go too.

The CDU rejects the right of associations to bring lawsuits and wants to push for its removal at all levels. Only those directly affected should be able to sue. In addition, the administrative objection procedure is to be dropped in as many areas as possible to speed things up.

Today, associations can sue against some projects. The CDU wants to end that. Only people who are affected themselves should be able to sue. The formal objection to official decisions should often go away too. This should make procedures faster.

The CDU wants every constituency to keep its directly elected representative, unlike under federal election law. To shrink the state parliament, it is open to strengthening the element of voting for individual candidates. Proven forms of dialogue-based citizen participation are to be kept.

Every district should keep its directly elected member of parliament. The state parliament should get smaller. For that, voting for individual people can become more important. Citizens should still have a say. Public offices and schools should write by the official spelling rules.

The CDU promises public-sector employees good working conditions and appropriate pay and commits to career civil servants for sovereign tasks. Fixed-term contracts without objective grounds are to be reduced further. To attract young talent, the lowest pay grades are to be phased out.

The CDU wants good work and fair pay in the public service. There should be fewer fixed-term contracts without a reason. The lowest pay grades should go away. People who want to should be able to work longer. Civil servants should get medical costs paid back faster.

The CDU wants to give municipalities more responsibility of their own and limit statewide standards to the essentials. Approval procedures are to be replaced by trust-based rules and self-monitoring. At the same time, municipalities are to be relieved of tasks and cooperate more.

Towns should decide more on their own. The state should set fewer detailed rules. Instead of long approvals, there should be more trust. Towns should do office work together. They should get money as an incentive for that.

The CDU wants to use the d’Hondt counting method again in local elections. It aims to counter what it sees as the fragmentation of municipal and county councils. The goal is to keep local government able to function.

In local elections, votes are turned into seats. The CDU wants to use an earlier method for this again. It is called d’Hondt. The CDU thinks there are too many small groups in the councils. That should change.

The CDU wants state grants to civil society organizations to be geared more toward the general public interest. In its view, citizens' engagement rather than state involvement should be at the center. Private donations are to become easier and get better tax treatment.

Clubs and initiatives get money from the state. The CDU wants to hand out this money differently. It should serve the good of everyone more. In return, private donations should become easier. Donors should be able to save more on taxes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The SPD wants to expand civic education and extremism prevention and give civil society projects stable funding. A new state program called "Wehrhafte Demokratie" (defensive democracy) is meant to do this. The platform argues that prevention and education are the best safeguard against extremist crime.

The SPD wants more civic education. Groups that work for democracy should get steady money. A new state program should pay for this. Local politicians should also get better protection.

The SPD wants to use the Bundesrat to get the federal and state governments to collect evidence for proceedings to have the AfD declared unconstitutional. If the evidence is sufficient, a petition should be filed with the Federal Constitutional Court. The platform points to the federal domestic intelligence agency's classification of the AfD as right-wing extremist.

The SPD sees the AfD as a danger to democracy. The federal and state governments should collect evidence against the AfD. Experts should check the evidence. If it is strong enough, the highest court should decide on a ban.

The SPD wants to protect the courts and the state constitutional court against extremist influence. People with a final conviction for incitement to hatred or for using unconstitutional symbols could lose the right to stand for election. Local self-government is also to be protected from enemies of the constitution.

The SPD wants to protect courts from extremists. The choice of lay judges should be more open. People convicted of inciting hatred should no longer be able to run for office. Nobody should be able to block the state constitutional court.

The SPD announces an administrative reform that will examine which levels of government are needed and remove overlapping responsibilities. Cities and municipalities themselves would be left untouched.

The SPD wants to reorganize the state's administration. It wants to check which levels are really needed. Only one office should be in charge of each task. Towns and cities stay as they are.

The SPD wants to extend citizen participation tools to the county level and have county chief executives (Landräte) elected directly. Local election law would be revised to encourage stable majorities.

The SPD wants more local say for citizens. People should elect the county head themselves. Counties should also have citizen votes. It should be possible to vote out mayors who do not do their job.

The SPD wants binding rules for the political participation of young people in municipalities, counties and at the state level. Larger municipalities would have to set up youth councils, and youth bodies would get the right to speak and submit motions.

The SPD wants young people to have more say. Larger towns must have a youth council. Smaller towns must have youth forums. Young people may speak in the town council and make proposals.