What do the parties in Bremen say on democracy and the state?

The BIW wants residents to vote on whether Bremen stays a separate federal state or merges with other states. The platform points to the high cost of independence, the lack of surrounding territory, and dependence on Lower Saxony.

Bremen is its own state in Germany. The BIW wants to ask the people if it should stay that way. Bremen could also join with other states. Everyone should vote on this.

The BIW wants a new head of state for Bremen who is elected directly by the people and may not belong to any party. The office is meant to counterbalance the parties and, as the platform puts it, to counter cronyism and patronage.

The BIW wants a new office: a state president. The people of Bremen elect this person directly. The president may not belong to a party. The president should keep the parties in check.

The BIW wants to cut the state parliament to 50 seats to save money. At the same time, parliament is to get more control over the Senate, Bremen's government.

The Bürgerschaft is Bremen's parliament. The BIW wants only 50 lawmakers there. This should save money. But parliament should watch the government more closely.

The BIW wants to bar lawmakers from paid outside work and restructure their compensation. The taxpayer-funded pension is to be dropped. The stated aim is more independence and less influence for lobbyists and parties.

Lawmakers should no longer have paid side jobs. The BIW also wants to change how they are paid. Lawmakers should save for old age themselves. Public jobs should go only to skilled people.

The BIW wants to involve residents more in local decisions and set up a municipal suggestion system. District councils are to get more powers, citizen service offices more staff, and the administration more online services.

People should have more say locally. They should be able to report problems and send in ideas. Citizen service offices should get more staff. People should be able to file many requests online.

The CDU wants to renovate Bremen's public buildings so that they meet the same requirements as private ones. In the party's view, many of these buildings are in poor condition. Public-private partnerships would help finance the work.

The CDU wants to fix up the city's buildings. The CDU says many are in bad shape. The same rules should apply to them as to private builders. Private companies should also be able to help pay.

The CDU considers the 2019 split of the economics and ports departments a mistake and wants to reunite them. In addition, the state is to take over responsibility for all of Bremen's ports to speed up planning and implementation.

Since 2019 there have been separate departments for the economy and for ports. The CDU wants to merge them again. The state of Bremen should be in charge of all ports. This should make decisions faster.

The CDU commits to Bremen remaining a state of its own while wanting to make cooperation with Lower Saxony and surrounding municipalities permanent. The two states are to be developed as a shared "co-working space."

Bremen should remain its own state. But the CDU wants to work more closely with Lower Saxony. This covers business parks and buses and trains, for example. Large park-and-ride lots should be built at the city's edge.

The CDU wants to relieve Bremen's judiciary, which it considers overstretched, with more young lawyers and judicial assistants. Applications and hearings would also be available online more widely, and prison service jobs made more attractive.

The CDU wants more staff for the courts. Bremen should train many more young lawyers. Judges should get assistants. People should also be able to file court requests online.

The CDU wants to involve Bremen's Beiräte (district advisory councils) more closely in political decisions, especially in drawing up budgets. It sees the councils as the most important vehicle for political participation in the districts and wants the existing law on district councils to be put into practice.

Bremen has councils in its city districts. People work there as volunteers for their district. The CDU wants these councils to have more say. This matters most when the city plans its money.

The CDU wants to give district council members and Ortsämter (district offices) better technology and more staff. An app-based information system, digital meetings, and livestreams are meant to make volunteer work easier and more transparent.

The CDU wants to give district councils better technology. An app should show all documents in one place. Meetings should also be possible online. The district offices should get more staff.

The CDU wants to link the district councils with one another, set up a dedicated advisory office for council work, and define which level of government decides what. A street register for all of Bremen is to make clear who is responsible for which street.

District councils should learn more from each other. The CDU wants to create a special advice office for this. It should also be clear who decides what. A list of all streets should show who is in charge of each street.

The CDU wants to give youth councils more money and step up their exchange with the responsible government departments. It justifies this by pointing to the sharp rise in the number of these bodies.

In youth councils, young people do politics for their district. There are more and more of them. The CDU wants to give them more money. Government offices should talk with them more.

The CDU wants to strengthen the right to petition and make online petitions more user-friendly. In the future, petitions should also be able to aim at changes to laws.

With a petition, citizens can send a request to parliament. The CDU wants to strengthen this right. Online petitions should become easier. Citizens should also be able to push for changes to laws this way.

The CDU wants to create a unit for strategy and future analysis in the city hall and set priorities for the Senate's work. Two percent of the budget is to be reserved for pilot projects on which several departments work together.

The CDU wants a new unit in the city hall for planning the future. Experts from all departments should work there. The Senate, Bremen's government, should say clearly what matters most. Two percent of the state's money should go to new joint projects.

The CDU wants to make public service in Bremen more attractive in order to counter the shortage of skilled workers and applicants. It plans pay in line with the national average, an inflation bonus, more flexible working conditions and better staff development.

The CDU wants more people to enjoy working for the state. Pay should be as good as the average in Germany. There should be a bonus because prices are high. Staff should be able to work from home more often.

The CDU wants to check first whether new government tasks can be handled without additional positions. Money budgeted for unfilled positions is to go to projects that relieve staff of routine work.

The CDU does not want new jobs for every new government task. First it wants to check if there is another way. For example, with computers or less red tape. Money for empty positions should go to such projects.

The CDU wants to introduce a participatory budget that lets residents decide directly on part of Bremen's spending. Government departments would set aside budgets for each district for this purpose.

The CDU wants a participatory budget. People in Bremen would decide on part of the money themselves. Each district gets its own budget. The people who live there decide what matters most.

The CDU wants to merge overlapping responsibilities in Bremen's administration and digitize its processes. In its view, services from a single source work better and cost less.

The CDU wants to make the administration simpler. Often several offices do almost the same work. That should stop. Offices should also work more with computers and less with paper.

The CDU wants to reverse the growth in staff at the political top of the Senate departments and reduce staff and commissioner positions. In return, the tax office, youth welfare office, and housing benefit office would get more personnel.

The CDU wants fewer jobs at the top of government offices. Many new jobs were created there since 2019. Offices that work directly for people should get more staff. Examples are the tax office, the youth welfare office, and the housing benefit office.

The CDU wants to bring strategic management of public real estate together in a single department or agency. It says the current unclear division of tasks leads to long-term, expensive leases.

Bremen owns and rents many buildings. Several offices deal with them today. The CDU wants just one agency to be in charge. Bremen should mainly use its own buildings and rent less at high prices.

The FDP wants to turn the public administration in Bremen and Bremerhaven into modern service providers through a staffing reform. To do this, the Personalvertretungsgesetz (the law on staff representation in the public sector) would be fundamentally modernized. By 2030, the share of administrative spending in the state budget should fall by half.

The FDP wants to make Bremen's administration smaller and more modern. By 2030, it should cost only half as much of the budget. The FDP wants to review tasks and do more digitally. The law on staff representation should also change. Bremen should set money aside for future pensions.

The FDP calls for sweeping deregulation and a reform of Bremen's public agencies. For every new rule, at least two comparable ones would be repealed. The platform argues that bureaucracy holds back solutions to many other problems.

The FDP wants fewer rules in Bremen. For every new rule, two old rules should go. Experts should check new laws first. They should say how much work a law causes.

The FDP wants to establish English permanently and across the board as an administrative language in Bremen and Bremerhaven. Every government service would also be available in English. The aim is to make things easier for international companies and to attract skilled workers from abroad.

The FDP wants public offices to use English too. People should be able to do all their paperwork in English. This should help companies from other countries. It should also bring skilled workers to Bremen.

The FDP wants a unified port policy with clear responsibilities for all ports in the state. Authority would rest with the state, while administration would lie with the city where each port is located. This is meant to better coordinate port and commercial areas.

The FDP wants clear rules on who is in charge of the ports. The state of Bremen should have top responsibility for all ports. The city where a port lies should manage it. This should help ports and business areas fit together.

The FDP wants to give Bremen's justice system better staffing and equipment. New positions are to be created for judges, prosecutors, and court administration. The platform sees the greatest need in the public prosecutor's office.

The FDP wants more staff for the justice system. There should be more judges and prosecutors. Court administration should also get more people. Pay should improve.

The FDP wants to reform the Magistrat, Bremerhaven's city government, to make democratic structures easier to understand. Whoever holds the majority should also fill the Magistrat. If the reform fails, the party will push for direct election of the mayor.

The Magistrat is the city government of Bremerhaven. The FDP wants to change it. Those who govern should also fill the Magistrat. If that fails, citizens should elect the mayor directly.

The FDP wants citizens to directly elect the heads of the district offices (Ortsämter) in Bremen. It justifies this with the goal of achieving more democracy and trusting people to make important decisions themselves.

The FDP wants people to have more say. Citizens should elect the heads of the district offices themselves. Their term should match the term of the state parliament. This should apply at the next elections already.

The FDP wants political decisions to be made in the state parliament and city council again rather than in municipal enterprises and companies. Public enterprises are to be critically reviewed, including for tasks that private businesses could do better. More practitioners are to sit on supervisory and administrative boards.

Bremen and Bremerhaven own many companies. The FDP wants to review these companies. Private firms should take over some tasks. More experts with practical experience should sit on the supervisory boards.

The FDP wants to expand the legal service of the Bremische Bürgerschaft (Bremen's state parliament) into a full research service. This is meant to help parliament oversee the Senate more effectively.

The Bürgerschaft is Bremen's parliament. It is supposed to check the Senate. The Senate is the government. The FDP wants to give parliament more experts. These experts would advise the lawmakers.

The FDP wants to replace the state and city Deputationen (joint bodies of lawmakers and administration) with parliamentary committees, arguing that committees are independent of the administration. In addition, motions and bills would normally be referred to committees for debate.

Bremen has bodies called Deputationen. Lawmakers and the administration work together in them. The FDP wants to turn them into committees of parliament. The committees should check the government better. Motions and bills should almost always be discussed there.

The FDP wants to involve Bremen's Beiräte (elected district councils) and Bremerhaven's neighborhood conferences earlier in decisions. The work of Bremen's district councils would also become traceable for everyone through a single digital information system.

Bremen's districts have elected councils called Beiräte. Bremerhaven has neighborhood conferences. The FDP wants them to have a say earlier. There should also be one website for all the councils. People can search there for topics and decisions.

The FDP wants to create citizens' forums in Bremerhaven whose members are selected by lot and who advise the city council members. Decisions would still be made only by the elected city council.

The FDP wants citizens' forums in Bremerhaven. A lottery decides who takes part. The forums advise the city council members. Only the elected city council makes the decisions.

In the long term, the FDP wants to turn Germany's Staatskirchenrecht (the law governing relations between the state and churches) into a constitutional law of religion. It would offer a suitable legal status to all religious communities that accept certain principles.

Germany has a law on how the state and churches relate. The FDP wants to turn it into a law for all religions. Every religious community should get a fitting status. To get it, a community must accept basic rights.

Transport projects that matter beyond a single district are to be decided by the Stadtbürgerschaft (city parliament) after the district councils have been consulted. This is meant to ensure that key traffic corridors can be upgraded and overarching climate goals met.

Some transport projects affect several districts. The city parliament should decide on these. The district councils can give their view first. This should help important projects succeed.

The Greens want to make the public sector more attractive and more resilient in crises and to invest in modernizing the administration. Good pay, up-to-date equipment and flexible working hours are meant to help attract qualified staff. The administration is to shift from thinking in terms of jurisdiction to a culture of service.

The Greens want people to enjoy working for the state. So there should be good pay and good equipment. Working hours should become more flexible. One example is the four-day week. Public offices should work together better.

The Greens want to make public-sector work more flexible, for example through shared leadership positions and self-organized teams. They also plan a long-term strategy to address the shortage of skilled workers in the public sector.

The Greens want to change how people work in government offices. Two people should be able to share one leadership job. Teams should be able to plan their own work. The Greens also want to check how many skilled workers will be missing in 2030.

The Greens want to expand prevention work against extremism and regard the far right as the greatest threat to democracy. They plan support for schools, a counseling service on conspiracy myths and more research on hostility to democracy.

The Greens want to do more against extremism. Teachers should get help. There should be a counseling service about conspiracy myths. These are false stories about secret powers. The University of Bremen should do more research on this.

The Greens want to give courts and prosecutors more staff so that cases are concluded faster and the backlog shrinks. The justice system is also to become more child-friendly, and victims are to receive more support during trials.

The Greens want more staff for the courts. Then rulings come faster. The courts should deal better with children. Victims should get more support during a trial.

The Greens want to remove the word "race" from Bremen's state constitution and instead enshrine protection against racist discrimination. Citizens are to be able to enforce their fundamental rights under the state constitution before the Staatsgerichtshof (state constitutional court).

The Greens want to delete the word "race" from the state constitution. It should say instead that the state protects against racism. People should be able to claim their basic rights in the state constitutional court. That is the highest court of the state of Bremen.

The Greens still want women and men to be equally represented in Bremen's state parliament, the Bürgerschaft. They stick to this even though a legal opinion finds parity rules incompatible with Bremen's election law. In the party's view, diversity in parliament leads to better decisions.

Bremen's parliament should have as many women as men. The Greens still want to reach this goal. A legal report says this does not fit Bremen's election law. The Greens keep their goal anyway.

The Greens want to scrap the fee charged at the registry office for formally leaving a church. Leaving is also to become possible online. The party says this strengthens the free choice for or against belonging to a religion.

Today, people pay a fee at the registry office to leave the church. The Greens want to end this fee. People should also be able to leave online. Everyone should decide freely about their religion.

The Greens want to reform the Bremische Bürgerschaft (Bremen's state parliament) so that it can work more effectively. The Deputationen (committees close to the administration) are to become regular parliamentary committees, and the parliament is to shrink permanently. It is also to become visible who contributed to drafting laws.

The Bürgerschaft is Bremen's parliament. The Greens want to rebuild it. It should work better and get smaller. People should be able to watch meetings online. People should see who helped write a law.

The Greens want to give the Beiräte (elected neighborhood councils) more staff and funding. Members are to be able to pause their mandate for a time so that more people feel able to take on such a volunteer office. The queer policy advisory council is also to be upgraded.

Beiräte are elected councils in Bremen's neighborhoods. The Greens want to give them more money and staff. Members should be able to take a break. Another person fills in during that time. Pay per meeting should rise from 25 to 30 euros.

The Greens want to lower the voting age in Bremen to 14 and the age for standing as a candidate to 16. They argue that young people live longest with the consequences of political decisions and are outnumbered by older voters.

The Greens want young people to vote from age 14. From age 16 they should be able to run for office too. The party says politics affects young people for a long time. Every district should also get a youth parliament.

The Greens want to use the Bundesrat to give everyone whose life is centered in Bremen the right to vote in local and state elections. They also want elections to be easier to access, for example through barrier-free polling places and multilingual election mail.

The Greens want everyone who lives in Bremen to be able to vote there. That includes people without a German passport. Polling places should be easy to reach for everyone. Election mail should come in several languages and in plain language.

The Greens want to quickly put the results of the statewide engagement strategy into practice and make volunteering more visible and accessible. This includes the volunteer card, training, and a higher tax-free volunteer allowance at the federal level.

Many people in Bremen help others for free. The Greens want to give this work more recognition. The volunteer card with its discounts should stay and become better known. Volunteers should get good, low-cost training.

The Greens propose making May 8 and March 8 public holidays in Bremen. They justify this with the historical importance of both days.

The Greens want two new public holidays in Bremen. The first is May 8. On that day Nazi rule ended. The second is March 8, Women's Day.

The Greens want to convert the ports in Bremerhaven that currently belong to the city of Bremen into ports of the state. In the platform's view, it is an artificial situation for one city to hold sovereign territory inside another. The change is also meant to improve relations between Bremen and Bremerhaven.

Some ports in Bremerhaven belong to the city of Bremen. The Greens want to change that. The ports should belong to the state instead. This should improve relations between the two cities.

The Left wants a parity law so that women make up at least half of the members of the state's parliaments. It argues that women have so far been underrepresented there.

There are fewer women than men in parliaments. The Left wants a law against that. At least half of the members should be women.

The Left rejects compulsory service for young people. Instead, voluntary service programs should become more flexible, attractive and visible so that all young people have access to them.

Some people call for a mandatory service year for young people. The Left is against it. It wants to improve voluntary service instead. All young people should be able to do such a year if they want.

The Left wants people without a German passport to receive full voting rights after five years of residence. In the party's view, anyone who lives here permanently and is affected by the laws should also have a say in them.

Many people in Bremen have no German passport. They are not allowed to vote. The Left wants to change that. Anyone who has lived here for five years should be allowed to vote.

The Left wants to declare May 8 a public holiday in Bremen. It calls it the day of victory over fascism.

World War II ended in Europe on May 8, 1945. The Left wants this day to be a public holiday in Bremen. People would then have the day off.

The Left wants to recruit more staff for the administration, schools, daycare and nursing, and make public service more attractive financially. Collective pay settlements are to be passed on to civil servants in full.

The Left wants more people to work for the state. Bremen should train more people itself. Civil servants should get the same raises as other public employees. Jobs that are hard to fill should come with bonuses.

The Left wants a separate Bremen freedom of assembly law that strengthens the rights of demonstrators and assembly organizers. The ban on face coverings at protests should be dropped or at least reduced to an administrative offense.

The Left wants a new law for demonstrations in Bremen. It should protect the rights of participants. Police should have to cooperate with organizers. Covering your face at a protest should no longer be a crime.

The Left wants citizens to be able to bring their own complaints before Bremen's state constitutional court. In addition, the word “race” is to be removed from the state constitution and replaced with a ban on racist discrimination.

Bremen has its own constitutional court. The Left wants ordinary people to be able to file cases there. The word “race” should be taken out of Bremen's constitution. It should instead ban racist discrimination.

The Left wants to strengthen the Beiräte (district advisory councils) in Bremen's neighborhoods. They are to decide local matters themselves rather than just be consulted, get more budgets of their own, and be better equipped.

Bremen has district councils. These are elected groups for each part of the city. The Left wants to give them more power. They should decide things themselves and manage more money. Members should get tablets and fixed monthly payments.

The Left wants better conditions for volunteer work. Funding applications are to become simpler, grants are to run longer than one year, and a shared house for volunteer organizations is to be created.

Many people in Bremen volunteer. The Left wants to make their work easier. Clubs should have less paperwork. Funding should be promised for more than one year. There should be a house for volunteers.

The Left wants to reform Bremerhaven's city leadership. The mayor is to be elected directly by the people, and full-time department heads are to be chosen for professional qualification rather than by coalition quotas.

The Left wants to change Bremerhaven's city government. People should elect the mayor themselves. Department heads should be chosen for their skills. Party membership should not decide.

The SPD wants to base the justice system's staffing plans on the nationwide calculation system PEBB§Y and quickly hire the missing staff at the public prosecutor's office and the ordinary courts. More legal traineeship places are to be created for young lawyers.

The SPD wants more staff for courts and prosecutors. A calculation system shows how many people are missing. The SPD wants to plan jobs based on it. There should be more training places for young lawyers. The prosecutor's office in Bremerhaven should become stronger.

The SPD wants to gradually eliminate understaffing at the civil courts, especially the local courts (Amtsgerichte). To do so, more court personnel are to be trained. The goal is accessible and timely access to justice.

Bremen's civil courts have too few staff. This is especially true for the local courts. The SPD wants to change this step by step. Bremen should train more court workers.

The SPD wants to set up a central office where people involved in legal proceedings can ask about the status of their case. It also wants to examine whether victim support can be strengthened through cooperation with Lower Saxony.

The SPD wants a central help desk at the justice system. People can ask there about their case. For example: How far along is the investigation? The SPD also wants to review help for crime victims.

The SPD stands by its goal of a parity law that is compatible with the constitution. It is meant to ensure gender equity in all bodies under public law.

The SPD wants a parity law. Parity means women and men are equally represented. This should apply to all public bodies. The law must fit the constitution.

The SPD wants to support the Beiräte (district councils) and Ortsämter (district offices) and relieve them of administrative work. The law governing the district councils is to be reviewed continuously and adjusted in the councils' favor where needed. A digital committee management system is meant to make the volunteer work easier.

Beiräte are elected councils for the districts of Bremen. The SPD wants to strengthen these councils and the district offices. They should have less paperwork. They should get digital tools. Meetings by video should stay possible.

The SPD wants to expand citizen participation in Bremen. The public list of the Senate's projects is to become more informative, and citizens' forums with randomly selected members are to be tested further. The party wants to pay particular attention to making sure all groups in society can take part.

The SPD wants citizens to have more say. A list shows the plans of the Senate, Bremen's government. This list should get better. The SPD wants to keep testing citizens' forums. Randomly chosen people take part in them.

The SPD wants to set up a youth council or a comparable youth forum in every district and support it with full-time staff. Certain bills and government actions are to be checked in the future for their effects on young people. The platform refers to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The SPD wants youth councils in all districts. Young people can help decide things there. Paid staff should help them. New laws should be checked: What do they mean for young people?

The SPD wants to keep supporting youth associations in the state of Bremen and substantially increase their funding, also to offset inflation. The volunteer card (Ehrenamtscard) is to become more attractive for young people through additional discounts. In the party's view, the associations make an important contribution to democratic education.

The SPD wants to give youth associations more money. The money should also make up for higher prices. Young volunteers should get more discounts. The SPD says youth associations are important for democracy.

The SPD wants to make it easier for volunteer initiatives and self-help groups to get funding. Volunteering should become more visible, and groups that rarely volunteer today should find easier ways in.

Many people help for free in clubs and groups. The SPD wants to make this easier for them. Applying for money should be simpler. Volunteers should get more advice.

The SPD rejects a mandatory year of service for everyone. In its view, voluntary service only keeps its value if it stays voluntary. Counseling for young volunteers is to continue.

Some people want a required year of service for all young people. The SPD is against this. Service should stay voluntary. Young volunteers should keep getting advice and support.

The SPD wants public offices to handle requests quickly and competently and aims for an online citizen account modeled on Denmark's. The administration is to work more in projects and see itself as a service provider.

Public offices should handle requests faster. The SPD wants many more services online. There should also be mobile services in the neighborhoods. People who must go to an office should get an appointment quickly. The administration should see itself as a service for everyone.