What do the parties in Schleswig-Holstein say on democracy and the state?

The CDU wants to keep adding staff at courts and public prosecutors' offices and push ahead with digitizing the justice system. Electronic case files are to be introduced at all courts by 2026 at the latest. All court locations in the state are to be kept.

The CDU wants more staff for courts and prosecutors. The justice system should become more digital. By 2026, all courts should work with electronic files. All courts in the state should stay where they are.

The CDU wants to write the fight against antisemitism into the state constitution and back it with an action plan. Schools are to be required to visit a memorial site of the persecution of Jews and discuss the visit in class.

The CDU wants to fight hatred of Jews. This should be a goal in the state constitution. All school classes should visit a memorial site. There they learn about the persecution of Jews.

The CDU wants a routine inquiry with the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence agency) for people applying to work in public service. It also wants to examine how opponents of the constitution can be removed from service more quickly after being hired.

People who want to work for the state should be checked. The employer should always ask the domestic intelligence agency. The CDU wants to remove enemies of the constitution from public service faster. It wants to check how this can be done.

The CDU wants to recruit more young staff for the state civil service, since 30 percent of the workforce will retire within the next ten years. Flexible working arrangements, appropriate pay and more training are meant to help.

Many state employees will retire soon. So the CDU wants to win new staff. Work should become more flexible, for example from home. Civil servants should get the same pay raises as other public employees.

The CDU wants to involve citizens earlier in major projects while introducing a duty to cooperate that also applies to environmental groups. Objections that were deliberately held back are no longer to count once the deadline has passed.

The CDU wants to ask citizens earlier about big projects. Those who take part must also cooperate in time. This also applies to environmental groups. Objections held back on purpose should not succeed.

The CDU rules out forced mergers of municipalities. Instead it wants to support voluntary mergers and cooperation between municipalities. Municipalities are also to get more leeway to shape their own affairs.

The CDU does not want to merge towns against their will. Towns may join together if they choose to. They should also work together more. They should decide more things themselves.

The CDU wants to let local politicians take time off in special life situations without losing their seat. In addition, meetings are to be possible permanently in digital or hybrid form, and compensation is to be appropriate.

People in local politics should be able to take a break. They should keep their seat during that time. Meetings should also be possible online. Pay for the work should be fair.

The CDU wants to introduce an electoral threshold in local elections and raise the minimum size for council caucuses, for example to four members in county councils. Seats are to be allocated by the d'Hondt method in the future. According to the platform, the aim is to make forming majorities easier.

The CDU wants a threshold in local elections. This means parties with very few votes get no seats. A caucus in a county council should have at least four members. Seats should be counted in a different way.

The CDU wants to replace the current thresholds, which are graduated by population, with uniform values across the state. A 15 percent threshold is to apply to citizens' initiatives and 30 percent to local referendums.

In a citizens' initiative, people collect signatures to get a vote. Today the number needed depends on the size of the town. The CDU wants the same number everywhere: 15 percent. For the vote itself, 30 percent should be needed.

The CDU wants to amend the municipal code so that full-time mayors are no longer elected directly by residents but once again chosen by the elected councils.

Today, citizens elect full-time mayors directly. The CDU wants to change that. The local council should elect the mayor. That is how it was done in the past.

The CDU wants to distribute new state institutions so that rural areas are also considered. It also wants to attract federal agencies and federal research institutions to Schleswig-Holstein.

New state offices should not only be in big cities. Rural areas should get some too. The CDU also wants to bring federal offices to Schleswig-Holstein.

The CDU wants to create a legitimized, direct representative body for children and young people at the state level. It also wants to examine whether more uniform statewide standards are possible for involving young people in municipal decisions.

The CDU wants to create a body that speaks for children and young people in the state. In towns and cities, young people should have more say. The CDU wants to check whether similar rules can apply everywhere.

The CDU wants political parties, their youth organizations and local branches to be able to use public buildings for events, and wants to set this out in law. It also wants to raise voter turnout, especially in precincts where few people vote.

Parties often struggle to find rooms for events. The CDU wants parties to be allowed to use public buildings. This should be written into a law. It also wants more people to vote.

The CDU wants organizations that receive state money for promoting democracy to commit to the free democratic basic order. The aim is to prevent public funds from benefiting anti-constitutional activities.

Some groups get state money for democracy projects. The CDU wants these groups to commit to the constitution. The constitution holds the most important rules of the state. Enemies of the constitution should get no state money.

The CDU wants the rights of national minorities written into the Grundgesetz (Basic Law, Germany's constitution). It also backs the demands of the European Minority SafePack Initiative.

The CDU wants minority rights written into the Basic Law. The Basic Law is Germany's constitution. The party also supports a European initiative for minorities. It is called Minority SafePack.

The CDU wants the preamble of Schleswig-Holstein's state constitution to include a reference to God. It points to the joint effort by several religions in support of this goal.

The CDU wants to change the state constitution. The opening part should mention God. Several religions have worked for this. The CDU wants to keep supporting it.

The FDP wants to turn the state's freedom of information act into a transparency law so that publishing government data and information becomes the norm. The supply of open state data is also to grow. The platform argues that information held by public bodies belongs to the public.

The FDP wants a transparency law. Transparency means the state openly shows what it knows and does. Public offices should publish their information as a rule. State data should also be free to use online. Developers can build new services with it.

The FDP wants to make the state a more attractive employer through flexible working hours, better performance incentives and modern workplaces. New civil servants should be able to choose freely between public and private health insurance through a flat-rate subsidy (pauschale Beihilfe).

The state should be a good employer. The FDP wants flexible hours and modern workplaces. New civil servants should choose their health insurance freely. The state should pay a fixed contribution for this. Moving up in state service should get easier.

The FDP wants to introduce a two-vote system in local elections to strengthen smaller parties and voter associations. It also wants to make volunteer council seats easier to combine with work and family, for example through mandate breaks and digital participation in meetings.

Local elections should have two votes. This helps small parties. The FDP also wants to make council work easier. For example, members could take a break from their seat. Meetings should be easier to watch online.

The FDP wants to expand cooperation with Hamburg in the metropolitan region, for example on transport, public agencies and services across the state border. It continues to reject merging the northern German states into a single “Nordstaat.”

Schleswig-Holstein should work more closely with Hamburg. For example on buses and trains, road works and public offices. But the FDP does not want one shared northern state. The old coal power plant in Wedel should be shut down soon.

The FDP wants courts and prosecutors' offices to be well staffed and pay in the judiciary to be competitive. The aim is shorter proceedings and preventing staff from leaving for other states or professions.

The FDP wants more and well-paid staff for the courts. Prosecutors' offices should have enough staff too. Cases should then move faster. Good experts should stay in Schleswig-Holstein.

The FDP wants no closures or relocations of courts or prosecutors' offices and no mergers of court branches, in order to keep the justice system close to citizens. It wants to examine whether a second administrative court in the south of the state is feasible.

The FDP wants to keep all courts where they are. No court should close or move. People should not have to travel far. The FDP will check whether a second administrative court in the south is possible.

The FDP wants to develop the law governing state–church relations into a general constitutional law of religion and, in the medium term, to end the historic state payments to the churches. In addition, leaving a religious community should generally be free of charge for young people up to age 21.

The state pays the churches money every year under old agreements. The FDP wants to end these payments. This needs a federal law. Young people up to age 21 should be able to leave a church for free.

The Greens want everyone aged 16 and over who lives permanently in the state to be allowed to vote. People with a migration background should also be adequately represented in public institutions, and their self-run organizations should receive funding.

The Greens want voting rights for everyone aged 16 and up. This should apply to all who live here permanently. Groups run by immigrants should get money. More people with immigrant roots should work in the police, schools and parliaments.

The Greens want to anchor children's right to participate and the priority of the child's best interests in the state constitution. According to the program, children and young people should be better represented in politics and public life because decisions affect them too.

The Greens want to strengthen children's rights. Children should have a say. The well-being of children should come first. Both should be written into the state constitution.

The Greens want children and young people to be consistently involved at all political levels as well as in daycare, school, youth work and youth welfare. To that end, a state youth council and a state commissioner for children and youth are to be created.

Children and young people should have a say everywhere. This covers politics, daycare, school and youth welfare. The Greens want a youth council for the whole state. A commissioner should look after participation.

The Greens want to cut the state administration's office space by one fifth by 2035. Working from home and coworking spaces would make up an appropriate share of work. Buildings would be designed to allow flexible ways of working.

The Greens want less office space for the state administration. By 2035 it should be 20 percent less. More staff should work from home or in shared offices. New buildings should fit flexible work.

The Greens want to make planning procedures faster while keeping them legally sound. They justify this with the energy transition, infrastructure and business settlement. At the same time, participation rights for citizens and associations are to be strengthened.

Planning for building projects often takes a long time. The Greens want it to go faster. The rule of law should still apply. Citizens and associations should have a say early on.

The Greens want state parliament committees and local councils to be able to meet digitally or in hybrid form even outside emergencies. This is meant to make participation easier for people who, for example, have childcare duties.

Committees and local councils should be allowed to meet online. This should not only apply in emergencies. Then more people can take part. For example, parents who look after children.

The Greens want to make the state administration more citizen-friendly and modern. A new Public Innovation Agency is to help the state and municipalities solve problems and draw on ideas from society.

Public offices should become more modern. Letters and forms from offices should be easier to understand. A new agency should help offices solve problems. Ideas from citizens should help with this.

The Greens want the state parliament and local councils to be made up equally of women and men, while also taking into account people who are neither male nor female. In addition, civic education, online citizens' initiatives and the right of petition are to be strengthened.

The Greens want equal numbers of women and men in parliaments. People of other genders should be considered too. Children and adults should learn more about democracy. Online citizens' initiatives should become easier.

The Greens want a mandatory lobby register for Schleswig-Holstein and stricter disclosure duties for members of the state parliament. According to the program, politics should be transparent and free of economic conflicts of interest.

The Greens want a lobby register. That is a list of groups that try to influence politics. Lawmakers should make all side jobs and donations public. This should help people trust politics more.

The Greens want to establish citizens' assemblies by law at state and municipal level in order to involve citizens more directly in politics and lawmaking on selected issues. The results must be debated but need not be adopted.

The Greens want citizens' assemblies. In them, ordinary people discuss a topic. Politicians must deal with the results. But they do not have to carry them out.

The Greens want children, young people and people with disabilities to be involved in municipalities on a binding basis. Volunteer local politics is to be made easier through digital meetings and training, and the division of tasks among local levels is to be reviewed.

Children and young people should have a say in their town. The same goes for people with disabilities. Volunteer local politicians should be able to join meetings online. The Greens also want to check who should do which tasks.

The Greens want everyone in the state to be able to assert their rights easily. They want to examine whether statewide public legal advice can be set up, because the platform says the existing legal aid advice system no longer works well, especially in rural areas.

Everyone should be able to get their rights easily. The Greens want to look into public legal advice across the state. People with little money should learn more about the help they can get. The information should be easy to understand.

The Greens want to give courts and prosecution authorities more staff and modern technology. The platform says proceedings take too long, and processes are to become faster and closer to citizens.

Courts have a lot of work. Cases take a long time. So the Greens want more staff for the justice system. Courts should get modern technology.

The Greens want to change how judges in the state are elected and promoted. This is meant to strengthen trust in the rule of law after the current procedure, according to the platform, drew repeated criticism.

The Greens want new rules for electing judges. The rules for promoting judges should change too. The process should be open and easy to follow. People should be able to trust the courts.

The Greens want to give civil society organizations working against right-wing extremism a long-term outlook. Civic education is to be funded permanently, and democracy education is to reach people of all ages.

Many groups work against right-wing extremism. The Greens want to pay for this work over the long term. Jobs there should be permanent. People of all ages should be able to learn about democracy.

The Greens want closer cooperation with Hamburg and the other northern German states. Plans include a joint innovation agency, coordinated spatial planning, bike highways and better-aligned public transit fares. The party points to an OECD report on the Hamburg Metropolitan Region.

Schleswig-Holstein should work more closely with Hamburg. Other northern states should join in. A shared agency should support new ideas, especially in clean energy. Fast bike routes should be built. Bus and train fares should fit together.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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 SSW wants knowledge of minority languages to count more clearly as a preferred criterion when state agencies in the Schleswig region hire staff. To that end, employees' language skills are to be recorded.

Some people speak Danish or Frisian. This should be an advantage when they apply to state offices in the north. The offices should write down who speaks which language. Then they can take it into account for new jobs.

The SSW wants to anchor the protection and promotion of minorities in the Basic Law, Germany's constitution. At the federal level, national minorities and ethnic groups are also to get a collective right to sue. The state is to implement European minority agreements in line with the minorities' demands.

The SSW wants to write minority protection into the German constitution. Minorities should also be able to go to court as a group. They would not have to be affected themselves.

The SSW wants to strengthen the public sector in the competition for skilled workers. Civil servants should again receive a Christmas bonus or a special payment, along with more flexible working hours and a free choice of health insurance.

The state needs good people in its offices. The SSW wants to make these jobs more attractive. Civil servants should get a Christmas bonus again. Working hours should fit family life better. Civil servants should be free to choose their health insurance.

The SSW rejects merging Schleswig-Holstein with Hamburg or other northern German states. The state is to keep its independence and identity; in the party's view, a merged 'Nordstaat' would be remote from citizens.

Some people want to merge Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg into one state. This is called a Nordstaat. The SSW is against it. It says the state should stay independent. That keeps politics close to the people.

The SSW wants all state laws and regulations to be reviewed for their effects on young people. The reason given is that minors are barely represented in politics and have no direct influence.

The SSW wants a youth check. An independent office would review new laws. It would ask: What does this law mean for young people? Young people can hardly take part in decisions themselves.

The SSW wants to create an additional work-free public holiday in Schleswig-Holstein, State Constitution Day. The program lists this in the context of civic education.

The SSW wants a new holiday in Schleswig-Holstein. It should be called State Constitution Day. People do not have to work on this day.

The SSW wants more positions and better resources for the justice system and its full digitalization. In the party's view, judicial independence must not suffer from political interference. Restrictions on civil liberties in favor of the security authorities should be allowed only if they are strictly necessary and suitable.

The SSW wants more staff for courts and prosecutors. The justice system should work digitally. Courts should stay independent from politics. Prisons should also be modernized and get more staff.

The SSW wants to broaden democratic participation. Citizens should be able to file a constitutional complaint themselves over fundamental rights in the state constitution, and a democracy promotion law should provide lasting support for civil society organizations. The party also wants to give volunteering more recognition and to examine citizens' councils.

The SSW wants people to have more of a say. They should be able to go to the state constitutional court if their basic rights are violated. Groups that work for democracy should get lasting funding. Volunteers should get more benefits. The party wants to look into citizens' councils.