What do the parties in Thuringia say on the economy?

The AfD wants to review and scrap regulations, put expiration dates on new laws and consolidate the state's funding programs. Digital government services and fast internet statewide are meant to help reduce bureaucracy. The goal is relief above all for small and mid-sized businesses.

The AfD wants fewer rules for businesses. New laws should get an end date. There should be fewer funding programs. Government offices should offer services online. For that, fast internet is needed everywhere.

The AfD wants to make it easier to start or take over a business with a bonus of up to €20,000. It also wants to expand startup centers and support startups.

People who start a business should get money from the state. That also applies to taking over a business. The bonus should be up to €20,000. The AfD also wants more startup centers.

The AfD wants to end the Energiewende (energy transition) and the sanctions against Russia, and calls for a different monetary policy from the European Central Bank. It sees these as the causes of price increases since 2021. It also wants to bring strategically vital industries back home.

The AfD wants to end the energy transition. The sanctions against Russia should end too. Sanctions are penalties in trade. The AfD says both make energy expensive. Important industries should come back to Germany.

The AfD wants to relieve self-employed people and smaller tourism businesses of red tape and high costs. At the same time, homeland-focused marketing should make Thuringia better known as a travel destination.

The AfD wants to help hotels, restaurants and other tourism businesses. They should have less paperwork and lower costs. The AfD also wants more advertising for vacations in Thuringia. The ads should show the whole state, not just famous places.

The AfD wants to combine Thuringia's state marketing and its tourism marketing in one administration. It argues that business trips are increasingly combined with leisure and cultural activities. Smaller destinations should also be promoted more strongly and through digital channels.

Thuringia advertises itself as a state. It also advertises vacations there. Two separate offices do this today. The AfD wants to merge them. Small sights should get more advertising too.

The AfD wants to relieve restaurants and hotels of red tape, taxes and levies. The value-added tax on restaurant meals should drop to seven percent. The party aims to reverse what it sees as a politically caused wave of pub and restaurant closures.

The AfD wants to help restaurants and hotels. The tax on restaurant meals should go down. Businesses should have less paperwork. They should also get money for upgrades. That way, fewer restaurants should close.

The BSW rejects further privatization and outsourcing of hospitals, energy, water and public transit. Health care, housing, energy and water supply are to remain under municipal control and not serve profit-making.

Hospitals, power, water and buses should stay public. The BSW does not want to sell them to private companies. Towns should control them. Nobody should make a profit from them.

The BSW wants better protection for consumers against opaque contracts and terms and conditions. The Thuringian consumer advice center is to receive stable long-term funding and offer its services statewide.

Many contracts are hard to understand. The BSW wants to protect customers better. The consumer advice center should get more money. It should give advice everywhere, also in the countryside.

The BSW wants equal living conditions in urban and rural areas and plans a master plan for the countryside. It includes meeting places in every village, more youth programs and economic development that distributes jobs and investment fairly between cities and rural regions.

Life in the countryside should become attractive again. The BSW wants a big plan for this. Every village should get a meeting place. Young people should have more things to do. Jobs should be created in rural areas too.

The BSW calls for a foreign trade policy built on stable trade ties with many partners rather than on rival blocs and sanctions. In the program's view, sanctions on Russia and climate policy have driven up energy costs and threaten industry and jobs.

The BSW wants trade with many countries. It wants fewer penalties against other countries. These penalties are called sanctions. The BSW says sanctions on Russia made energy more expensive. Germany needs cheap energy and raw materials.

The BSW wants to set up a future fund for industry and the Mittelstand (small and mid-sized businesses) to support innovative Thuringian companies and start-ups. At the same time, the many funding programs should be consolidated and made easy to navigate through a "funding navigator."

The BSW wants a new pot of money for business. It is called a future fund. It should support new ideas from local companies. Young companies should get money too. A funding guide should show all companies what help exists.

The BSW wants to reduce reporting and documentation requirements for businesses and reform public tendering and procurement law. The thresholds above which public contracts must be openly tendered should rise, and founders should be temporarily exempted from regulations.

The BSW wants less red tape for companies. Companies should write fewer reports. Small public contracts should be easier to award. People who start a company should face fewer rules for a while. Crafts trades should get incentives for the master exam.

The BSW wants to link leisure and cultural sites, regional products, restaurants and hotels, modeled on the Thüringer Wald Card, to keep more economic value in the state. Skilled tourism workers are to be retained and recruited. Tourism growth should be balanced with residents' interests.

Thuringia should be even better for visitors. Museums, leisure sites, restaurants and hotels should work together. The model is the Thüringer Wald Card, a regional visitor pass. Tourism lacks workers. The BSW wants to keep them and find new ones.

The CDU declares innovation funding the top priority of its economic policy. State funding is to continue in a more targeted way with less red tape, and universities, research institutions, and companies are to work together more closely.

The CDU wants to support new ideas in business more strongly. Funding should become simpler. Universities and companies should work together more. There should be new professorships, for example for artificial intelligence. Starting a company should become easier.

The CDU wants to support industry networks and thematic clusters, especially in key technologies. Where federal funding expires in areas important to Thuringia, the state is to step in with its own money.

The CDU wants to support networks of companies in the same industry. This applies above all to important technologies, like optics or medical technology. When federal funding ends, the state should keep paying. This applies to areas that matter for Thuringia.

The CDU wants to make greater use of raw materials from Thuringia, especially timber but also gypsum, gravel, sand and salts, in regional value chains. Timber construction is to be made easier under building law, and a timber innovation center is to be set up.

The CDU wants to use more raw materials from Thuringia. Wood is the most important one. Building with wood should become easier. A new center should do research on wood.

The CDU wants technology neutrality and competition to guide the transformation of the automotive and supplier industry and the energy sector. It rejects the federal heating law and the EU-wide ban on combustion engines and instead wants companies to do more research and development.

The CDU is against the federal heating law. It is also against the EU ban on combustion engines. Companies should decide for themselves which technology they use. Companies in Thuringia should do more research.

The CDU wants to secure tourism in all regions of Thuringia and fund tourism infrastructure reliably. Funding is to become simpler, and Thuringia is to advertise with the lead brand "Das Grüne Herz Deutschlands" (Germany's green heart).

The CDU wants to strengthen tourism all over Thuringia. Towns with many tourists should be able to pay for their offers reliably. Funding should become simpler. Thuringia should advertise itself as "Germany's green heart."

The CDU wants to fund city centers through lump-sum downtown budgets instead of individually approved projects. Funding for city management is to continue, and municipalities are to receive money to tackle vacant storefronts.

The CDU wants to bring life to city centers. Towns should get a fixed budget for this. Then they do not have to apply for every small measure. Towns should also get money to deal with empty shops.

The Left wants basic public services to be publicly owned and democratically run. In the party's view, no one should make a profit from areas such as health, care, housing, transportation and education.

The Left wants important services to belong to everyone. These include hospitals, buses, trains, homes and schools. Companies should not make a profit from them. Everyone should be able to afford them.

The Left wants a new industrial holdings strategy that lets the state take stakes in companies undergoing structural change. This is meant to secure jobs, ease the switch to climate-neutral production, and keep more value creation in Thuringia.

The state should be able to take shares in companies. This gives companies more money for change. They should be able to produce in a climate-friendly way. Jobs should stay safe. More profit should stay in Thuringia.

The Left wants to bundle support for small and medium-sized businesses in a dedicated law and cut red tape. Start-ups in the skilled trades and cooperatives in which workforces take over their company are to get more support.

The Left wants to support small and medium-sized companies. A new law should bundle the help. There should be less paperwork. Skilled trades and cooperatives should also get more help.

The Left wants a state program with incentives for Thuringian companies to switch from military to civilian production. It rejects new arms factories, and companies in which the state holds a stake are not to make military investments.

Some companies make weapons and military goods. The Left wants them to make civilian products instead. A state program should help with that. The party does not want new arms factories.

The Left wants to support municipalities near which large companies set up, and to create an infrastructure fund for this. At such sites, collective agreements, good wages and co-determination are to become the model.

Big companies are setting up in Thuringia. The towns then need more daycare, homes and buses. The Left wants a special fund for this. The new companies should pay union-agreed wages.

The Left wants to keep investing in research and technology policy, with small and medium-sized businesses at the center. A transformation and sustainability fund is to reorganize financing; military research is to receive no funding.

The Left wants to fund research and new technology. Small and medium-sized companies should benefit most. There should be a new fund for this. Research for the military gets no money.

The Left wants to keep strengthening tourism in Thuringia and give financial support to restaurants and lodging businesses. The platform points to the higher sales tax on meals and the shortage of skilled workers as reasons.

The Left wants to strengthen tourism in Thuringia. Restaurants and hotels should get money from the state. This is mainly for businesses in rural areas. The party also wants to support travel without barriers.

The SPD wants to form a transformation ministry that combines the economy, labor, energy, research, technology and digital infrastructure. A "Transformation Budget Thuringia" is to accompany structural change with a structural-policy stimulus. The party argues that these tasks require a single, consistent approach.

The economy is changing a lot. The SPD wants a new ministry for this. It should cover the economy, work, energy and research. There should also be a special fund for the change. Unions should have a say.

The SPD wants a loan program to help small and medium-sized companies switch to CO2-free production. The Thüringer Aufbaubank (the state development bank) is to receive more equity so it can grant guarantees and low-interest loans. Work that is paid under collective agreements and subject to co-determination is to become a funding priority.

Small and mid-sized companies should produce without CO2. The SPD wants to give them loans for this. The state development bank should get more money. Companies with union-level pay should get special support. Two existing grants should be open to all commercial companies.

The SPD wants to substantially increase funding programs for the skilled trades and develop them further together with the chambers of skilled crafts. It argues that the economic transformation cannot succeed without tradespeople.

The SPD wants to give more money to the skilled trades. Funding should go up a lot. The trade chambers should help shape it. The SPD says the economy cannot change without tradespeople.

The SPD wants to back federal efforts to speed up permitting and cut red tape. The state's own funding programs are to be made simpler. The platform argues that entrepreneurship needs freedom.

The SPD wants less red tape for businesses. Permits should come faster. State funding programs should be simpler. The SPD is also willing to change rules for this.

The SPD wants Thuringia to remain the most attractive German state for founders, business successors and young companies. Advice and funding programs are to be developed further and financed on a permanent basis, and a start-up network is to be built.

The SPD wants to help people who start a business. Starting a business should be easy. Advice and funding should get steady money. People who start a business next to their job should also get help. Start-ups should be able to connect better.

The SPD wants more people in rural areas to be able to work where they live and commute less. To achieve this, it relies on digitalization, the expansion of renewable energy, and locating public institutions in these areas.

Many rural people travel far to work. The SPD wants more jobs close to home. Digital work and renewable energy should help. Public offices should also move to rural areas.

The SPD wants to fund research institutes outside the universities reliably until 2030 and create a separate pact with fixed annual increases for the state-owned institutes. Research is also to be linked more closely with companies and start-ups so that it leads to economic growth.

Thuringia has research institutes outside the universities. The SPD wants to give them secure money until 2030. The state's own institutes should get a fixed agreement. Companies and founders should be able to use research more easily.