Comment on Bundestag candidates From a slide to a landslide
Bonn · The federal elections are taking place in Germany in September. And there is an increasing danger that the ministries based in Bonn will completely relocate to Berlin. Our author believes that Bonn needs advocates more now than ever before.
Regardless of the outcome of the Bundestag elections in September, the federal city of Bonn will face a much tougher fight to keep ministerial jobs here on the Rhine. Everyone who bears political responsibility in Bonn and the region must be fearing this, and for years has had to almost powerlessly watch the slide towards Berlin. One of the main tasks for the future Bundestag members from Bonn and the region, in cooperation with the relevant municipalities and the state, must be to counteract this trend and to find viable and reasonable solutions for the future of Bonn and the local region.
For less than a third of ministerial jobs are now still based in Bonn. But according to the Berlin-Bonn Act, it should be the majority. Following the elections in September, many new MPs will enter parliament. Many of them were still children or not even born in 1991, when the Bundestag decided by a narrow majority to move the parliament and parts of the government to the new (former) capital Berlin. There are already many people in the Bundestag who would rather do away with the designation of Bonn as the second political centre in Germany, as agreed in the Berlin-Bonn Act, sooner rather than later. And these numbers will certainly increase. So after the election, the slide to Berlin will be closer to becoming a landslide. The fact that it has not yet been possible to conclude the Bonn Treaty, which has been in discussion for years, is a huge failure.
Even though the structural transformation of Bonn and the region has undoubtedly been a success, and Bonn has become an important location for the United Nations Centre for Development Cooperation: The task now is to secure the future of the Bonn region. Former SPD member of parliament and budget expert Johannes Kahrs had once warned in an interview with the GA that the longer we wait, the worse it will be for Bonn. He was right. Because as we know, laws can be changed. It would be fatal if, in the end, it were only a matter of damage limitation for Bonn and the local region.
(Original text: Lisa Inhoffen, Translation: Caroline Kusch)
