POLITICS | 20.01.2012

Merkel to start series of town hall-style meetings

 

Merkel wants more input from the people

The German government is about to launch an initiative to give citizens a say on the country’s future direction. The US town hall-style meetings aim to initiate a dialog between the government and everyday folk.

 

If you visit the webpage dialog-ueber-deutschland.de ("Dialog about Germany"), you'll discover that the conversation at this point is a little one-sided. The website features a message from German Chancellor Angela Merkel about how she would like the Germans to embark on a group chat about where they want the country to go and how it should get there.

But as of February 1, the site will go active, and Merkel's national talk will begin.

The forum is meant to address a series of big questions facing Germans: how do they want to live in the future? How do they want to learn? Who should support them?

It's meant to be about the basics: overarching political principles, demographic change, technical development, immigration and the cohesion of German society. 

It is also geared toward increasing participation in the political process. As part of the project, Merkel will hold three town hall-style meetings with citizens in the cities of Erfurt, Heidelburg and Bielefeld. Others can join the discussion online.

While such town hall-style gatherings are common in countries such as the US, in Germany they are relatively new. But lately, German politicians have been showing increasing interest in such managed discussions.

Talk shop

Christian Wulff also tried to create a dialog with citizensLast year, German President Christian Wulff helped launch a "Citizens' Forum" in association with with the Bertelsmann Foundation. It brought together interested citizens chosen at random who participated in regional forums and then in a final meeting where they discussed pressing political issues such as education, integration and social security.

The program resulted in a kind of wish list with a series of recommendations, one of which was a call to harmonize the educational systems in Germany's 16 federal states. However, that suggestion was pretty much dead on arrival since there is little chance that the states are going give up control over schools, a power they have always clung to vehemently.

Merkel's dialog differs from the presidential meetings in one key area: While citizen participation is desired, it's not the overriding goal.

Talk fast!

For those who want in on the discussion, it'll be best to get to the point quickly. Only 90 minutes have been planned for each of the three town hall meetings with the chancellor and experts from various fields. That allows just under a minute for both a question and a response.

Social cohesion and integration are key topics to be addressedBut freewheeling, general discussion is not the main idea, rather it working groups made up of scientists and other experts will be tasked with addressing central issues. The experts are meant to have practical experience with the topic at hand, for example a former executive at an IT firm or a school principal.

Citizens can send in their questions and comments online and these are supposed to be included in the overall conversation as well.

!At the end, we don't want to have the usual communiqués that normally come out of these roundtables," said Stephan Breidenbach of the University Viadrina in Franfurt an der Oder who is the coordinator of the working group focusing on education.

"We want to come up with concrete suggestions for politicians, including dissenting voices as well," he added.

Talk is cheap?

It is likely the groups will run into the same obstacles to those participating in the "Citizens' Forums." The education group, for example, will surely address the problem of disadvantaged youth. But it still won't be able to tackle many of the school system's most pressing problems since education remains firmly in the hands of the states.

"We can't ignore the reality of who has finally responsibility for an issue," admitted Breidenbach.

The results of this new dialog are meant to be assembled and published and only then will it become clear if any of the suggestions really were able to influence public policy, or if this exercise was more about creating flattering television pictures of the chancellor in talks with everyday people.

"We've put a lot of sweat into this initiative," said Breidenbach. "So we hope, of course, that the suggestions that come out of it will be put into practice."

Author: Mathias Bölinger / jam
Editor: Joanna Impey

 

 

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