Monday, January 10, 2022
“Faster and more consequent”
Faeser wants to get rid of extremists faster
The new Federal Minister of the Interior is making her inaugural visit to the civil servants. DBB boss Silberbach takes the opportunity and presents his long list of lawsuits. Finance Minister Lindner promises relief and rejects other spending requests.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has announced decisive action against extremists in the public sector. “We will remove constitutional enemies from the public service more quickly than before,” said the SPD politician at the annual meeting of the DBB civil servants’ association in Berlin. Your impression is that this “often takes too long”. The framework conditions must be set in such a way that “faster and more consistent” action is taken – even if in the end it is only about “very, very few cases”.
At the same time, she emphasized that many public service workers outgrew themselves every day in the pandemic. “Many turn their heads every day.” Faeser also pledged to do more to protect public servants who are exposed to hostility.
Meanwhile, DBB chairman Ulrich Silberbach severely criticized the corona rules set up by the federal and state governments. The people were made mad with some “contradicting and absurd measures and announcements”. The impression was given that “every children’s birthday party in this country is better organized than the state crisis management system”.
Lindner wants priorities
For years it had been neglected to set up the authorities and administration to be crisis-proof. One shouldn’t be surprised “that Morocco is able to vaccinate better than we do,” he said. Silberbach complained about too many tasks for too few staff, outdated equipment and too bureaucratic requirements on the part of the legislature. “Today we are the land of dead spots and security loopholes,” said Silberbach. “We need a clear cut in terms of the state in order to put a lasting halt to all these undesirable developments.”
The DBB boss proposed the creation of a separate Bundestag committee for the interests of the public service. There was currently a shortage of 330,000 employees. The public service must be modernized in a crisis-proof manner and “put in time” in terms of personnel and technology. Otherwise the country will not master its tasks – whether in education, integration, climate change, security, the economy, infrastructure or social justice. At the same time, Silberbach turned against quotas to increase diversity among public service personnel.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner pointed out the financial leeway and announced that the focus should be on future technologies and the strengthening of the state. For this to happen, decisions about consumer spending and “redistribution projects” would first have to be postponed. “If you want to invest and make the state capable of acting, other things have to take a back seat.”