New edition of the alliance
CSU and Free Voters sign coalition agreement
October 26, 2023, 2:08 p.m
Both sides had made it clear before the state election that CSU and Free Voters want to continue together. Even if the alliance is not a great love, there are still many overlaps. A new idea of the parties causes a stir.
In Munich on Thursday, the CSU and Free Voters signed their joint coalition agreement for the future Bavarian state government. Prime Minister Markus Söder and state parliamentary group leader Klaus Holetschek signed for the CSU, and Vice Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger and state parliamentary group leader Florian Streibl signed for the Free Voters. Söder said of the joint plans, “we rely on freedom and stability.” After the signing, Söder also declared the debate with the Free Voters and their leader Aiwanger over his affair over an anti-Semitic leaflet to be over. “We have gained new trust in each other.” That’s why the CSU is joining the coalition with a clear conscience and full of conviction.
Söder said that the Bavarian state government sees itself as a counter-model to the traffic light coalition in Berlin. “We are not turning the country upside down, we are not re-educating the citizens,” said the CSU leader. Aiwanger said he welcomed the fact that after all the skirmishes in the state election campaign, we were now looking forward together again. There is a new spirit in Bavaria, it’s about “enabling instead of preventing”. It has become mainstream in Germany to explain why things don’t work. This has to stop. “We have to come out of Bavaria and try to do our best to keep our country in the top position.”
Markus Söder’s re-election as Bavarian Prime Minister is scheduled for October 31, one day after the inaugural session of the new state parliament. Söder’s re-election is a mere formality: the CSU and Free Voters together make up 122 of the 203 members of the state parliament.
Both parties are causing a stir with a push for schools. Bavaria wants to introduce a so-called constitutional quarter of an hour there. This is a result of the coalition negotiations with the Free Voters, said CSU leader Markus Söder. In the future, the constitution should be discussed once a week in all schools.
Söder said the idea was also a reaction to the AfD’s strength among young people. As a consequence, the CSU wants to further expand its digital presence – the AfD is considered particularly strong there. But it is also important to him that the information for young people about politics is not only controlled by the algorithms of social networks like Tiktok.
According to the plans, the Bavarian students should take out a passage from the constitution every week and discuss it in class. Schools should be given “maximum pedagogical freedom” for implementation. It should simply be an invitation to discussion, said Söder.
The CSU and Free Voters previously decided to continue their coalition. The new school minister is to be the current state secretary Anna Stolz from the Free Voters, while her party colleague Michael Piazolo is resigning as minister.