Specialist ministerial conferences of the German states

In the conferences of prime ministers and ministers , the 16 German states work together within the framework of their own competence. In contrast to the Bundesrat , these conferences are not a constitutional body of the Federation and are not involved in its legislation , but serve exclusively for the self-coordination of the states in so-called cooperative federalism . The respective federal ministers sometimes take part in the conferences in an advisory capacity.

The resolutions of the conferences, which are usually unanimous, have no direct legal effect, but are politically binding as recommendations. In order not to impair the legislative competences of the Federal Council, the Minister-Presidents' Conference decided in 1992 that a matter must not be discussed in a conference of specialist ministers if it is the subject of deliberations by the Federal Council.

While some of the specialist ministerial conferences look back on decades of tradition and some are even older than the Federal Republic of Germany, others such as B. equality, integration or consumer protection emerged only recently. Their respective administrative apparatus is correspondingly different: For example, the Conference of Ministers of Education maintains a permanent secretariat with around 200 employees, which, in addition to the pure organization of the conference, fulfills various cross-border service tasks. Some conferences have their permanent offices at the Secretariat of the Federal Council; in the other cases, the chairmanship changes from country to country. The change takes place mostly annually (e.g. agriculture, finance, etc.), but sometimes also every two years (e.g. construction, transport, etc.).

The following permanent conferences currently exist:

Surname	short form	founding year	Website
Prime Minister's Conference	MPK	1954	[1]
Agriculture Ministers' Conference	AMK		[2]
Conference of Labor and Social Affairs Ministers	ASMK		[3]
Conference of Ministers of Construction	ARGEBAU	1948	[4]
Conference of European Ministers	EMK	1992	[5]
Finance Ministers Conference	FMK		[6]
Conference of Health Ministers	GMK	1949	[7]
Conference of equality and women ministers of the federal states	GFMK	1991	[8th]
Conference of interior ministers	IMK	1954	[9]
Integration Ministers Conference	IntMK	2007	[10]
Youth and Family Ministers' Conference	JFMK		[11]
Justice Ministers Conference	JUMIKO		[12]
Conference of Ministers of Education	KMK	1948	[13]
Ministerial Conference on Spatial Planning	MKRO	1967	[14]
Conference of Sport Ministers	SMK	1977	[15]
Environment Ministers Conference	UMK		[16]
Conference of Consumer Protection Ministers	VSMK	2001	[17]
Conference of Transport Ministers	VMK		[18]
Conference of Economic Ministers	WMK		[19]

The Joint Science Conference (GWK), which was founded in 2008 as the successor to the former Federal- State Commission for Educational Planning and Research Promotion (BLK), enjoys a special status . While the aforementioned conferences are voluntary coordination bodies of the states, the GWK, like the BLK before it, is based on Article 91b of the Basic Law and on a formal agreement between the federal and state governments.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Winfried Kluth / Günter Krings (ed.): Legislation. Legislation by parliaments and administrations and their judicial control . CF Müller Heidelberg 2014. ISBN 978-3-8114-5423-1 , p. 430.