Königstein Agreement

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The Königstein Agreement is an agreement made on August 30, 1950 by the Prime Ministers of the German states on the order of the presidency of the Bundesrat among the states. It was agreed at a conference of the Prime Ministers in the Villa Rothschild (the then House of the States ) in Königstein im Taunus , Hesse . Thereafter, the office of President of the Federal Council is filled annually by the heads of government of the federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany in descending order of population.

Special features of the elections

At the beginning there were disputes between the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Karl Arnold ( CDU ) and Bavaria Hans Ehard ( CSU ) about the prestigious first occupation of the Federal Council presidency . Karl Arnold decided the question of filling the office for himself and was elected the first President of the Chamber of States at the constituent meeting of the Federal Council on September 7, 1949; Bavaria abstained from voting. Since the agreement on the rotation according to the Königstein Agreement, the candidates for the office of President of the Federal Council have been elected unanimously . Only in 1997 and 1998 no Bremen representative was present at the election, which is why the vote was unanimous, but no Bremen votes could be counted. In 1950 the state of Berlin voted for the first time, in 1952 the newly founded Baden-Württemberg and in 1957 the Saarland, whereby the number of voting states was eleven. Finally, in 1991, the five new federal states voted for the first time.

Changes in the sequence

Due to changes in the population of the federal states and the accession of new federal states to the scope of application of the Basic Law ( Saarland on January 1, 1957; Brandenburg , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Saxony , Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia on October 3, 1990), the order of the Federal Council presidencies has changed changed several times:

  • In the second cycle (starting with the 1960/61 financial year), Baden-Württemberg swapped rank 3 with Lower Saxony (now rank 4). The last four places in the cycle have been rearranged: Berlin swapped 8th place with Hamburg (now 9th), Saarland 10th with Bremen (now 11th).
  • In the 4th cycle (beginning with the business year 1982/83) the five "new" states that joined the Federal Republic on October 3, 1990 in the course of German reunification were placed in the order in accordance with the Königstein Agreement. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the first of these federal states to hold the Federal Council presidency in tenth place in the 1991/92 financial year, followed by the "old" states of Saarland (eleventh place) and Bremen (twelfth place).
  • In the 5th cycle (beginning with the 1994/95 financial year), the five "new" states took ranks 6 (Saxony), 9 (Saxony-Anhalt), 10 (Thuringia), 11 (Brandenburg) and 13 ( Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania).
  • In the 6th cycle (starting with the 2010/11 financial year), the heads of government of the federal states decided on December 12, 2013 to change the order based on the updated population figures of the 2011 census (as of March 31, 2013): Up to rank 8 ( Berlin) the cycle remains unchanged, after that Schleswig-Holstein is brought forward by three ranks and Brandenburg and Hamburg by one rank each; Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia move down two places each, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania down one place.

Order of the upcoming presidencies of the Federal Council

The country listed at the top holds the presidency of the Federal Council in the current financial year .

Presidencies of the Federal Council
Next presidency country Previous presidency
2019/20 BrandenburgBrandenburg Brandenburg 2004/05
2020/21 Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt 2002/03
2021/22 ThuringiaThuringia Thuringia 2003/04
2022/23 HamburgHamburg Hamburg 2007/08
2023/24 Mecklenburg-Western PomeraniaMecklenburg-Western Pomerania Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 2006/07
2024/25 SaarlandSaarland Saarland 2008/09
2025/26 BremenBremen Bremen 2009/10
2026/27 North Rhine-WestphaliaNorth Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia 2010/11
2027/28 BavariaBavaria Bavaria 2011/12
2028/29 Baden-WürttembergBaden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg 2012/13
2029/30 Lower SaxonyLower Saxony Lower Saxony 2013/14
2030/31 HesseHesse Hesse 2014/15
2031/32 SaxonySaxony Saxony 2015/16
2032/33 Rhineland-PalatinateRhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate 2016/17
2033/34 BerlinBerlin Berlin 2017/18
2034/35 Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein 2018/19

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Jung: About the spa town to the top. (No longer available online.) In: Taunus-Zeitung.de. Frankfurter Societäts-Medien GmbH, November 1, 2012, archived from the original on December 24, 2016 ; accessed on December 24, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.taunus-zeitung.de
  2. ↑ Martin Fehndrich, Matthias Cantow: suffrage lexicon: Election of the Federal President. In: Wahlrecht.de. November 20, 2005, accessed December 24, 2016 .
  3. ^ Election of the President for the Federal Council. (PDF; 291 kB) In: Report No. 1/1949. Federal Council, September 7, 1949, p. 2 , accessed December 24, 2016 .
  4. ↑ TOP 3: Update of the Federal Council presidencies for the financial years 2017/2018 to 2032/2033. (PDF; 1.5 MB) In: Template 16/1541: Conference of the heads of government of the federal states on December 12, 2013 in Berlin - minutes of the results. State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia , January 10, 2014, pp. 14–15 , accessed on December 24, 2016 .