Landtag Presidents' Conference

The conference of the presidents of the German state parliaments , the German Bundestag and the Bundesrat (short form: Landtag Presidents ' Conference , abbreviation LPK ) is a regularly and continuously meeting conference body to coordinate the interests of the German state parliaments. At the conferences, questions of the internal and external problems of the state parliaments, their work, position and tasks, questions of federalism , parliamentary law and the law of representatives are discussed. Common positions on a wide variety of issues are increasingly being formulated in the form of resolutions, recommendations and declarations.

precursor

The association of German parliamentary directors , to which directors of German state parliaments came together on October 5, 1925 in Berlin and which existed until the state parliaments were dissolved in 1933 and 1934, was the forerunner of the LPK.

The association dealt with questions of the rules of procedure, the parliamentary organization and the status and activity of the parliamentary administrations, the amount of cash benefits to members of parliament, the limits of the office of the president, the possibility of a no-confidence vote against the state parliament president, the establishment of a ban mile , the working method of Committees of inquiry and the parliamentary immunity of MPs and the function of editor-in-chief of press organs and held annual meetings for this purpose.

history

After the collapse of the so-called “Third Reich” and the liberation of Germany from National Socialism, states were formed in the course of 1945 . Due to the powers conferred by the Allies, the state governments united the legislature and the executive until the creation of state constitutions and state parliaments. After the formation of state parliaments, there were several attempts to organize an exchange of experiences between the state parliaments.

The first conference of the state parliament presidents took place on November 17, 1947 together with the state parliament directors in the building of the Hessian state parliament in Wiesbaden. When the invitation to this first meeting was given, it was expressly intended to tie in with the work of the Association of State Parliament Directors. At that time there were still contacts with parliaments in the Soviet occupation zone ; however, they did not participate in the conference before reunification in 1989. The first meeting was followed by a meeting in Munich in 1950 under fundamentally different framework conditions: In the meantime, two German states had been formed. Since 1952, the LPK meetings have often taken place every six months, and since 1975 they have usually taken place once a year. The conference is held every two years as a joint German-Austrian-South Tyrolean conference. Since the 67th LPK in Munich on November 19, 1990, the parliamentary presidents of the new federal states have also been taking part in the conferences.

At the conference of the state parliament presidents from June 15 to 17, 2014 in Hamburg, the state parliament presidents decided on a European policy declaration. With it, the parliamentary presidents of the federal states want to strengthen the European unification process. First and foremost, it is therefore demanded that the state parliaments are more closely involved in European decision-making processes, both at Commission level and at the European Parliament.

Following the LPK in Hamburg, the presidents of the state parliament met for two special conferences. On August 29, 2014, the presidents called for the state parliaments to be more involved in the processes of reorganizing the federal-state finances. This claim was confirmed at a second special conference on December 15, 2014.

basis

The general basis is federalism in Germany (Article 20 (1) GG) , according to which the states are separate member states of the Federal Republic of Germany. As a result, each country can shape its own fields of competence independently (Art. 30, 70, 83 GG) and work together with other countries. The decisions of the LPK are only recommendations. However, they gain political weight in particular when the respective state parliaments adopt the demands. The LPK is not a formal body.

Organization and way of working

The hosting for the LPK conference changes among the countries. The host of the respective conference chairs and acts as the spokesman for the LPK. The parliamentary administration of the respective host country is responsible for preparing and managing the conference business. This then leads the business of the LPK for a year - until it is taken over by the parliamentary administration of the next host country at the next meeting. Since the end of the 1950s there have been commissions or working groups with separate meetings in addition to the meetings of the presidents and directors. In practice, complex matters are handed over to such commissions for preparation.

Chair

The chairwoman of the LPK is currently the President of the Bavarian State Parliament: Ilse Aigner since November 5, 2018 and Barbara Stamm since June 12, 2018 . Previously, Christian Carius, the former President of the Thuringian state parliament, had been chairman since July 3, 2017.

Members

houses of Parliament	President	fraction	photo
Baden-Württemberg	Muhterem Macaws	Green
Bavaria	Ilse Aigner	CSU
Berlin	Ralf Wieland	SPD
Brandenburg	Ulrike Liedtke	SPD
Bremen	Frank Imhoff	CDU
Federal Council	Daniel Günther	CDU
German Bundestag	Wolfgang Schäuble	CDU
Hamburg	Carola Veit	SPD
Hesse	Boris Rhein	CDU
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	Birgit Hesse	SPD
Lower Saxony	Gabriele Andretta	SPD
North Rhine-Westphalia	André Kuper	CDU
Rhineland-Palatinate	Hendrik Hering	SPD
Saarland	Stephan Toscani	CDU
Saxony	Matthias Roessler	CDU
Saxony-Anhalt	Gabriele Brakebusch	CDU
Schleswig-Holstein	Klaus Schlie	CDU
Thuringia	Birgit Keller	LEFT

Current

The joint German-Austrian conference of the presidents took place in Würzburg from June 2 to 4, 2019.

At the LPK in June 2018 in Ettersburg Castle near Weimar, the participants dealt in detail with the topic of digitization and the opportunities and challenges for the German state parliaments. The Presidents of the State Parliament adopted the Ettersburg Declaration on the subject of “Parliaments in the digital society”.

Previously, the conferences took place from June 5 to 7, 2016 in Wiesbaden, from April 2 to 3, 2017 in Brussels, from June 12 to 13, 2017 in Feldkirch (Vorarlberg) and from November 26 to 27, 2017 in Brussels .

The LPK 2015 met in Heiligendamm and Hohe Düne in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The following resolutions were passed at this joint conference of the presidents of the German and Austrian state parliaments and of the South Tyrolean state parliament:

1. Heiligendamm Declaration: Greater involvement of regional parliaments with legislative powers by the European Commission
2. Heiligendamm Declaration: The digital public space and the preservation of diversity of opinion and the basic digital service
3. Heiligendamm resolution: Youth projects in state parliaments
4. Decision: Participation of the Parliament of the German-speaking Community of Belgium

Web links

• Contribution to the conference of state parliament presidents from June 14 to 16, 2015 in Warnemünde on the website of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Huth: " The conference of state parliament presidents sees itself as the principal coordinating body of the state parliaments.", Huth: The conference of the presidents of the German state parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, p. 164
2. ^ Huth: The Conference of the Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, p. 7
3. ↑ [1] . Michael F. Feldkamp : Data Handbook on the History of the German Bundestag 1990–2010
4. ^ Huth: The Conference of the Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, p. 73
5. ^ Self-dissolution, remarkable document, Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe, 231/3271 p. 333 f .; quoted from Schumann: Parliamentary Practice in the Weimar Republic , Volume Three, The Conference Reports of the Association of German Parliamentary Directors 1925 to 1933, p. 20
6. ↑ Huth pays tribute to the work of the Association of German Parliamentary Directors, especially before the National Socialists came to power in 1933: When discussing topics that seem banal and simple at first glance, one should “never forget that the prelude to the 'legal revolution' of the National Socialists in the German Reich - the adoption of the Enabling Act by the Reichstag - was only legally possible and legally 'secured' through massive manipulation of the rules of procedure. ”Huth: The Conference of Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, p. 127
7. ^ Huth: The Conference of the Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, pp. 77f. and Schumann: Parliamentary Practice in the Weimar Republic , Volume Three, The Conference Reports of the Association of German Parliamentary Directors 1925 to 1933, pp. 69, 100, 163–175 (quoted from Huth)
8. ↑ Initially it was intended that presidents and directors should meet separately. Then it was agreed on a joint meeting of the directors and presidents and a special meeting of the directors, Huth: The conference of the presidents of the German state parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, pp. 74/75
9. ^ Huth: The Conference of the Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, p. 81ff.
10. ↑ Schneider / Zeh see the LPK as unprecedented in German constitutional history: “In the Weimar Republic, the German parliamentary directors formed an association and jointly discussed questions of interest in the organization and administration of parliament. This purely administrative cooperation was given up after the Second World War; the relations between the state parliaments were now established on the political level of the parliamentary presidents. ”Schneider / Zeh: Parliamentary Law and Parliamentary Practice , p. 1800
11. ^ Huth: The Conference of the Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, p. 81ff.
12. ↑ Huth: "Nobody spoke of the participation of the representatives of the Soviet occupation zone.", Huth: The Conference of Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, p. 128
13. ^ Declaration on European policy
14. ↑ Press release: Presidents of the state parliament demand participation in the reorganization of financial relations
15. ↑ Press release: State parliaments further included in talks on federal-state finances
16. ↑ taken from Wikipedia entry on Prime Minister's Conference
17. ^ Huth: The Conference of the Presidents of the German State Parliaments Frankfurt a. M., 1988, pp. 146f.
18. ↑ Susanne Beer: Bavaria takes the lead at the conference of the state parliament presidents. Retrieved July 25, 2018 . 
19. ^ The Landtag: Thuringian Landtag - baton handover in the Landtag. Retrieved August 4, 2017 . 
20. ↑ Bavarian State Parliament: German-speaking state parliaments meet under the leadership of the Bavarian State Parliament in Würzburg. Retrieved June 5, 2019 . 
21. ↑ parliament president want digital ... In: rtl.de . ( State parliament presidents want digital ... ( Memento from June 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on June 13, 2018]). Landtag presidents want digital ... ( Memento from June 12, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
22. ^ The Landtag: Thuringian Landtag - Landtag Presidents' Conference at Ettersburg Castle. Retrieved June 13, 2018 . 
23. ↑ Printed matter 6/4121 of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament