More democracy

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More democracy
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purpose Promoting direct democracy
Chair: Ralf-Uwe Beck ( spokesman for the board), Claudine Nierth ( spokeswoman for the board), Roman Huber (managing director), Alexander Trennheuser , Bertram Böhm, Felix Hoffmann, Karl-Martin Hentschel , Sarah Handel, Susanne Socher
Establishment date: July 12, 1988 (as IDEA)
Seat : Bonn
Website: www.mehr-demokratie.de

More democracy e. V. is a German non-profit association that advocates direct democracy and citizen participation as well as reforms of the electoral law in Germany and the European Union . The association advises initiators of citizens 'and referendums' petitions and scientifically evaluates the practice of direct democracy. As the world's largest professional association for direct democracy, the association supports reforms of direct democracy, drafts bills, develops campaigns and initiates referendums.

organization

More democracy e. V. is divided into a federal association and a total of fourteen regional associations. There are regional offices in Berlin , Bremen , Erfurt , Hamburg , Cologne , Leipzig and Stuttgart and federal offices in Berlin and Kreßberg . The seat of the association is Bonn. Many of the Federal Association's tasks (membership administration, website, etc.) are performed by different offices. In total, around 40 people work full-time or part-time for the association across Germany. In addition, Mehr Demokratie has a board of trustees of more than 50 people from science, culture, politics and art. They work, research and publish on questions of democracy and act as an advisory body. The federal executive committee is obliged to provide information to the board of trustees.

More democracy is recognized as a non-profit and is financed exclusively from membership fees and donations. Both natural and legal persons can be members. In addition to regular membership, support as a sponsor is also possible. At the beginning of July 2018, the association had 9,852 members and sponsors.

The federal board spokesmen are Ralf-Uwe Beck and Claudine Nierth .

founding

More democracy came about in 1988 a. a. by the Green politicians Lukas Beckmann and Gerald Häfner as well as by the non-party Thomas Mayer, Daniel Schily (today CDU; son of Konrad Schily ), Angela von Bandemer, Andreas Möbius, Susanna Kümmell and Wolfram Retter (née Hintz) in Bonn was initially called "IDEE (Initiative Democracy Developing)" The organization in the "Achberger Kreis" as well as in the organization for direct democracy through referendum and in the action referendum has its predecessors .

Campaigns

Campaigns in the countries

The association Mehr Demokratie in Bayern , initiated by IDEE and Aktion Bürgerentscheid , received political weight from 1992 to 1995. For example, with the popular initiative for direct democracy in the Bavarian communities , which was accepted in a successful referendum . Changes to the people's legislation at state level were later partially revised by the Bavarian Constitutional Court . Since this court ruling was widely perceived as a political judgment by the advocates of direct democracy, Mehr Demokratie in Bayern , since 1997 a regional association of the federal association now renamed Mehr Demokratie , sought another referendum to change the electoral mode of the Bavarian constitutional judges . This stipulated that the judges could not be elected and re-elected by the state parliament with a simple majority as before , but only with a two-thirds majority . The referendum required for this in 2000 failed, as did the renewed attempt to facilitate the nationwide popular legislation, however, due to the signature hurdle (see also popular legislation in Bavaria ). In 1998, more democracy in Hamburg succeeded in enforcing the possibility of citizens' petitions in the districts with a successful referendum . Although a second referendum initiated by Mehr Demokratie to lower the hurdles for direct democracy at the state level failed due to the same hurdles, the red-green government coalition took up some of the main concerns of this second referendum in 2001 and implemented them.

The change to Hamburg's electoral law, also implemented by referendum in 2004, was partially reversed by the CDU with an absolute majority. In response to a complaint by the initiators of the referendum, the Hamburg State Constitutional Court declared the procedure unconstitutional and reversed the interventions (also in parts). At the beginning of 2009, more democracy initiated another referendum to change the Hamburg electoral law, which was submitted in April of the same year with the necessary number of signatures. In order to forestall a referendum that would have taken place at the same time as the Bundestag election on September 27, 2009, the Hamburg citizenship adopted the draft law (see also People's Legislation (Hamburg) ).

In Bremen in 2006 the association achieved a reform of the electoral law based on the Hamburg model. With more than 70,000 signatures, the association was able to submit the first successful referendum in this state. In December 2006 the proposal of the referendum was accepted by the Bremen citizenship and has been in effect since 2011. One consequence of the referendum was a reform of the people's legislation in Bremen that was initiated in 2009.

In Thuringia, Mehr Demokratie, together with partners, successfully concluded the referendum for “More Democracy in Thuringian Municipalities” in 2008. After negotiations with the alliance, the CDU ruling there with an absolute majority decided to accept the proposal unchanged. A successful referendum in 2000 to improve people's legislation was subsequently declared inadmissible by the Constitutional Court in a judicial review procedure, but it nonetheless led to a reform.

In 2011, Mehr Demokratie, together with Transparency International and the Chaos Computer Club, successfully submitted a popular initiative for a transparency law in Hamburg. Based on this, on October 6, 2012, the Hanseatic city decided to be the first federal state in Germany to introduce a transparency law. This means that the state is obliged to make official information available on the Internet free of charge. These include, for example, expert opinions, senate resolutions and contracts from 100,000 euros that relate to services of general interest. The Hamburg transparency portal went online in 2014.

On February 21, 2013, the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament accepted the main demands of the popular initiative “More democracy in Schleswig-Holstein's municipalities”, which was initiated by More Democracy and supported by 25,000 people. The passed law to strengthen municipal citizen participation came into force on February 26, 2013.

In North Rhine-Westphalia , Mehr Demokratie formed the “NRW looks through” alliance in 2013 with Transparency International and the Taxpayers' Association for a transparency and freedom of information law in North Rhine-Westphalia based on the Hamburg model. The supporters include Chaos Computer Club , Digitale Gesellschaft , Free Software Foundation Europe , NABU , Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and Whistleblower-Netzwerk eV

In mid-2013, the Berlin alliance "Wahlrecht für alle" (Wahlrecht für alle) was launched with the participation of Mehr Demokratie, which aims to grant people with permanent residence in Berlin the right to vote at local and state level regardless of their citizenship.

Campaigns ended prematurely

In North Rhine-Westphalia in 1999 the referendum "More democracy in North Rhine-Westphalia : fair referendums in the constitution!" Was declared inadmissible because it aimed to amend the constitution.

In Brandenburg in 2001 the necessary signatures for the introduction of two referendums to lower the hurdles at state and local level were collected. However, due to the small size of its Brandenburg regional association and several constitutional court judgments to the detriment of direct democracy, more democracy decided to forego the referendum.

Also because the hurdles were too high, the association in Berlin decided not to carry out the second stage of the referendum to change Berlin's electoral law in 2009 .

In Baden-Württemberg , Mehr Demokratie failed to create easier conditions for state-wide and local direct democracy because the state government declared the referendum to be inadmissible.

Federal campaigns

In addition to dealing with the country-specific problems, the association's unfulfilled objective remains the introduction of nationwide referendums. From 1998 to 2003 the association ran the campaign “People for referendums” and collected over 100,000 signatures for this goal. Although the majority of MPs in the Bundestag voted for the introduction of a referendum in 2002 , the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment was not achieved due to the dissenting votes of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group. In 2009 more democracy started the campaign “Referendum in the Basic Law”. The aim was a binding statement on the introduction of nationwide referendums in the coalition agreement . In the 2013 election year, Mehr Demokratie launched a federal campaign entitled “Referendum - nationwide!” With the demand to introduce a nationwide referendum. More democracy campaigned for the introduction with partners such as the Omnibus for direct democracy .

Campaigns at European level

During the European Convention (2002/03) is more democracy continued as part of the European Referendum Campaign , along with other organizations from the member states of the EU European citizens 'initiative (European Citizens' Initiative) for the introduction of direct democracy in the European Constitution a. After the failure of the constitutional treaty , More Democracy is working to transform the European citizens' initiative provided for in the Lisbon Treaty into an effective instrument. More Democracy founded the “Europe needs more democracy” alliance in April 2012, in which the Taxpayers' Association , the Pirate Party Germany , the Federal Association of Free Voters Germany , Omnibus for Direct Democracy and the ödp are involved.

On July 15, 2014, More Democracy, together with an international alliance of now more than 500 organizations from all 28 EU member states (as of December 21, 2015) submitted a registration application for a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) against the trade agreements TTIP and CETA with the EU -Commission placed.

More democracy activists take part in a large demonstration against TTIP and CETA with around 250,000 people in Berlin on October 10, 2015. A broad civil society alliance called for the demonstration.

The “ Stop TTIP ” initiative calls on the EU Commission to recommend to the EU Council of Ministers that the negotiating mandate for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) be lifted and that the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA) not be concluded. From the perspective of the initiative, TTIP and CETA primarily serve the interests of large corporations at the expense of consumer protection, social standards, environmental regulations and food safety. The alliance sees the planned investor-state litigation (ISDS) as a threat to democracy and the rule of law. After the EU Commission rejected an official European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) on TTIP and CETA, the “Stop TTIP” alliance launched a self-organized ECI on the trade agreements on October 7, 2014 in order to stop them. The “Stop TTIP” alliance collected a total of 3,284,289 signatures against TTIP and CETA by October 6, 2015 - never before have so many people signed an ECI. Three times as many signatures as necessary were obtained (required: 1 million). The country quorum was skipped in 23 EU member states (required: a certain minimum number of signatures in 7 EU member states). The signatures were handed over to EU Parliament President Martin Schulz on November 9, 2015. In addition, on October 10, 2015, a large-scale demonstration against TTIP and CETA, co-organized by Mehr Demokratie, took place in which around 250,000 people took part.

More Democracy calls for a referendum on the trade agreements in Germany and, together with other allies, is organizing a campaign in the Netherlands that is supposed to initiate a referendum on CETA. Referendums are also planned in the individual federal states on CETA.

More democracy has been active against TTIP and CETA for a long time.

Constitutional Complaints

Suffrage

In October 2011, Mehr Demokratie, together with Wahlrecht.de, called for a constitutional complaint against the reform of the federal electoral law passed by the Bundestag in September 2011 with the votes of the CDU / CSU and FDP . The reform does not solve the problem of negative voting weight and also complicates the federal election law so that it is not clear to the voter how his vote affects the distribution of seats in the Bundestag. In a judgment of July 25, 2012, the Federal Constitutional Court, based on the constitutional complaint made by Mehr Demokratie, Wahlrecht.de and 3,500 people, declared the electoral law to be unconstitutional. In response to this, the Bundestag passed a new federal electoral law on February 21, 2013, with which the negative weight of votes criticized by Mehr Demokratie is no longer applicable and excess mandates are completely offset.

On July 5, 2013, the Federal Council passed a law passed in the Bundestag on June 13, 2013 with the votes of the Union, SPD, FDP and Greens, which provided for the introduction of a three percent hurdle for the European elections. On October 7, 2013, Federal President Joachim Gauck finally signed the amended European Election Act, which came into force on October 10, 2013. Since the introduction of a three percent hurdle in elections to the European Parliament, from the point of view of more democracy, violates the principle of equality of vote and equal opportunities for parties, the association and 1,099 people lodged a constitutional complaint against this on October 10, 2013. On February 26, 2014, the Federal Constitutional Court announced its verdict. It came to the conclusion that the three percent threshold clause in European electoral law is unconstitutional under the current legal and factual circumstances, since the serious interference with the threshold clause in the principles of equality of suffrage and equal opportunities cannot be justified.

ESM and Fiscal Compact

More Democracy employees load signatures for a constitutional complaint against the ESM and the Fiscal Compact, June 29, 2012.

The alliance “Europe needs more democracy” initiated by the association gathered until August 2012 powers of attorney for a constitutional complaint against the ESM and the fiscal pact for a violation of the democratic principle.

The association demands that a referendum be held when further sovereignty rights are transferred to the EU. He also calls on the EU parliamentarians to campaign for a directly elected EU convention that draws up proposals for a democratic EU. The application was drawn up by Christoph Degenhart and Herta Däubler-Gmelin . With the aim of forbidding the Federal President from signing, the complaint was combined with an application for a temporary injunction . This was discussed orally on July 10, 2012.

On August 2, 2012, the association announced on its website that, with the 35,188 powers of attorney received by then, it would file the largest constitutional complaint in German history to date . A total of 37,018 people with the “Europe needs more democracy” alliance are suing the ESM and the Fiscal Compact. In a ruling of September 12, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the ESM was unreservedly constitutional under certain conditions (some of the criticisms expressed in the lawsuit were taken into account) and the fiscal pact. The judges set a share capital of 190 billion euros as the absolute upper limit of liability for Germany. If the share capital is to be increased, the German Bundestag must agree. On the other hand, the Bundestag's control and information rights have been strengthened. The inviolability of the archives as well as the immunity and confidentiality obligations of the ESM employees vis-à-vis the Bundestag no longer apply. It was also made clear that the ESM is not allowed to take out loans from the European Central Bank, i.e. it does not receive a banking license .

Däubler-Gmelin and Degenhart, the agents of Mehr Demokratie, submitted a supplement to the constitutional complaint to the main proceedings at the Federal Constitutional Court on November 15, 2012 . The main motion calls for the approval laws to the ESM and the fiscal contract to be declared unconstitutional. Should this not be granted, an alternative request will be made that the Federal Government must work to have the ECB's decision of 6 September 2012 on the unlimited purchase of government bonds on the secondary market by the ECB be repealed. On March 18, 2014, the Federal Constitutional Court announced its final ruling and essentially confirmed its ruling of September 2012. The question of the evaluation of the OMT program (Outright Monetary Transactions) of the ECB is still open: The court has separated and addressed key questions referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The program provides that the ECB can buy unlimited amounts of government bonds from over-indebted euro countries. The judges assume that the ECB has exceeded its competencies and mandate with this program ( ultra vires act ).

Lobbying

In addition to campaigning, Mehr Demokratie also lobbies for political parties and German governments for the expansion of democracy. In this way the association was able to introduce its proposals for the creation of direct democratic instruments into the political process in Schleswig-Holstein in 1989 . The same was achieved in 2000 and 2002 in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as in Berlin in 2005 and again in Schleswig-Holstein in 2013.

further activities

  • Publication of statistics and research on democracy issues (partly in cooperation with the Board of Trustees),
  • Operation of the citizens' petition database in cooperation with the Philipps University of Marburg
  • advising individuals and civil society initiatives on the possibilities and conditions for the implementation of popular and citizens' initiatives.

More Democracy was one of the initiators of the internet platform parliamentwatch.de , where it is a cooperation partner and sponsoring member.

Related organizations and cooperations

For its campaigns, more democracy often forms alliances with other civil society actors ( e.g. Ver.di , attac , Die Familienunternehmer - ASU ). In order to better coordinate and bundle activities on a European level with partners in other countries, the association set up the organization Democracy International (DI). The association more democracy! Founded in Austria in 2006 accompanies the German association in partnership. There is a close connection to Omnibus for Direct Democracy . In the event of the association's dissolution, according to the statutes, the association's assets fall to OMNIBUS for direct democracy gGmbH.

The German association Mehr Demokratie works with the association Mehr Demokratie in South Tyrol, Italy , in which the MoVimento 5 Stelle politician Riccardo Fraccaro also worked. In response to criticism of the proximity to Fraccaro and his populist party, Mehr Demokratie invited "a more unbiased look at the 5-star movement".

See also

Web links

Commons : More Democracy  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Federal Board of the Association More Democracy.
  2. ↑ compare §3 of the articles of association
  3. ↑ Duties of the Board of Trustees
  4. ^ Handbook of municipal science and practice. Volume 1: Fundamentals and municipal constitution, third edition, 2007, p. 361 . Retrieved February 28, 2016.
  5. ↑ More Democracy e. V. Bavaria : Origin ( Memento from July 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Thuringian Constitutional Court: Constitutional Tribunal 04/01 judgment of 19 September 2001 . PDF 362 kB. Retrieved February 28, 2016.
  7. ↑ Hamburg becomes the capital of transparency
  8. ↑ Mehr Demokratie eV Schleswig-Holstein: Popular initiative successful!
  9. ↑ NRW looks through - The Transparency Act for NRW. Accessed May 1, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Getting democracy rolling - the right to vote for all
  11. ^ Entry ( memento of February 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Berlin / Brandenburg regional association.
  12. ↑ Now is the time: referendum. Nationwide. Accessed May 1, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Verfassungsbeschwerde.eu - list of supporters
  14. ↑ "Free trade agreement with the USA: How citizens should stop TTIP" from July 15, 2014, Süddeutsche Zeitung
  15. ↑ Start page Stop TTIP initiative
  16. ↑ “Self-organized European citizens' initiative against TTIP and CETA successfully launched!” Of September 15, 2015, Huffington Post
  17. ↑ "Stop TTIP" success: 3,263,920 signatures! from October 7, 2015, mehr-demokratie.de
  18. ↑ “Stop TTIP” hands over 3,284,289 signatures from November 9, 2015, mehr-demokratie.de
  19. ↑ "Large demonstration against TTIP and CETA: 250,000 people show corporations and politics the red card!" From October 10, 2015, mehr-demokratie.de
  20. ↑ "Netherlands: Referendum against TTIP & CETA" from December 14, 2015
  21. ↑ “Our demand: democratize EU trade agreements!” Overview on mehr-demokratie.de
  22. ↑ Call for more democracy to sign the constitutional complaint against the reform of the 2011 federal election law. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 8, 2016 ; accessed on May 1, 2019 .
  23. ↑ "Explanatory Notes on the Constitutional Complaint on the Federal Election Act" October 14, 2011, mehr-demokratie.de
  24. ↑ Bundestag resolves new voting rights ( memento from September 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  25. ↑ " Restricting clause in EU elections unconstitutional" from February 26, 2014, mehr-demokratie.de
  26. ↑ Constitutional complaint on the ESM and the Fiscal Treaty ( Memento from December 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  27. ↑ Video Constitutional Court negotiating ESM  in the ZDFmediathek , accessed on February 3, 2014. (offline)
  28. ↑ Press Release constitutional complaint to ESM and fiscal compact. (PDF) In: https://www.mehr-demokratie.de/ . Mehr Demokratie eV, July 9, 2012, accessed on May 1, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Mehr Demokratie eV: Democratization of the EU. Accessed May 1, 2019 .
  30. ↑ Constitutional complaint on the ESM and the Fiscal Treaty ( Memento from December 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  31. ↑ Press review on our constitutional complaint ( memento of February 24, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ^ Circular resolution 029: Pirate Party supports "More Democracy for Europe" from July 1, 2012
  33. ^ Constitutional complaint: Alliance “Europe needs more democracy” is making history
  34. ↑ start page Verassungsbeschwerde.eu
  35. ↑ 37,000 people show politics red card ( Memento from December 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  36. ↑ "Applications for the issuance of an interim order to prevent the ratification of the ESM Treaty and the Fiscal Compact largely unsuccessful" - press release No. 67/2012 of the Federal Constitutional Court of September 12, 2012
  37. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court approves the euro rescue package subject to conditions ( Memento from December 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  38. ^ Supplement to constitutional complaint ( Memento from August 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  39. ↑ “BVerfG takes a closer look at ESM & ECB” from June 12, 2013, mehr-demokratie.de
  40. ↑ Link to the citizens' initiative database
  41. ↑ Democracy International eV Retrieved May 1, 2019 (English).
  42. ↑ Homepage of the Austrian association more democracy! Accessed May 1, 2019 .
  43. ↑ Articles of Association of More Democracy eV §12. Version dated November 11, 2017. Accessed August 26, 2020.
  44. ↑ # GlobFor18: In the ancient palaces of Rome - developing the future of democracy. In: www.mehr-demokratie.de. 2018, accessed November 23, 2018 .
  45. ↑ # GlobFor18: Learn from Rome ... In: www.mehr-demokratie.de. 2018, accessed November 23, 2018 .