Prime Minister's Conference

The Prime Minister's Conference (MPK) is a body of the self-coordination of the 16 German federal states . In the Prime Minister's Conference, country-specific issues are discussed and common positions of the countries are coordinated with one another or represented at the federal level . The classic tasks include the conclusion of international treaties and agreements between the states or with the federal government. Well-known examples are the state financial equalization or the state broadcasting agreements .

The MPK has been chaired by the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder since October 1, 2019 .

history

Prime Minister meeting in Munich in June 1947; in the center of the picture is the Bavarian Prime Minister Hans Ehard

The first meeting of the Prime Ministers of all German states after the Second World War took place in Munich at the beginning of June 1947. However, the representatives of the states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the Mark Brandenburg left the conference at the beginning of the deliberations because they could not get their way with their demand for the immediate formation of a German central administration. The West German Prime Ministers then continued the conference alone.

Rittersturz conference in Koblenz in July 1948.

The meeting of the heads of government of the countries of the three western occupation zones from July 8th to 10th, 1948 in Koblenz is considered to be the "actual hour of birth" of the Prime Minister's Conference . This conference , which went down in history as the Knight's Fall Conference, decided to set up the Parliamentary Council to draft the Basic Law and thus paved the way for the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Prime Minister's Conference did not become a permanent institution until 1954. The first MPK chairman was the Bavarian Prime Minister at the time, Hans Ehard . Since reunification , the five new federal states have also taken part in the conference. In autumn 1992, Saxony was chaired for the first time by an eastern federal state.

Constitutional basis

In contrast to the Bundesrat, the Prime Minister's Conference is not a constitutional body and is not involved in federal or state legislation . Therefore, MPK resolutions must be implemented through legislative procedures in the individual federal states. The basis for the Prime Minister's Conference is federalism in Germany (Article 20 paragraph 1 GG ), according to which the federal states are separate member states of the Federal Republic of Germany . This means that each federal state can shape its own fields of competence independently (Art. 30, 70, 83 GG) and work together with other states.

In order not to impair the powers of the Federal Council, the Prime Minister's Conference decided on December 17, 1992 that a matter may not be discussed in a ministerial conference if it is the subject of deliberations by the Federal Council.

Organization and way of working

The Prime Minister's Conference takes place regularly four times a year. In the summer and in December, the heads of government of the federal states meet for a meeting with the Federal Chancellor after the MPK . If there is a special need, additional special conferences are held. This has been the case so far, for example, with the federalism reform and state financial equalization . The prime ministerial conferences are prepared by the heads of the state and senate chancelleries of the federal states in corresponding conferences ( CdS conferences). Topics of the deliberations in the past years were European policy, federalism reform, federal-state financial relations, media and education policy.

Special topics are dealt with in confidential discussion groups, the so-called fireside chats . Only the heads of government without their employees take part in these talks.

Until the end of 2004, decisions always had to be made unanimously . This consensus principle was relaxed during the deliberations on federalism reform in order to strengthen the federal states' ability to act. Since the end of 2004, the decisions have only required the approval of at least 13 countries. Exceptions are the rules of procedure , budgetary matters and the creation of community facilities. The principle of unanimity still applies here. The prime ministers of the A-countries and those of the B-countries usually hold separate preliminary discussions before the conference in order to determine the negotiating position.

Change of chairmanship

The chairmanship of the Prime Minister's Conference changes annually in an agreed order. The chairman is the prime minister of the respective federal state . Until the reunification in 1990, the chairmanship changed in the following order between the eleven federal states at the time:

number	state
1	Bavaria
2	Berlin
3	North Rhine-Westphalia
4th	Lower Saxony
5	Hesse
6th	Rhineland-Palatinate
7th	Schleswig-Holstein
8th	Baden-Württemberg
9	Bremen
10	Saarland
11	Hamburg

Since 1990 the current order between the 16 federal states has been:

number	state
1	Lower Saxony
2	Hesse
3	Saxony
4th	Rhineland-Palatinate
5	Saxony-Anhalt
6th	Schleswig-Holstein
7th	Thuringia
8th	Baden-Württemberg
9	Brandenburg
10	Bremen
11	Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
12	Saarland
13	Hamburg
14th	Bavaria
15th	Berlin
16	North Rhine-Westphalia

List of chairmen

	Political party	state	Period
Hans Ehard	CSU	Bavaria Bavaria	October 1, 1954 - September 30, 1955
Otto Suhr	SPD	Berlin Berlin	October 1, 1955 - September 30, 1956
...	...	...	...
Franz Josef Strauss	CSU	Bavaria Bavaria	October 1, 1987 - September 30, 1988
Eberhard Diepgen	CDU	Berlin Berlin	October 1, 1988 - March 16, 1989
Walter Momper	SPD	Berlin Berlin	March 16, 1989 - September 30, 1989
Johannes Rau	SPD	North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia	October 1, 1989 - September 30, 1990
Gerhard Schröder	SPD	Lower Saxony Lower Saxony	October 1, 1990 - September 30, 1991
Hans Eichel	SPD	Hesse Hesse	October 1, 1991 - September 30, 1992
Kurt Biedenkopf	CDU	Saxony Saxony	October 1, 1992 - September 30, 1993
Rudolf Scharping	SPD	Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate	October 1, 1993 - September 30, 1994
...	...	...	...
Edmund Stoiber	CSU	Bavaria Bavaria	October 1, 2003 - September 30, 2004
Klaus Wowereit	SPD	Berlin Berlin	October 1, 2004 - September 30, 2005
Jürgen Rüttgers	CDU	North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia	October 1, 2005 - September 30, 2006
Christian Wulff	CDU	Lower Saxony Lower Saxony	October 1, 2006 - September 30, 2007
Roland Koch	CDU	Hesse Hesse	October 1, 2007 - September 30, 2008
Stanislaw Tillich	CDU	Saxony Saxony	October 1, 2008 - September 30, 2009
Kurt Beck	SPD	Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate	October 1, 2009 - September 30, 2010
Wolfgang Böhmer	CDU	Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt	October 1, 2010 - April 19, 2011
Pure Haseloff	CDU	Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt	April 19, 2011 - September 30, 2011
Peter Harry Carstensen	CDU	Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein	October 1, 2011 - June 12, 2012
Torsten Albig	SPD	Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein	June 12, 2012 - September 30, 2012
Christine Lieberknecht	CDU	Thuringia Thuringia	October 1, 2012 - September 30, 2013
Winfried Kretschmann	Green	Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg	October 1, 2013 - September 30, 2014
Dietmar Woidke	SPD	Brandenburg Brandenburg	October 1, 2014 - September 30, 2015
Carsten Sieling	SPD	Bremen Bremen	October 1, 2015 - September 30, 2016
Erwin Sellering	SPD	Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	October 1, 2016 - July 4, 2017
Manuela Schwesig	SPD	Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania	July 4, 2017 - September 30, 2017
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer	CDU	Saarland Saarland	October 1, 2017 - February 28, 2018
Tobias Hans	CDU	Saarland Saarland	March 1, 2018 - September 30, 2018
Peter Tschentscher	SPD	Hamburg Hamburg	October 1, 2018 - September 30, 2019
Markus Söder	CSU	Bavaria Bavaria	since October 1, 2019

tasks

The Prime Minister's Conference proposes a list of 21 of the 24 members and the same number of representatives to the European Committee of the Regions of the Federal Government , which in turn proposes the full list of elected representatives to the EU Council of Ministers for appointment for the five-year term of office.

Web links

Commons : Conference of Prime Ministers - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Information on the Prime Minister's Conference at the 2015/16 Presidency , Bremen

Further information on the history and working methods of the MPK at berlin.de (accessed on January 1, 2016).

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c The Prime Minister's Conference, section "Historical Review" at www.berlin.de, accessed on March 25, 2014.
↑ 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.
^ European Communities: The selection process for Committee of the Regions members Procedures in the Member States. (No longer available online.) In: cor.europa.eu. Archived from the original on May 15, 2012 ; accessed on October 21, 2017 .

[berlin.de-1] The Prime Minister's Conference, section "Historical Review" at www.berlin.de, accessed on March 25, 2014.

[2] 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.

[3] European Communities: The selection process for Committee of the Regions members Procedures in the Member States. (No longer available online.) In: cor.europa.eu. Archived from the original on May 15, 2012 ; accessed on October 21, 2017 .