Administrative districts in North Rhine-Westphalia
The administrative districts in North Rhine-Westphalia are institutions of the state administration in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia . The district governments in North Rhine-Westphalia are state central authorities and thus assume a middle position in the administrative hierarchy between the ministerial level and the lower state authorities as well as the municipalities.
organization
The basic organization of the North Rhine-Westphalian state administration is regulated in the state organization law. At the level of the central state authority, the country is divided into five administrative districts, each of which is administered by a district government. Each district government is headed by a district president :
| Administrative districts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Administrative district | Population (December 31, 2019) |
Area (km²) |
Population density (inhabitants / km²) |
Seat of the district government | District President | Political party | |
|
1 | Arnsberg | 3,580,568 | 8003 | 448 | Arnsberg , Hochsauerlandkreis | Hans-Josef Vogel | CDU |
|
2 | Detmold | 2,055,724 | 6521 | 315 | Detmold , Lippe district | Judith Pirscher | FDP |
|
3 | Dusseldorf | 5,207,457 | 5291 | 983 | Dusseldorf | Birgitta Radermacher | CDU |
|
4th | Cologne | 4,478,847 | 7365 | 605 | Cologne | Gisela Walsken | SPD |
|
5 | Muenster | 2,624,625 | 6909 | 379 | Muenster | Dorothee Feller | CDU |
The government president is appointed by the country's prime minister . In practice, politicians from the governing parties are often appointed for these posts according to party propriety. He is considered a political official and is often changed when there is a change of government.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, each district government has a local regional council , which is responsible for regional planning and which is determined indirectly in local elections. The last election of these councils took place in the municipal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2014 . It is composed of voting and advisory members. The members entitled to vote are “two-thirds elected by the representations of the independent cities and districts, and one-third are appointed from reserve lists. The municipal election results in the independent cities and in the municipalities belonging to the district are decisive for the distribution of seats. "
See also : Results of local elections, especially regional councils
tasks
The district governments are primarily state agencies that perform tasks for the state government within the framework of the state administrations in their districts. They are therefore part of the country's executive branch . Essentially, they are structured in the same way and perform the same tasks. Its tasks include, among other things, regional planning and development (the regional councils are assigned to this), tasks in the field of environmental and occupational safety, which were formerly part of the state offices for the environment and occupational safety (cf., for example, State Office for Environment and Occupational Safety in East Westphalia -Lippe ), as well as tasks in the field of school supervision. The district governments are arranged directly above the municipalities or the district administrators and exercise municipal supervision over them. Municipal organs, especially the district administrators, in addition to their function as organs of local politics, also partly take on the tasks of a lower state authority, so in this respect they are directly subordinate to the administrative districts.
Some district governments also have special tasks and are accordingly structured slightly differently. These include, for example, tasks in the field of mining and energy for the government in Arnsberg, the Geobasis NRW service (official maps, etc.) for the government in Cologne or the disposal of ordnance, which is part of the governments in Arnsberg and Düsseldorf.
History and Outlook
The layout of today's administrative districts essentially goes back to the establishment of the Prussian administrative districts in the Prussian provinces of Westphalia and the Rhine Province (or their immediate "predecessor provinces ") in 1816. Some of today's administrative districts follow the tradition of these Prussian institutions.
When the state of North Rhine-Westphalia was founded there were six administrative districts. With effect from August 1, 1972, the Aachen administrative region was incorporated into the Cologne administrative region. On April 1, 1947, the administrations of the administrative district of Minden and the former state of Lippe were merged. The administrative district of Minden was enlarged to include the area of Lippe with the two districts of Detmold and Lemgo and renamed the administrative district of Minden-Lippe. The seat of the regional government was moved from Minden to Detmold (part of the membership commitments from North Rhine-Westphalia to Lippe ). On June 2, 1947, the name of the new administrative district from Minden-Lippe was changed to Detmold . Within the boundaries of the new government district, the East Westphalia-Lippe region gradually developed in the awareness of the population .
For some time now there has been discussion about reducing the number of administrative districts from five to three. Another reason is that the urban Ruhr area does not fall under the jurisdiction of just one district government, which appeared to be unfavorable for state planning. All municipalities in the Ruhr area that are organized in the Ruhr Regional Association are then to be combined in their own administrative district for the first time. The remaining parts of the country are then to be allocated to the two new administrative districts of Rhineland and Westphalia (or Westphalia-Lippe). The landscape associations are to be dissolved here. In 2005, the then CDU / FDP state government announced that it would implement this idea by 2012 at the latest. According to this, there should be three regional praesidia in the Rhineland, Ruhr Area and Westphalia, which should replace the administrative districts that were partially taken over from Prussian times. These plans affect historical and constitutional issues, since both the affected administrative district of Detmold and the Lippe regional association were regulated in the Lippe punctuation with clear commitments to Lippe as part of the accession of the former Free State of Lippe to North Rhine-Westphalia in 1947 . There are controversial opinions about the constitutional significance of these agreements. In addition, there is strong regional resistance, particularly in Westphalia, which criticizes the administrative units mentioned as being too large and centralistic. At the beginning of March 2008 these plans were postponed.
On January 1, 2007, the existing district governments were assigned additional tasks from special authorities (including occupational safety and the environment).
Web links
- State government of North Rhine-Westphalia: Administration of North Rhine-Westphalia
- Ministry of the Interior North Rhine-Westphalia: Organizational plan
Individual evidence
- ^ Law on the organization of the state administration - LOG NRW
- ↑ State Planning Act (LPlG NRW) § 7 (1)
- ↑ District government Arnsberg (ed.), Egbert Neuhaus, Heinz Rittermeier, Hans-Josef Vogels: The reform of the central instances in North Rhine-Westphalia: On the way to customer-oriented district governments. Arnsberg 2004. ( Memento of the original from January 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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. (PDF; 48 kB)
- ↑ Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia: Excerpts from the coalition agreement ( Memento of the original of December 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia: District governments are being reorganized ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
