Germany

Germany has established laws regarding the regulation of Participatory Budgeting in four of 16 states in Germany. These are in the west North Rhine-Westphalia (since 1950), Rhineland-Palatinate, and the East in Berlin and Saxonia. Some other federal states have laws concerning regulation of citizen participation.

The local bylaws (municipal code) require in almost all local municipalities the citizen participation and how citizens have to be informed about the local budget. Often it was used to implement PB on the local level. The local government must publish the budget plan for the next year. Everybody who pays taxes in the area or lives there is allowed to propose changes of the budget plan. But only very few people use this formal way of participation.

The Saxonia experience might be interesting. The parties in power declared in the coalition contract the implementation of citizens budgets since 2021 as a form of citizen participation. This offers a limited amount of money by local governments. This fact, moreover, explains the growth in the number of PBs in Germany in recent years.

Saxony pays out surplus money to some of its communities between 2019 and 2021, a few ten thousand euros per community. Because of this “present” some communities started to implement PB initiatives in order to spread the money among citizens projects. In 2020 the new coalition government of the state of Saxony promised to promote PB in the communities. Not really innovation, but an important trend: citizen budgets.

Christchurch (New Zealand) and Porto Alegre (Brazil) are the role models for the first approach of PB in Germany in 1998. The first model, the so-called “Bürgerhaushalt” (Buergerhaushalt) was in short: collecting proposals from the public, qualifying and prioritizing them, and finally the politicians decided on the distribution of the budget and gave an explanation to the citizens.

In 2002 we got a paradigmatic shift to another model, which is named “Bürgerbudget” (Buergerbudget, citizens budget): public proposals are collected on a fixed budget. This model reaches far more people on average.

There is an intensive discussion between communities, so it is actually very difficult to say, who was inspired by whom. For example:

- Berlin-Lichtenberg (starting 2005) is often mentioned as a general role model;

- Trier (starting 2009) was the role model for Worms, Stuttgart, Kerpen, and Pulheim;

- Stuttgart (starting 2013) is the role model for the current reform discussions in Leipzig;

- Eberswalde (starting 2007, and 2012 with PB on a fixed budget) is a role model for PB on a fixed budget in the state of Brandenburg (There are 26 PBs in Brandenburg, 19 are implemented using the Eberswalde’ model). Eberswalde is a very interesting model because the citizens decide about the budget (not the local government. Eberswalde was the first municipality which delegated the decision completely to its citizen and implemented the citizen’s decision without “OK” from politicians.

In Saxony-Anhalt the topic of PB / citizens budget was initiated not by the government, but by a coalition of NGOs, actors of civic society and local authorities, called “Partnership for Democracy”. The initiative was implemented mainly in administrative district Börde, in the City of Oschersleben.

Furthermore, there is the EmPaci-Project (Empowering Participatory Budgeting in the Baltic Sea Region) in federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in cooperation with the University of Rostock (e.g., in Bützow).

They also deserve to be highlighted:

- Saxonia, for the coalition agreement of ruling parties mentioned above;

- The “Buddy Partnership” between Mannheim and Riesa. The former implemented PB some years ago and is now supporting Riesa in adopting the process;

- Brandenburg, by the model project of the NGO mitmachen e.V. on how to reach young people with PB in the municipalities of Eberswalde, Potsdam and Nuthetal.

1. PB have been suspended: 10%
2. PB continued to function normally: 60%
3. PB have undergone changes/adaptations: 30%

1. Some cities with fixed budgets decide to give money to support firms, which have financial problems or to invest money for fighting the pandemic. Some municipalities blocked the funds because of high level of indebtedness (the expected income fails because of Corona), for example: https://www.moz.de/landkreise/ostprignitzruppin/neuruppin/neuruppin-artikel/dg/0/1/1794908/;
2. Some communities shifted the voting phase from faceto- face assemblies to a virtual procedure, such as in Oberswalde. This is not the strongest trend as most PB in Germany already took place online;
3. Other paused the process one year, as happened in the city of Lahr: https://www.lahrer-zeitung. de/inhalt.lahr-stadtgulden-projekt-pausiert-wegen-dercorona- krise.7207e6ab-756f-443e-ac77-340d866d9469.html.

Stuttgart had in 2019 the highest number of active citizens in bigger cities (more than 10.000 inhabitants), 9% of the eligible to vote. In smaller villages under 10.000 inhabitants Ketzin/ Havel reached 16%.

2019 was the first year, in which the number of PB with a fixed budget was higher than the number of PB without it. Especially in Brandenburg and Saxony (States of Germany) we see a continuous growth of PB in the last years. Berlin and Thuringia discuss implementing PB at the state level.

Although all German states and communes have some kind of direct democracy, financial referendums are not allowed - in contrast to Switzerland.