Hosting the G-7 summit at Schloss Elmau in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen cost 145 million euros last summer. Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) said on Wednesday in the state parliament’s interior committee. However, not everything has been accounted for and booked exactly. Before the event, 188 million euros had been set aside in the state budget. The meeting of the most important heads of state and government in the world remained below that.
The reimbursement of costs by the federal government has now also been clarified in the form of a “final administrative agreement”: According to this, the federal government will contribute a flat rate of 80 million euros, i.e. a good 55 percent of the costs. In addition, the federal government does not charge for personnel costs that it has incurred, for example, through the federal police and the deployment of soldiers, or material costs such as for the use of real estate. 65 million euros of the costs remain with the Free State – with which Herrmann was satisfied. Shortly after the summit, the state government of Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) was still arguing with the federal government about the division.
According to the Interior Minister, a total of 69 criminal offenses and administrative offenses were recorded in connection with the summit at the end of June 2022, “the result was sensationally low” – especially in view of the pictures of the summit in Hamburg 2017; there had been massive riots. In Bavaria there were 37 events and demonstrations related to G 7. The mobilization potential of the violent left-wing extremist scene may have been lower because the Ukraine war had caused uncertainty about “thinking patterns”, said Herrmann. In addition, the visit of Joe Biden instead of Donald Trump as US President probably offered less friction. An attack on Federal Police vehicles in Munich was, so to speak, “a one-time action”, especially in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district it remained “safe and peaceful”.
Herrmann called the security concept “perfectly prepared”. In his report to the committee, he had state police chief Michael Schwald and other practitioners with him. Although there were experiences from the Elmauer summit in 2015, “nothing was copied one-to-one”. 18,000 police officers were on duty. 5900 forces came from the Federal Police and from other countries, plus 50 officials from Austria. Thousands of mostly volunteer helpers from rescue services, technical relief organizations and fire brigades made sure that “we were prepared for any emergency”. By the way, a “gentlemen’s agreement” promised fire brigades new vehicles for “this special operation”. One of them was in action before the summit in the train accident in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Nevertheless, the summit set an “overtime record”. As the Ministry of the Interior announced a few weeks ago, as of the end of November 2022, Bavarian police officers had a calculated 98 hours of overtime per capita that could not yet be compensated for by time off in lieu or remuneration. A year earlier there were only 73. A group of experts is developing proposals for the reduction.