As a consequence of the result of Sunday’s European elections, Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) has called on the federal government to “learn from the cities, learn from Munich”. While the AfD, which is partly classified as right-wing extremist by the constitutional protection agency, received the second most votes at the federal level, it was kept in check in the Bavarian state capital and relegated to fifth place. “I am very grateful to the people of Munich for this,” said Reiter on Monday evening at the reception for the city’s founding festival in the grand courtyard of the town hall.
Usually, this reception is more of a social event, where politicians of all levels and stripes, business people, cultural representatives, honorary citizens and other people important to the city meet and chat. But this time Reiter sowed a serious tone in his welcoming speech. “You can’t go back to normal day-to-day business,” he said after the cross-border and “unprecedented shift in voter favor to the right” on Sunday.
The fact that the AfD, “a party that is openly right-wing radical,” according to Reiter, was elected the second strongest party in Germany “makes me somewhat stunned,” admitted the mayor. “I am really dismayed that Jews are now seriously considering whether this country can still be their home.”
He continued that “I simply cannot and will not imagine the implementation of the concept of remigration propagated by the AfD in our country”, especially in view of the large proportion of foreigners among the people living and working in Munich. The fact that the proportion of AfD voters among young people was exceptionally high also “touched” him “extremely”. He had originally considered the lowering of the voting age to 16 to be a very positive thing.
Reiter explained the voting behavior by saying that many dissatisfied people wanted to teach the federal government a lesson, it was about protest, not about content. Reiter therefore recommended: “Politics must be explained more than ever. It must be discussed in an ideology-free manner, with the citizens on the ground, not at party conferences.” He has been doing this since he took office ten years ago in his public consultation hours, where he takes three or four hours to explain his policies. “That works much better than election campaign speeches,” Reiter concluded.
Populist “free beer proposals”, as he calls them, only create frustration when citizens realize that nothing is being implemented. Reiter called on his fellow politicians to respond more specifically to the needs of the population in order to overcome political disillusionment and move away from the issue of “voting as a lesson”.
At the beginning of his speech, Dieter Reiter pointed out that the 866th anniversary of the city’s founding was actually only on June 14th. But next Friday there was also a football match in the city, namely the opening match of the European Championship between Germany and Scotland. And since the football association UEFA “was stubborn about changing the date, we’ll just celebrate a little earlier,” Reiter explained humorously.