There will be no digital or hybrid meetings in the Munich city council in the future either. The coalition of the Greens and the SPD did not find the required number of supporters in the general assembly on Wednesday. For the necessary two-thirds majority, it was dependent on votes from the opposition, but the CSU, FDP, AfD, Free Voters and parts of the ÖDP and the left refused to approve. Not even the compromise offer to only allow the hybrid meetings for a limited period during the pandemic was not accepted.
Hybrid meetings were planned for the specialist committees, and two tests in autumn were successful. The need seemed clear before the meeting on Wednesday: after three participants tested positive in the last plenary meeting or immediately afterwards, all committees were canceled in December and even the budget decision for 2022 was postponed. Instead, there had been informal meetings in front of screens without any decisions being made. But he will no longer allow this “puppet theater”, said Mayor Dieter Reiter. Now the city councilors would have to appear in person, even during the pandemic.
CSU and FDP referred to the high cost of the technology. Hybrid meetings are particularly useful in pandemic times, admitted CSU parliamentary group leader Manuel Pretzl. But the system, which only allows 25 people to view screens, is far too expensive. In addition, Pretzl criticized unclear guidelines as to who was allowed to participate digitally and when. “Who is checking whose child is sicker?” In the end, the lot may even have to decide who is allowed to stay at home. “This is not how we can start into the digital future.”
The FDP does not want to go there. Because the introduction of hybrid meetings could be understood as a “gateway to the home office in the city council”, said Jörg Hoffmann, head of the parliamentary group from the FDP and Bavaria party. “That is the wrong signal.” On the sidelines of the general assembly, Hoffmann and his FDP colleague Gabriele Neff declared that they saw hybrid meetings as a step towards undermining democracy. The city leaders want to govern without debates. They lack the confidence that the elected colleagues would then still want to come to meetings in person.
If you have problems with childcare and therefore cannot come to a meeting, you should know that the city will pay for the costs, said Hoffmann. Neff, who worked as a single mother on the city council for a long time, added that before an election you had to consider whether you could do it with children. The Greens and Social Democrats reacted indignantly. Not only in digital, but also in social issues, the FDP is apparently far in the past. Mayor Reiter located the attitude of the Liberals in the 1960s, the completely stunned Green parliamentary group leader Florian Roth in the 1950s. Felix Sproll from the SPD / Volt parliamentary group was “disappointed and angry”. In the pandemic, everyone has learned to work digitally. But Munich rejects that, it is terrifyingly “backward”.