The decision in the city council has not yet been made, when robust criticism is already penetrating the city hall this Wednesday with their majority in the city council to decide on a joint application. In essence, it provides for only 30 honorary members of the Migration Advisory Board to be elected directly by Munich residents with migrant roots instead of the previous 40. The remaining ten “equal rights” are to be determined by the city council, and we are talking about “people involved in civil society in this area”.
In doing so, AGABY criticizes, one pretends to want to know better “what is good for female migrants” and raises oneself above the current advisory board. He castigates the initiative as “undemocratic”. The SPD takes the same line and speaks of a “massive destruction of historically grown integration structures”. In addition, the Social Democrats are snubbed that their Green coalition partner with the CSU/Free Voters is cheating on them in order to push through their own goals in the reform debate on the Migration Advisory Board, which has been going on for two years.
When the already chronically low voter turnout dropped to 3.62 percent in the last election of the Migration Advisory Council in 2017, the City Hall and the Advisory Council agreed that reform was needed to ensure that the representation of the 180 nations living in this city ensure democratic relevance and visibility.
Green/Pink List and SPD/Volt have laid down a fundamental transformation in their coalition agreement. For two years now, says Greens parliamentary group leader Dominik Krause, politicians and the migration advisory board have been discussing what this reform could look like. “We want to strengthen the body and have discussed various models.” The SPD, however, did not agree to any of them, “which means that they would like to preserve the status quo”. Then they looked for another majority – with the CSU.
“Many migrants fought for this for a long time.”
The joint application, which will be negotiated in the town hall this Wednesday, now provides for “better interaction” between the migration advisory board and the city council, to only have 30 members elected directly and to provide them with ten people who are already involved in the area . These individuals could come from the existing City Council Commission on Integration, which advises the City Council. Among other things, representatives of religious communities, migrant organizations, the city hall fractions and also the third mayor Verena Dietl (SPD) sit there. Green parliamentary group leader Krause calls this a “double structure” that should be dissolved in favor of a “central committee”. The new migration advisory board would then have a “higher status in the town hall”.
For SPD city councilor Cumali Naz, who was chairman of the advisory board from 1998 to 2010, the comparison is flawed: “The migration advisory board is an interest group like the senior citizens’ advisory board, the commission is an advisory body.” Both dealt with the same topic – but from different perspectives. Reducing the number of directly elected advisory boards is interpreted in many associations as paternalism. “They will say the city council doesn’t trust us and say you can’t vote properly.”
The advisory board at the time was appointed by the city council until 1991, and the group has only been elected since then. “Many migrants fought for this for a long time.” The reversal is a fatal signal that will not increase the acceptance of the body. On the contrary. Something completely different would help, says Dimitrina Lang, the current chairwoman of the migration advisory board: “We need decision-making power that we don’t have. It’s difficult to explain to our communities why they should then vote for the advisory board.”
“We need decision-making power,” says Dimitrina Lang, chairwoman of the migration advisory board.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
In 2017, the election also attracted criticism due to suspicions of attempted manipulation by Turkish nationalist groups. “We are observing this with concern,” says Green Party leader Krause. Manuel Pretzl, head of the CSU/free voters faction, who wanted to completely dissolve the migration advisory board in 2017, also cites this fact as a key reason for the reform. According to Krause, the current advisory board is made up of democrats, “but we are concerned about the increase in these forces – the city must not cooperate with Turkish right-wing extremists.”
There has long been a reaction to this problem, counters Dimitrina Lang, who ran on the Liberal list. “On the board and in the extended board, no nationality may appear twice.” Other areas are also regulated accordingly, which is also referred to in the position paper that the advisory board wrote for the city council meeting. “I would also like to see a migration advisory board that only includes democratic groups,” says SPD city councilor Naz. But what applies to the AfD in the city council or in the Bundestag also applies to the Munich migrant representation: “In Germany you can’t exclude a group from the election that isn’t forbidden.”
The Migration Advisory Board represents about a quarter of Munich’s population, according to current figures, that’s 387,448 people. 204,000 of them do not have a German passport and do not come from EU countries, which means that they are not allowed to vote for the city council or for the election of the mayor in local elections. Their only opportunity to exert political influence is the election to the Migration Advisory Board, which takes place every six years. Foreign nationals living in the city, dual nationals with German citizenship and naturalized persons who have held this status for no longer than twelve years on the day of the election are entitled to vote. The body with its 40 voluntary and directly elected members has existed since 1974 and was called the Foreigners Advisory Board when it was founded. The turnout in the last election in 2017 was only 3.62 percent.
The Migration Advisory Board advises the City Council and the administration on all issues affecting the migrant population in Munich. He also keeps in touch with interculturally active clubs and organizations. The groups can also apply for financial support from the Migration Advisory Board. He has an annual municipal budget of 160,000 euros for this. The Chair of the Migration Advisory Board since 2017 has been Dimitrina Lang, a 44-year-old qualified social worker who was born in Bulgaria.