The pandemic is forcing people to watch the screens. Schools, companies, courts can do this. But in the Munich city council, an application for hybrid meetings fails due to the necessary two-thirds majority – and small-minded arguments.
The students did a great job. Most of the teachers too. Courts negotiate this way, supervisory boards decide this way, employees in all kinds of companies work this way, and not too tightly. The pandemic is forcing people to watch the screens. Digital work, life and learning became part of everyday life in the corona crisis. Only the opposition in the city council doesn’t trust themselves or their colleagues to do it. She rejected hybrid meetings in which many, but not all, members participate digitally, and blocked the necessary two-thirds majority with her votes. In doing so, it causes manageable damage on the inside, but fatal damage on the outside.
Politicians will be able to make the necessary decisions in view of the high security standards, which they implement in their meetings in an exemplary manner. But at a time when Germany is painfully realizing how much the country has slept through digitization, Munich is like a backward provincial nest. City councils who like to see themselves as role models cannot even hold their technical committees digitally. Not because they fail technically, but because they are not ready for it. That is the sign that remains on the outside.
What kind of a damning picture do the Liberals have of the city councils?
The reasons for this seem exaggerated or so small-minded that they aggravate the picture outwardly. The technology that can be rented or purchased may be overpriced, but it does not matter in the city’s billion-dollar budget. The draft resolution may not have been perfectly polished either, but there was nothing in it that could not have been improved together. And what do the liberals, who appear nationwide as major digitizers, for a damning image of the Munich city councils? Do you seriously believe that your colleagues would prefer to lie at home on the couch and collect the attendance fee instead of shaping politics in personal debate? And the mayor and the coalition would want to abolish democracy in the pandemic?
Those who have so little trust in themselves and society, who do not want to face digital challenges, should not be surprised in the 21st century when the people of Munich look for others in their next election who will lead them into the future.