Status: 11/11/2022 10:28 am
The Bundestag passed several laws. For European elections, the minimum age drops to 16 years. Foster children no longer have to contribute to the costs of their accommodation. A reporting requirement for digital platforms is also new.
In an almost 17-hour session, the Bundestag passed numerous laws and made further decisions. Public attention was focused in particular on the triage law and numerous reliefs such as the increase in child benefit, the one-off payment for gas and district heating in December, the housing benefit reform and the adjustment of the tax system to cushion the cold progression. In addition, Parliament voted to repeat the 2021 federal election in 431 Berlin constituencies. There were also a number of other resolutions, some of which have far-reaching effects.
Minimum age for European elections drops to 16
voting age: In future, 16 and 17-year-olds will already be entitled to vote in elections to the European Parliament. The regulation will take effect at the next European elections in 2024. The Bundestag approved a draft law introduced by the coalition that lowers the minimum voting age in European elections from 18 to 16 years. The previous threshold of 18 years has excluded many people from the active right to vote, “who take responsibility in numerous places in society and can and want to get involved in the political process,” says the text of the law.
In some federal states, the minimum age of 16 already applies for state elections and more often for local elections, but you have to be at least 18 years old to take part in the federal elections. During the deliberations in the Bundestag, the coalition factions referred to a resolution of the European Parliament from May, in which a lowering of the voting age in European elections to 16 years is recommended. A recent interim report by the Electoral Law Commission comes to the conclusion that there are no constitutional concerns about lowering the voting age, but the CDU and CSU as well as the AfD reject the plan.
Network of public drinking water wells is growing
Drinking water fountain: In the future, people in Germany should be better supplied with drinking water via public wells. The Bundestag passed a law declaring the provision of drinking systems to be a “service of general interest”. The federal government assumes that another 15,000 public drinking water fountains will be built on the basis of the law – at a total cost of around 15 million euros. The fountains are to be provided in public places such as parks, pedestrian zones and shopping arcades, as far as this is technically feasible and takes into account the needs and local conditions such as climate and geography.
With the new regulation, Germany is implementing the requirements of the EU Drinking Water Directive. This obliges the member states to provide citizens with access to high-quality drinking water in public spaces. The law that has now been passed by the Bundestag still has to be approved by the Bundesrat before it can come into force.
Foster children no longer have to give up part of their income
foster children: The approximately 250,000 children and young people growing up in a foster family or in assisted living should no longer have to contribute to the costs of their accommodation. The Bundestag decided to abolish the so-called cost recovery. Those affected will thus have access to their entire income in the future.
So far, young people in child and youth welfare have had to give up to 25 percent of their income to the youth welfare office, for example if they are in vocational training or work alongside school. The regulation also applies accordingly to single mothers and fathers who live with their child in a residential facility. These co-payments are now abolished by the reform approved by the Bundestag. The approval of the Federal Council is now required.
New reporting requirement for digital platforms
Duty to report: In the future, operators of digital platforms will have to provide the Federal Central Tax Office with information about the providers active on the platform and the transactions carried out there. The Bundestag decided on this new reporting requirement. It is part of a law that also provides for an automatic exchange of information between the EU countries in order to also include foreign providers. The new regulation implements a corresponding EU directive.