It’s about home and that’s why the brass band is already playing this Wednesday morning in Munich’s Allerheiligen-Hofkirche. Two trumpets, an accordion, a tuba. As always, Markus Söder takes on the trombone himself. “Bavaria is a place of longing,” smashes the Prime Minister into the room, chest out. Those who “are looking for hope, who want to make their fortunes” come to Bavaria. Anyone who observes this man professionally knows what follows: the inevitable Söder slogan of the “Bavarian way of life”, which is particularly peculiar today because it’s about home, about tradition and dialect, but the audience again hear how American this Bavaria is.
Söder is there to take stock. Together with Homeland Minister Albert Füracker and Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber (all CSU), who have been touring the country for months to find out at eight so-called regional conferences what is on people’s minds in the Free State. Political market research, so to speak, online and offline, headline: “Future dialogue at home. Bavaria”. What did Füracker and Kaniber experience on their round trip? For example, “a new spirit of optimism” in those regions that were “on the brink” says Söder.
He means the comparatively underdeveloped areas on the fringes of the Free State, parts of Upper Franconia in particular and the Upper Palatinate. The Prime Minister wants to strengthen these areas, for example by relocating authorities there. However, if you take a close look at the results of the Future Dialogue, the spirit of optimism is not immediately apparent. Demographic change is therefore the topic of the future that people in Upper Franconia and the Upper Palatinate are most concerned about. The old are dying, the young are moving away, but in Söder’s country of longing there are also corners where you have to search a little longer for what some call happiness, others prosperity and growth.
In Lower and Upper Bavaria, on the other hand, in Swabia and in Central and Lower Franconia, according to the Future Dialogue, there are two main issues that concern people: climate change and the energy transition. Overall, the state government has filtered out eleven Bavarian “future topics”, including: services of general interest, bureaucracy reduction, mobility turnaround, but also “home topics” such as customs, dialects, volunteering. In turn, the eleven future topics were assigned 59 “concrete” needs for action, which Füracker calls “concrete”, which is exaggerated: “Further expand cycling”, “Counteract the shortage of skilled workers”, “Expand nature and climate protection”, “Expand childcare offers”, these are the desires of the people. It’s all very general, and mostly within the realm of what can be expected. Rather surprising is what Kaniber says about young people in Bavaria. The future dialogue has shown that their “heart’s concern” is to learn more about insurance and how to fill out a tax return. What is so close to your heart as a young person.
Based on the results of the future dialogue, they now want to “sustainably improve something for the people in Bavaria,” says Michaela Kaniber, which scares you briefly because after Söder’s speech you might think that there is nothing to improve in Bavaria. That’s what it usually sounds like with the Prime Minister, including this Wednesday, apart from his statement that politics “is never static, never finished”, that there is always something to optimize, for example mobile communications, where “there is no progress “At least that’s what Söder admits.
So what is the state government doing with their findings? Among other things, Kaniber promises to expand support for small businesses. Füracker announces a “home experience day” and an “award for companies that are particularly close to home”. Otherwise, Kaniber and Füracker also lay emphasis on what is already going well in Bavaria: forest conversion, wind power expansion, fiber optic cabling. In some places, the Minister of Agriculture almost sounds as if there was no need for a public dialogue, because the State Chancellery is home to the greatest public figure of all time. It is very “gratifying” that “a prime minister’s instinct” for issues is “very congruent with the citizenry”, says Kaniber, who in the end also asks for “strength and blessing” for her boss. But well, there is a church here. And according to Kaniber, the report on the results of the future dialogue is “almost as thick as a Bible”, 207 pages.
The final words of the prime minister echo almost pastorally through the Allerheiligen court church with its bare brick walls. Markus Söder asks people to “take each other by the hand” and preaches: “No one is alone.” In Bavaria, he says, “we link arms so that we can get through the storms of the time better than others”. Shortly after that it’s over. Applause. Go in peace.