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The Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) would like to massively promote technical progress in the Free State in the next few years. In his first government statement of the current legislative period, the Prime Minister announced in the state parliament that the first university in Germany to specialize purely in artificial intelligence would be built in Nuremberg – the Franconian University of Artificial Intelligence (FUAI).
The aim of the Bavarian space strategy is, among other things, to develop Oberpfaffenhofen into the “Houston of Germany”: Together with the European Space Agency (ESA), the European lunar control center could possibly be located in the Free State. In addition, a test center for future-oriented rocket engines should be built in Bavaria.
From 2024, a future prize will be offered by the Bavarian Prime Minister – the “so-called high-tech Oscar” for the smartest minds and start-ups in the country, said Söder. In the transport sector, the state government wants to test a magnetic levitation train – on a test track in Nuremberg.
“Genders will be banned in schools and administration”
Söder received a particularly large amount of applause for his promise to put a stop to gender language in the Free State. With the black and orange state government there will not only be no mandatory gender, said the CSU politician. On the contrary: “We will even ban gender in schools and administration.” He initially did not provide any further details.
Trip to Israel
Söder announced his first trip of the new legislative period for next week: In order to make a clear commitment to Israel and Jewish life, he will visit Israel. Bavaria makes a promise of protection: “Israel’s right to exist is Bavarian reason of state. Anyone who attacks Jewish life is attacking us all. There is zero quarter.”
The Prime Minister reiterated that the coalition wanted to distance itself from radical forces. Anyone who gives up the firewall to right-wing radical groups only makes them acceptable. Weimar also failed because the Democrats had no strength to resist the radicals. “Whoever tears down the firewall will end up burning themselves on it.”
Söder calculates with traffic lights
Söder also used his 75-minute speech to attack the traffic lights: Bavaria has a “power coalition” instead of a “completely overwhelmed traffic light”. The coalition of CSU and Free Voters is not a love marriage, but “much more than a marriage of convenience.” It is based on common goals, ideas and a “newly found trust”. The state government rejects the basic idea of the traffic light, “doing everything with bans and ideology.”
The federal government’s policies are responsible for the economic problems in Germany. If Bavaria were alone, there would be less cause for concern, said Söder. He sharply criticized the traffic light’s energy policy (“ideological self-deception”), the “increase in VAT” for the catering industry (“unsocial”, “poison for the economy”), and the federal government’s course on e-mobility (“wrong way “) and in dealing with agriculture (“mistakes” and “bans”) as well as the heating law (“unspeakable) and citizens’ money (“the wrong conception”).
AfD: “Excerpts from AfD election program”
There was a novelty in the subsequent debate in the state parliament: for the first time, the AfD, as the strongest opposition faction, was allowed to respond directly to a government statement by Söder. Party leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner said that in the speech she “heard some excerpts from our AfD election program” – for example against “green socialism”, for a gender ban or the switch from cash to benefits in kind for asylum seekers. “I would like to congratulate our voters,” said Ebner-Steiner: “AfD is working.”
Afterwards, the AfD parliamentary group leader did not give a damn about politics in the federal government and in Bavaria. The energy policy was a “catastrophe” and was already misguided with the CSU as part of the federal government. That’s why “we are now threatened with total failure,” said the AfD politician. The fact that the CSU is now committed to “state-of-the-art and safe nuclear energy” also shows the impact of the AfD.
Ebner-Steiner described the “migration crisis,” which is actually an “invasion crisis,” as another catastrophe. “People without sufficient professional training and often those demanding social benefits” come to Bavaria to “collect citizen’s money”. For most of them, we don’t know what they are fleeing from; after all, there is peace in their countries of origin, “as is the case in a large part of Ukraine,” said Ebner-Steiner. Social benefits attract “an army of have-nots and have-nots.” She accused the Prime Minister: “Your policy is the greatest damage to Bavaria since the end of the Second World War.”
Greens: “Unambitious ideas”
According to Green Party leader Katharina Schulze, Bavaria “deserves more than this powerless coalition.” She had no illusions in advance about what to expect from this government declaration. Turning to Söder, she said: “It was clear to me that there would be a lot of finger-pointing coming to Berlin, that you would complain a little, that you would give a little pat on the back. And of course your obsession with the topic of gender has become visible again ” complained Schulze. At the same time, the Prime Minister celebrates unambitious ideas as a breakthrough. Personally, she thinks that’s not enough given the challenges facing society as a whole.
The Green politician sees an urgent need for action, among other things, in climate protection. “If we want to preserve our homeland for our children and for ourselves, then consistent climate protection is needed.” The politically responsible people should now waste no more time. The Free State also has to do more than write on paper that Bavaria wants to be climate neutral by 2040. Another “blind spot” for the state government is how to deal with species extinction. “What they don’t address is how we can limit the loss of species.” The coalition rejects a third national park, but it is urgently needed – “for the protection of species and for sustainable tourism.” The “slow expansion” of renewable energies in the Free State is a “catastrophic mistake”.
Schulze complained that the compatibility of family and work in Bavaria was still “largely carried out on the backs of women.” Caring for small children and old parents often falls to women. It is the state government’s job to ensure that there are enough care places, from daycare centers to nursing homes: “You have failed there too,” shouted the Green party leader. “There is a lack of 70,000 daycare places throughout Bavaria.” What is needed, among other things, are better working conditions in the social professions, “because the people who work there are our backbone.”