–
Düsseldorf/Rhein-Ruhr. A donkey that was far too heavily loaded reminded the parties in North Rhine-Westphalia that the disadvantaged municipalities in the state urgently need fair financial distribution. The action alliance “For the dignity of our cities” visited the headquarters of the CDU on Monday (May 23). SPD, FDP and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen with a car built by artist Jacques Tilly. It shows a donkey carrying two large sacks on its back, which forces it to kneel. The sacks say “old debts” and “corona costs”. They symbolize the burdens under which the cities and districts suffer. The associated demand from the municipalities: NRW must solve the old debt issue this year. It is the last federal state that has not found such a solution – without it, the old debt solution offered by the federal government would be ineffective.
At least six million people in NRW live in a financially weak municipality, that is every third person. These are cities that are structurally disadvantaged because they have high social spending and low tax revenues. To make matters worse, the federal and state governments do not ensure adequate financial compensation for the tasks they have assigned to the municipalities. Therefore, the cities had to take out loans in order to be able to fulfill these tasks. Now they pay for repayment and interest instead of investing locally in daycare centers, schools, roads or future topics such as climate protection and digitization.
The situation in which the municipalities have gotten themselves into through no fault of their own is currently deteriorating drastically and is destroying the successes that the cities and districts had made great efforts to achieve in recent years. Rising construction and energy costs, interest rate hikes, the economic consequences of the pandemic and the Ukraine war – all of this increases the burden on the municipalities, leads to new debts and threatens the ability to act.
A solution to old debts would relieve the municipalities of a burden and make them more crisis-proof for the difficult times ahead. At the same time, the federal and state governments must ensure that the unfair financial distribution is eliminated so that the municipalities do not find themselves in such a situation again.
Other federal states have shown what a solution might look like. Hesse, Saarland, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Lower Saxony have developed models for the old debt issue, and Rhineland-Palatinate has just launched a solution. In Berlin, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Finance Minister Christian Lindner declared that the federal government would play its part in finding a solution. However, this can only succeed if the most populous federal state, in which numerous affected municipalities are located, develops and implements a solution.
The action alliance “For the dignity of our cities” offers its help. The representatives of the municipalities made extensive information material available to the parties on Monday. They have collected data on the situation in small, medium-sized and large cities, showing how big the investment backlog is and what the consequences of an interest rate hike will be. “If the municipalities have no room for maneuver and cannot finance these tasks, there will be cities in which digitization will simply fail,” says the report from Wuppertal.
In addition, the action alliance has brought reports from its member municipalities in other federal states on the effect of the old debt solutions there. These show that the models work and that the next NRW state government does not have to start from scratch when developing a solution. She just needs to start doing it urgently.
additional Information
The cities and counties
65 municipalities from seven federal states have joined forces in the action alliance “For the dignity of our cities”, 36 of them from North Rhine-Westphalia. The municipalities were particularly affected by the structural change, which is why they have low tax revenues and high expenditures, especially in the social sector. As a result, the municipalities are particularly disadvantaged by the financial distribution described and were particularly forced to incur debt in order to be able to fulfill the tasks assigned to them.
Alliance members from NRW are: Bochum, Bottrop, Dinslaken, Dorsten, Dortmund, Duisburg, the Ennepe-Ruhr district, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Gladbeck, Hagen, Hamm, Hattingen, Herne, Krefeld, the Recklinghausen district, the Unna district, the district of Wesel, Leverkusen, Löhne, Lünen, Moers, Mönchengladbach, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Oberhausen, Recklinghausen, Remscheid, Schwerte, Solingen, Voerde, Waldbröl, Werne, Wesel, Witten, Wülfrath and Wuppertal.
The artist
The artist Jacques Tilly created the satirical car that caused a stir in the municipalities of Berlin. Tilly and his team build the wagons for the Shrove Monday train in Düsseldorf. They are known for the fact that their sculptures more than clearly portray and sharply criticize the current political situation, grievances and the powerful. The photos of the cars from Düsseldorf are featured in the media around the world every year. More about Jacques Tilly and his team can be found at www.grossplastiken.de.
– –
