The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has criticized the Minister for Family Affairs, Karin Prien (CDU), claiming she has inadequately involved them in reforming the federal program “Democracy Lives” (“Demokratie leben”). According to reporting by “Focus”, the involvement of committee chairs Saskia Esken, the party’s family policy spokesperson Jasmina Hostert, and policy reporter Felix Döring has led to “significant dissatisfaction” regarding how the ministry is handling the coalition partner.
The Social Democrats stated that “we were insufficiently involved from the very beginning of the process to revise the funding guidelines.” Furthermore, the SPD parliamentary group alleged that questions sent to the ministry, both written and verbal, were frequently answered incompletely or evasively.
In their letter, the SPD group noted that a meeting scheduled for June 12th was abruptly canceled by the ministry and rescheduled for the last week of June. They added, “Given the timeline that has been provided to us, we must increasingly conclude that meaningful involvement of the coalition partner in shaping the new funding guidelines is practically no longer intended. We consider this development unacceptable in terms of the trust-based cooperation within the coalition.”
Meanwhile, Minister Karin Prien (CDU) plans to reorganize the federal program “Democracy Lives.” The Christian Democrat is looking to enhance funding for institutions such as schools, volunteer fire departments, sports clubs, and libraries. This shift means that support for around 200 projects scheduled to run until the year’s end will cease, sometimes despite prior commitments. The ministry did not wait for the results of the ongoing project evaluation. Since 2014, the “Democracy Lives” program has supported hundreds of projects aimed at democracy and combating extremism, racism, and antisemitism, with approximately 190 million euros made available for this purpose by the Ministry for Family Affairs this year.
