Conference of Minister-Presidents

The Conference of Minister-Presidents is a committee formed by the sixteen States of Germany to coordinate policy in areas that fall within the sole jurisdiction of the Länder, e.g. broadcasting. The conference is not a constitutional body, therefore formal agreements between the federal states are fixed in a Staatsvertrag. Since the MPK itself is not an official constitutional body, its meetings are purely informal, coordinating in nature. Similar bodies also exist at the level of the specialist ministers
The first meeting of the conference took place in 8–10 July 1948, preceding the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The measures against the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany were coordinated by the Federal-State Conference until 2021.

History

Formation

The first meeting of the minister-presidents of all German states after the Second World War took place in Munich at the beginning of June 1947. However, the representatives of the states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the Margraviate of Brandenburg left the conference right at the beginning of the discussions because they were unable to get their demand for the immediate formation of a German central administration accepted. The West German prime ministers then continued the conference alone.

Rittersturz Conference

The meeting of the heads of government of the states of the three western occupation zones from 8 to 10 July 1948 in Koblenz is considered to be the "actual birth of the Conference of Prime Ministers". This conference, which went down in history as the Rittersturz Conference, debated the Frankfurt Documents and agreed on a partial concurrence, the Koblenz Decisions. They decided to set up the Parliamentary Council to draft the Basic Law and thus paved the way for the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Later Meetings

Since 1954 the Conference of Minister-Presidents has been a permanent institution. The first MPK chairman was the then Bavarian Prime Minister Hans Ehard. Since reunification, the five new states have also taken part in the conference. In autumn 1992, an eastern state - Saxony - took over the chairmanship for the first time.

Constitutional basis

Unlike the Bundesrat, the Conference of Prime Ministers is not a constitutional body and is not involved in federal or state legislation. Its decisions are therefore not legally binding and may first have to be implemented through legislative procedures in the individual states. The basis for this is federalism in Germany, according to which the states are independent member states of the Federal Republic of Germany. This allows each state to shape its own areas of competence independently and to cooperate with other states in doing so. In order not to impair the powers of the Bundesrat, the Conference of Prime Ministers decided on December 17, 1992 that a matter may not be discussed in a Conference of Ministers if it is the subject of deliberations in the Bundesrat.

Organisation and functioning

The Conference of Minister-Presidents takes place four times a year. In summer and December, the heads of government of the states meet for a meeting with the Federal Chancellor after the MPK. If there is a particular need, additional special conferences are held. This has been the case for example for the federalism reform and the equalization payments to the states. The Conference of Minister-Presidents is prepared by the heads of the state and senate chancelleries of the states in appropriate conferences. If the head of government of the presiding state is personally unable to attend an MPK, a member of the state government with ministerial rank, usually the head of the state or senate chancellery, takes over his place.
Topics of the discussions in recent years have been European policy, federalism reform, federal-state financial relations, media and education policy. Special topics are dealt with in confidential rounds of discussions, the so-called fireside chats. Only the heads of government take part in these discussions, without their staff.
Decisions always had to be made unanimously until the end of 2004. This consensus principle was relaxed during the discussions on federalism reform in order to strengthen the ability of the federal states to act. Since the end of 2004, decisions have only required the approval of at least 13 states. Exceptions to this are the rules of procedure, budgetary matters and the creation of community institutions. The principle of unanimity still applies here. The prime ministers of the A states and those of the B states usually hold separate preliminary discussions before the conference in order to determine the negotiating position.
The Conference of Minister-Presidents also proposes a list of 21 of the 24 German members of the European Committee of the Regions to the federal government, which then proposes the full list of elected representatives to the EU Council of Ministers for appointment for the five-year term of office.

Change of chairmanship

The chairmanship of the Conference of Minister-Presidents changes annually according to an agreed order. The chairman is the Prime Minister of the respective state.
A separate regulation concerns the co-chairmanship as coordinator and spokesperson of the politically competing group of states in the traditionally concluding press conferences of the MPK. If the MPK chairmanship changes and there is a transition from A state to B state, the outgoing Prime Minister remains co-chairman of his group of states until the MPK chairmanship falls back to his own group of states. For example, after the MPK chairmanship passed from Berlin to North Rhine-Westphalia in 2005, MP Klaus Wowereit was co-chairman of the social democratic-led A states for a further 4 years until he was replaced by MP Kurt Beck in 2009.
Until reunification in 1990, the presidency rotated between the eleven federal states at the time in the following order:

The chair of the meeting is rotated on an annual basis among the federal states according to a fixed rotation: