How, you again? ” This is what a man asks ironically when he approaches the Easter stand of the SPD in front of a supermarket in Herne-Röhlinghausen. The comrades take the leader calmly, press the man a chocolate bunny and a leaflet in hand, on which they have written the most important improvements in seven points, which the coalition agreement negotiated with the Union brings for Herne, Bochum and the entire Ruhr area. Federal average and remained leading political strength. The party was also able to defend the direct mandate in the Herne Bochum II constituency. At 33.5 percent, Hendrik Bollmann, who started for the first time, prevailed against the competition between the CDU and AfD. This is not a comparison to the values beyond 60 percent, the Social Democrats still inserted in the Ruhr area in many places until the 1990s, but the comrades in Herne try to defend their popular party claim with self-confidence and perseverance. Whether or not, there is an information stand in front of the town hall once a month, so that they can also get rid of their concerns or their anger, which cannot find their way to the SPD during the week. “Like the Christmas state, our Easter stand has a tradition,” says Manuela Lukas from the Röhlinghausen local association and grabs a dozen chocolate buns and colorfully colored eggs in her basket. On the folding table, in addition to the stack with the leaflets, there is also a printed copy of the coalition agreement, so that the comrades are also prepared if citizens want to go into detail. The help with the old debts as a breakthrough has been a city council of the SPD in Herne, which belongs to the SPD regional association western Westphalia. The coalition agreement was particularly successful from a local political perspective, says the social democrat. Hendrik Bollmann, who was a teacher at a secondary school and later at a vocational college until his election. “The 100 billion euros from the special fund for the federal states and municipalities are a huge step. The SPD has long demanded that would have come earlier, then the AfD would not have been so strong.” Lukas, who sits, among other things, in the Financial, Planning, Security and School Committee of the Herner Rats, lists further points. A breakthrough is that the federal government has finally agreed to use 250 million euros annually to solve the old debt crisis-i.e. for the reduction of the billion dollar mountain to cash loans, which have been piled up on cash loans and Herne. As a great success for the municipalities across Germany, the experienced city council sees the promise that, according to the motto “Whoever ordered”, the connexuality principle should apply to all new federal projects. Lukas refers to page 114 in the coalition agreement. There it says: “. “Most say: The SPD negotiated well,” reports Lukas. There are also skeptical voices. Her husband, for example, comes up with the enormous sums that are to be spent on defense. “But we have to react to Putin’s aggression.” The fact that the Social Democratic Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius is the most popular federal politician is no coincidence. “I am sure that a large majority for the coalition agreement will come about in the membership survey.” The Hort of the resistance has been decided in history, as in other federal states, the North Rhine-Westphalian Jusos are against the contract. If you listen to yourself in the North Rhine-Westphalian SPD as a whole, you mostly meet comrades. It was very different in 2013 and four years later. When it came to forging alliances, which could still be called major coalitions, the SPD in NRW initially gave violent, often categorical rejection. The largest social democratic national association was by far the resistance that had to be persuaded. Twelve years ago, the SPD state chief and North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hannelore Kraft had long said that social democracy was not competing in the Bundestag election in order to keep the Union as a majority procurer in power. appeared as a stable groco opponent. At the time, his explanations culminated in two sentences: “In the North Rhine-Westphalian SPD there is no one who wants the grand coalition at all. We don’t strive for it, and in the end they will not exist.” Four years later, Römer then had to help again to get the SPD members from the trees, to which he had only driven them together with other top companions. At the time, the SPD state chairman Michael Groschek, on the other hand, were among those who had recognized early on how dangerous a total refusal would be. Step by step, he got his party friends used to take over government responsibility again instead of warming himself by the thought that the SPD had to renew itself in the opposition. So some people now think again. For black and red: Marc Herter, SPD Mayor of Hammpicture Alliancehute, the Mayor of Hamm, Marc Herter, is available to the western western Falen SPD region. He does not think of the opposition argument. The renewal of the SPD does not depend on whether it is in the opposition. “I would even turn it around: there is a lot to talk about that you can profile yourself much better than when you stand in the opposition. My experience is that people are regulated, that things are regulated, that we are going into being,” says Herter, who is “very satisfied” with the coalition agreement, Sören Link, the social democratic mayor of Duisburg. He also praises the promises of Union and SPD in terms of investments and municipal finances. Link particularly appreciates the statements about migration. “There was a good balance: On the one hand, we want to make it easier to immigration and, on the other hand, not only control and limit illegal immigration, but also expressly also to immigration into the social systems.” Duisburg has been making the poverty immigration of EU citizens from Southeastern Citizens in the Ruhr area against the criminal use of poverty. After the EU east extension, windy business people realized that poverty immigration can be exploited criminals. At spotty prices – often in forced auctions – buy old houses that you then rent to horrendous tariffs, so -called scrap properties. Not rarely is a perfectly controlled social fraud part of the business model: The landlords provide their tenants with employment contracts for minor employees with which they apply to the job center. If the newcomers are families, they also receive how to apply for child benefit, with some of them often cashed in by the landlords. Often also child benefit is requested for children who do not live in Germany at all. CDU/CSU and SPD have formulated “clear messages” in the contract, Link praises. In fact, the three parties, the incentives to immigrate into social systems, promise to “clearly” reduce. Literally it says in the contract: “Large-scale abuse of social benefits in Germany and through people living abroad must be ended. We will enable complete data exchange between social, financial and security authorities.” In addition, it is promised to strengthen the right of first refusal for municipalities in scrap properties. “We have to go to this coalition” that the Jusos categorically reject the coalition agreement, the Mayor of Duisburg, formerly even in a leading position in the SPD youth, considers it absurd and alien. The Jusos were once a really important youth association. “Today they are no longer properly anchored in the young people. In the Bundestag election, many young people at the AfD or the Left Party have made their cross, which should give the Jusos to think.” The Mayor of Dortmund Thomas Westphal also firmly calculates that a clear majority of the SPD members will agree-albeit not with great euphoria. However, state -political responsibility is very important in the SPD. “And that’s exactly what it is about now. We have to go to this coalition and we have to do it well. Under no circumstances may there be a wear and tear as at the traffic lights, otherwise the AfD will become even stronger.” The Mayor Thomas Westphal also supports the coalition contractual issue of Westphal’s perspective in the paper is well explained. “It has to be a coalition of honest work.” Unfortunately, one of the most important questions is not described in the contract: “How exactly the money comes from the special funds to the municipalities, that is, where it is really needed to show people that it goes ahead.” At the Easter stand of the Röhlinghausen local association in Herne, the need for information is great. An older gentleman says he has no internet and does not know where he could read the contract. Bollmann presents his printed copy to the Lord. The coming weeks until the end of the only digital coordination on April 29 would be all about internal party mobilization, says Bollmann. With the exception of the holidays, there are now “coalition events” such as digital member conferences or presence forums every day. Particular attention will be paid to reducing the digital fear of contact that is widespread beyond the age of sixty, a third of the SPD members in Herne does not even have an e-mail address. For comrades who do not have a digital end device or feel unsafe in digital voice, you offer any necessary technical support, says Bollmann. “The very old members can be driven to a party office from a electoral taxi to give up their vote. We really do everything so that everyone can take part in the membership survey.”
