Parties on citizens' assemblies
23 February 2025 was the federal election in Germany. What were the partys‘ positions on citizens’ assemblies? We have summarised the various statements.
SPD: ‘Bringing democracy to life’
The SPD wants to ‘establish citizens’ assemblies as an integral part of our democracy. They make democracy tangible by inviting people with different positions to exchange ideas, encouraging them to find compromises and ensuring that the reconciliation of interests is understood as the core of democracy,’ says the election programme. Their recommendations feed into parliamentary deliberations, while the decisions remain with the elected institutions.
The Social Democrats also want to ‘heed the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on the topic of ‘Nutrition in Transition’. Together with the federal states, we want to ensure that all daycare centre children and all schoolchildren receive a healthy and free lunch,’ the party promises. There will also be a plenary session to review the measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Greens: ‘Seek the advice of the people’
The Greens see citizens‘ assemblies as “the opportunity to obtain the advice of the people as ”everyday experts’ in a representative process’. This should be strengthened and secured by law, ‘including democratic procedures for individual consultation results’. To this end, the Greens want to examine the introduction of a popular initiative, for example. In the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly “Nutrition in Transition”, the party sees “important proposals for measures that we want to take up”. The Greens can, for example, imagine a mini-public on a fair and adequate pension scheme for future citizens' assemblies.
The Left Party is also in favour of federal mini-publics. It wants to ‘support, strengthen and promote’ them. The Südschleswigsche Wählerverband (SSW), which currently has one representative in the Bundestag, wants to ‘continue to support citizens’ assemblies as advisory bodies from the centre of society in order to strengthen democratic participation. Citizens' assemblies are a useful addition to our representative democracy.’
AfD against citizens' assemblies
The far-right AfD rejects ‘the direct influence of so-called citizens’ assemblies on state decision-making’. The CDU, CSU, FDP and the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance) do not mention mini-publics in their election manifestos.
However, parties not yet represented in the Bundestag are in favour of citizens' assemblies. For the Volt party, such mini-publics ‘represent a platform for co-determination that increases the acceptance of political decisions’, explains Volt. For the party, citizens' assemblies are an alternative to referendums.
Preparing referendums through citizens' assemblies
For Mera 25, mini-publics counteract the democratic crisis. Referendums ‘should therefore be prepared by randomly selected citizens’ assemblies that involve the population directly in political processes and act as a corrective to the decisions of elected representatives’, according to a statement for the electoral aid platform Wahl-O-Mat.
The Partei des Fortschritts (Party of Progress) takes a similar view. It wants to use citizens' assemblies to “ensure that referendums are only held on selected, well-prepared topics based on representative consultation and broad information”. This would strengthen democracy without overburdening decision-making processes, according to a statement at Wahl-O-Mat.de.
Differences to the 2021 federal election
For the 2021 Bundestag elections, all parties represented in the Bundestag at the time, with the exception of the AfD, were in favour of citizens' assemblies. At that time, however, the party positions on sortition were not all to be found in the election manifestos, but were also the result of a survey of the parties by the ‘Klimamitbestimmung’ initiative. As the 2025 Bundestag elections were brought forward, no such election touchstones were drawn up this time.