Karlsruhe (dpa/lsw) - The Mayor of Karlsruhe, Frank Mentrup, would like to get more involved in state and federal politics in the new year. The SPD politician said on Wednesday that he wanted to talk to representatives of state politics about once a month in the foyer of the state parliament in Stuttgart. "All in all, communication between the municipal level and the state level simply has to be intensified." It is not a question of exclusively representing Karlsruhe interests, but the position of the municipalities as a whole. "Don't complain, just do it. And that right there on site, where it's all about distribution in the end."
Mentrup complained that the City Council was recently faced with a fait accompli during financial negotiations. Issues that are important for the municipalities, on the other hand, fall behind "because the state has absolutely no eye for them". Local politicians must bring this about directly on site in state politics.
"It's often rumored that the Baden part of the country in particular is always given a little little attention in state politics," said Mentrup. However, he does not have the impression that this is a systemic disadvantage. "We just find it more difficult to be involved in state politics and to give direct feedback here, to discuss."
As a concrete example, the mayor named the location of the city's hospitals. In state politics, you don't even realize "how bad it is in our large hospitals that aren't university hospitals," said Mentrup. The medical quality is the same - but in order to be able to provide this, there is no money from the Ministry of Science for municipal clinics.
With regard to the health reform planned by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), he is in contact with the rapporteur for the SPD parliamentary group, Mentrup said. Here he wants to include the figures from Karlsruhe as an example for others.
