Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Ministry criticizes the Stralsund decision

Stralsund (dpa/mv) - According to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Ministry of the Interior, a decision by the Stralsund citizenship to offer the town hall of the Hanseatic city for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia is illegal.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Ministry criticizes the Stralsund decision

Stralsund (dpa/mv) - According to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Ministry of the Interior, a decision by the Stralsund citizenship to offer the town hall of the Hanseatic city for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia is illegal. One is of the opinion "that the Hanseatic City of Stralsund has exceeded the constitutionally assigned area of ​​​​competence with the handling of the matter and the subsequent decision," said the ministry on Tuesday at the request of the German Press Agency.

Because the effect of the decision on the reputation of the Hanseatic city's organs is likely to remain limited and in the expectation that their activities "will be limited to matters of the local community in the future", the state's municipal supervisory authority is refraining from further legal supervisory measures. The assessment was received by Stralsund's Mayor Alexander Badrow (CDU) at the end of last week.

In October, Badrow was instructed by a large majority to inform the federal government that Stralsund's town hall was available for immediate peace talks.

The reason given in the resolution of the citizenship was: "There is nothing more important than peace on our planet. Due to the Russian attack on Ukraine, the people in our country are afraid of a third world war. This could very quickly lead to a nuclear catastrophe. " They want to help the warring parties finally get to the negotiating table.

However, more than eight months after the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, peace talks are currently considered unrealistic. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected talks with Putin by decree. At the end of October, Kyiv had named a complete Russian troop withdrawal as a prerequisite.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, after an examination there is no doubt "about the character of a general political declaration in the field of foreign policy". This goes beyond local self-government, which refers to "matters of the local community that have not already been transferred by law to other public administration bodies". "However, the communities are forbidden from making general political issues the subject of their activities by invoking their all-round competence." The mere fact that the municipal council only speaks for its own municipality does not suffice to claim specific locality.

The resolution of the citizenship referred to the Peace of Stralsund of 1370 and a visit by the then Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1984. At that time it was about the creation of a nuclear-weapons-free containment belt in Central Europe. In 1370, a compromise was found in Stralsund between the Danish King Waldemar IV and the Hanseatic cities.

The ministry has now ruled that these references are an inappropriate attempt to construct a site-specific concern.