Germany

Abstract

Although municipalities in Germany do not have their own constitutional level of government similar to the federal government or Länder, they make an essential contribution to the provision of goods and services of general interest. Municipalities, granted autonomy in self-government by the constitution, operate in a highly charged and politically contested area of governance. On the one hand, municipalities enjoy the right to self-government, and neither the federal government nor the Länder may interfere with this arbitrarily. On the other, as a constitutional part of the Länder, the municipalities are dependent on them, especially so in financial terms. As a result, municipalities constantly have to balance their derived responsibilities with their voluntary tasks as both formal expectations and specific demands from citizens continue to grow due to a constantly changing global conditions and new types of crises. Municipalities in Germany are torn between fulfilling their administrative implementation mandate, on the one hand, and responding to the more immediate claims of local politics and their constituencies, on the other.