Hand in hand with the community, we are working to build a safe, diverse and cosmopolitan State.
Politics is something we think should be practiced at eye level with the people we serve. We aim to make Baden-Württemberg a model of living democracy and co-determination. This is a key concern of the State Government.
We are developing new direct democracy instruments and dialogue procedures for citizen involvement; we view them as complementing our representative democracy. We want to fully involve our citizens in the processes of policy formation and to make government actions as citizen-centred and transparent as possible.
Living in Baden-Württemberg means living in security and safety. Our State has one of the lowest crime rate in Germany. Guaranteeing security for the population is an efficient, people-friendly police force. We fight crime and terrorist threats without disproportionately compromising the freedom of the individual. The State Government is putting in place measures to strengthen independent data protection and also counteract any form of discrimination.
A powerful and impartial judicial system is in place to combat criminality, safeguard the rights of the individual and ensure social justice.
The population of Baden-Württemberg has a diverse ethnic makeup, and has the highest proportion of residents with a migrant background of all the German territorial states. We aim to use the opportunities inherent in this diversity by implementing an active integration policy.
The high numbers of refugees represent a major challenge for Germany and Baden-Württemberg. We want to integrate the many people who have come to us quickly and well; we want to integrate them in education, work and housing, into our society and our legal culture. We are prepared to trust them, we are prepared to invest in the future of the people who have so recently arrived among us. From them we expect commitment, hard work, a readiness to take responsibility and the will to integrate. We support a common humanitarian European policy on refugees and asylum.