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| The Schleswig PartyBund Deutscher Nordschleswiger (BDN) and Schleswig Party (SP) | |
The German minority in Denmark lives in the southern part of Jutland, in the region North-Schleswig, in Danish also called "Sønderjylland", immediately north of the German-Danish border. There are about 15.000 members in the German minority today.
The "Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger" (BDN) was founded in November 1945 and is still the main organization of the German minority. With its membership of 4 000 it is divided into 4 municipality and 19 local subdivisions.
The representative party of the BDN is the Schleswig Party which has 6 members in the 4 municipality/local councils. The party safeguards the cultural and social activities of the German minority in North-Schleswig. The SP also takes an active role in projects across the border between Germany and Denmark and is the only regional party in North-Schleswig. All members of the head organization are members of the Schleswig Party (SP), too, because there is no division between a cultural and a political organization. The Schleswig Party is an organizational part of the BDN.
The chief aims of the "Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger" are:
- to maintain and support the intellectual and cultural connections with the people of
Germany and at the same time being aware of commitments to Denmark
- co-operation with the Danish State where the general community is concerned
- to reduce emphasis attached to the border in various fields of life - keeping the aim of
European integration in mind
The head office of the BDN is the Deutsches Generalsekretariat in Apenrade/Aabenraa, where also the office of the SP is placed.
To secure the contact to the Parliament, a Contact Committee to the Danish Parliament was established already in 1965, one year after the minority had lost its seat. In the Copenhagen Contact Committee the minister of interior is chairman, and all parties in parliament are represented. The committee can discuss all questions that concern the German minority directly.
Ten years later (1975) a parallel Contact Committee to the Parliament in Kiel in Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) was established.
Since 1983 the Copenhagen Secretariat of the German minority has represented the interests of the German minority in dealing with the Danish Parliament and Government. This Secretariat is financed by the Danish state. It is the objective of the Secretariat to follow the lawgiving process in the Parliament and to secure the cultural and social rights of the German minority. To keep in daily contact with the administrative and political life in the Danish capital is very important for all minority organizations.
The head of the Secretariat also cooperates with the Government and administration in international affairs. He has often been a member of the official Danish delegation at CSCE meetings, when minority questions were on the agenda.
Denmark has ratified the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention and the Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. The Framework Convention entered into force 1999, the Charter in 2001.
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The Development and the organization of the Schleswig PartySince 1920 the minority has been represented on local and regional councils, while from 1920 to 1943 and from 1953 to 1964 it was represented in the Parliament, the Folketing, in Copenhagen by one member.
Since 1964 the party has abandoned canvassing for the Danish Parliament, as the voting system does not allow for any clause in favor of minorities. In 1973, 1975, and 1977, however, the German minority regained a seat in the Folketing by negotiating the nomination of a German candidate on the polling list of the Centre-Democrats, a Danish political party of liberal creed.
Having lost its seat in the Danish Parliament in 1979, the SP concentrates on canvassing for county council and local council elections until 2007. After the structural reform of 2007 the Schleswig Party only took part in the elections on municipality level in North Schleswig. There are now four municipalities (Tondern/Tønder, Sonderburg/Sønderborg, Apenrade/Aabenraa, Hadersleben/Haderslev).
The municipality-elections are held every four years.
The latest election on municipality-level took place in the year 2009. The SP stood for all four municipality councils in North-Schleswig and achieved 5 249 votes. This gave the SP access to 6 councilors in all four municipalities in North-Schleswig.
The SP has focused on regional policies for the benefit of the minority and the regional population in general. After an internal BDN reform in 1986 the political work of the SP became more intense, especially for the newly established committees.
_web.JPG) A glimpse of the general meeting in 2010 |
The bedrock of the SP is the Council, the executive Board and the Annual general meeting. Members of the 3 sub-committees, the candidates for local government seats and the party political representatives, 150 in all, constitute the basis of the party together with 4 local municipality-organizations and the youth organization “Junge SPitzen”. The 3 sub-committees and one special task group for culture are the think tanks for regional and local issues.
The policy of the Schleswig Party
The structural reform of 2007 placed more functions on local level. The latter leaves the municipality councils with the decision making in almost all aspects of daily life within a community, including those concerning the German minority. The elected representatives of the German minority party have taken it on themselves to work towards resolving such problems that may remain - making sure that the German minority receives its dues in terms of general recognition, financial security and staffing of German institutions according to general administrative procedures.
One of the problems of the decentralization of public functions is the fact that the local communities are not forced to pay for many of the cultural and social services by law. Most subsidies on municipality level are voluntary, and this is the reason why payments for the services differ very much. On the other hand, Denmark has very liberal laws, e.g. for the schools. This is of great benefit for the minority. There are only few examples, where the German minority is mentioned in Danish laws. This can be of advantage, but it is also a problem, because a lot of cultural and social institutions are very small compared with the institutions of the majority. Thus to maintain the standards set by the Danish society would at times call for positive discrimination in order ensure that the European principle of diversity is upheld.
The Schleswig-Party is also very much engaged in trans-frontier cooperation between Denmark and Germany, especially in the border region. This is one of the top priorities of the SP. It is the aim of the Schleswig Party, to try to solve problems between Danes and Germans and to reduce the effect of the divisive border between North- and South-Schleswig.
 The region North-Schleswig with the four municipalities Tondern, Hadersleben, Apenrade, Sonderburg |
But the Schleswig Party is not only the party of the German minority. It is the only regional party in North-Schleswig. In the local councils the representatives of the German minority will take their share of responsibility for all political matters - maintaining the high level of cultural diversity, social welfare and technological efficiency of the region. At the same time, the SP is pursuing a policy of moderation with regard to finances and budgets. This is by no means an easy task, as the local councils are in charge of more than 70 percent of all public spending. The SP aims at striking a balance in terms of finance and promoting moderate growth.
The SP, being the political party of the German minority and the regional political party of North Schleswig, has set its sights firmly on the German minority, regional and local policy and trans-frontier and international cooperation.
Some examples may show the range of the Schleswig Party:
- equal subsidies for German kindergardens, youth clubs and leisure time centers
- flexibility in recognizing needs and activities of German institutions
- equal financing of German cultural activities
- supporting and strengthening local government
- maintaining and encouraging small schools and institutions
- development of rural areas
- reducing refuse and household waste
- developing all forms of public transport
- decentralized and collective production of electricity
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