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Elementary school students in Baden-Württemberg: The state had recently put pressure on and insisted on more money from the federal government
Photo: Patrick Seeger / dpa
The planned nationwide legal entitlement to all-day care in primary school can come from the school year 2026/2027.
According to information from the news agency dpa and the ARD capital studio, the federal and state governments agreed on a compromise on Monday evening in the dispute over the financing of the project in the mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
Both houses still have to give their formal approval.
This should happen on Tuesday at the last Bundestag session scheduled for this legislative period and probably on Friday in the Bundesrat.
Without an agreement in the mediation committee, the law could probably no longer have been passed before the federal election and would have lapsed: Laws that are not finally dealt with in a legislative period are subject to what is known as discontinuity.
They have to be introduced and negotiated again from scratch in a newly elected Bundestag.
The mediation committee was also under time pressure: According to the negotiators, an agreement by midnight was necessary in order to meet formal deadlines for referral in the Bundestag the next day.
Last big project from the coalition agreement
Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet (CDU) told the dpa: “Today is a good day for families in Germany.
The legal right to all-day places at primary schools is a milestone for the compatibility of family and work. «Federal Education Minister Anja Karliczek (CDU), who took part in the negotiations, spoke of a» very good evening «for families and children.
"With the compromise that the federal government and the states have found, one of the very big, important projects of this government and this legislative period is now being implemented."
The parliamentary managing director of the SPD parliamentary group, Carsten Schneider, spoke of great progress for children and families, who would have borne considerable burdens, especially in the last few months of the pandemic.
The legal claim is a final major project from the coalition agreement between the Union and the SPD, which the outgoing grand coalition is still implementing.
It is planned that every child who starts school in the 2026/2027 school year will be entitled to a full-time place in the first four school years.
In some federal states - especially in the east - there is already a claim.
In other countries, many new places still need to be created.
The federal states had asked the federal government for a significantly greater share of the investment and operating costs, stopped the project in the Bundesrat before the summer and referred it to the mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
ngo / dpa