The Bavarian Youth Ring welcomes the announcement of the traffic light explorers in Berlin to lower the voting age to 16.
The chances for these projects are bad.
Munich - “We want to lower the voting age for elections in the German Bundestag and European Parliament to 16 years” - this is what the exploratory paper of the potential Berlin traffic light coalition SPD, Greens and FDP says. The plans are not new, because only in May there was a move in the Bundestag, at that time by the FDP and the Greens, which had still been rejected. Now the SPD is also officially in favor of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 - but is that enough?
The announcement in the exploratory paper has raised expectations.
The Free Voters in Bavaria "expressly" welcomed the plan, said the local political spokesman for the FW parliamentary group, Joachim Hanisch.
"Only those who can actively participate will actively get involved in society." Hanisch suggests that Bavaria should follow suit.
Unlike in other federal states, 16-year-olds are not even allowed to vote in local elections.
"It is now important that the Free State follow suit quickly." The lowering of the voting age for state elections should also be examined.
The Bavarian State Youth Association thinks that the explorers are right.
The reality of young people's lives is not given enough attention in politics, says BJR boss Matthias Fack.
The BJR would even consider voting from 14 to be correct.
Voting age from 16 years: amendment of the Basic Law is compulsory
It is unrealistic, however, for this to happen.
The voting age at the federal level is defined in the Basic Law (Article 38.2), for Bavaria the provisions can be found in the State Election Law.
An amendment to the Basic Law is necessary for the reduction, which could only bring about a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
The state parliament could decide to change the law in Bavaria.
But neither is in sight - in addition to the AfD, the Union in particular is opposed to it.
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At the federal level, Union vice parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei has already expressed himself, who was
“very skeptical” of
the
Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung
.
It is illogical on the one hand to be able to vote, but on the other hand not to be able to conclude a mobile phone contract without the consent of the parents.
So it looks bad for a constitutional change.
Voting age from 16 years: CSU clearly adheres to the existing regulation
According to the understanding of the Union, voting has always been linked to the age of majority. This is how the CSU member of the state parliament and legal expert Petra Guttenberger sees it, who positions herself opposite the
Münchner Merkur
: “We are clearly sticking to the voting age of 18 years”, she explains. "Because other areas of the legal system are based on this age limit: civil law with the unrestricted legal capacity of young people, the youth protection law or youth criminal law." is mentioned.
Guttenberger is probably speaking in favor of a silent majority.
A recent survey by the Kantar Institute on behalf of
Antenne Bayern
showed in mid-September that a majority of adults in Bavaria reject the right to vote for young people aged 16 and over.
Almost two thirds of those surveyed (65.8 percent) spoke out against it.