Unesco application: District Administrator Speer personally drives the application to Berlin, from there it goes to Paris

Created: 01/17/2022, 09:00

By: Christian Fellner

On target: Anton Speer hands over the application to Ministerialrätin Dr.

Bridget Ringbeck.

© District Office

"Chefsache" is the Unesco application for Garmisch-Partenkirchen's District Administrator Anton Speer.

He personally drove the almost 100-page application book to Berlin.

The decision should be made in 2023, but there is also resistance.

Berlin/district

– For Anton Speer, the district's application for the title Unesco World Heritage Site is obviously an affair of the heart. He has been fighting for this for years, especially in the past few months. It was a matter of persuasion in order to catch the ever-growing number of critics, to inform them – to convert them. Now the district administrator even got into the car himself to personally deliver the completed application book with almost 1000 pages to the German Unesco Commission in Berlin. "It's a matter for the boss," joked Speer (Freie Wahler) after his return. He had Peter Strohwasser, his head of the lower nature conservation department and comrade-in-arms, in the passenger seat.

Not all farmers and landowners have succeeded in dispelling their worries. Despite Speer's personal commitment, but also representatives of associations such as Peppi Glatz (pasture comrades, alpine farming) or Klaus Solleder (farmers' association) and von Strohwasser. Those responsible had to do without numerous areas around the local area of ​​​​Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the municipality of Eschenlohe even rejected the application by municipal council decision, and in the northern district formed a group of skeptics from Murnau around district councilor Rudolf Utzschneider (CSU). The preliminary climax of the counter-movement: At the end of November, six members of the World Heritage interest group filed a lawsuit with the Bavarian Administrative Court in Munich - they want to stop the project,or at least have their own areas removed from the writing.

The Free State of Bavaria signals support with Minister Sibler's signature

So far, the political leadership in the district has been relatively unimpressed. When asked by the Tagblatt, the press office of the district authority confirmed that there was no news regarding the lawsuit. On the contrary: Speer packed the application dossier and drove to Munich with it in the first instance. In the Ministry of Science, he still needed the signature of Minister Bernd Sibler (CSU). With this act, the Free State of Bavaria is signaling "that it supports the district's application," emphasizes Stephan Scharf, spokesman for the district office. Speer couldn't be stopped on his tour. "I then drove straight on to Berlin." The next addressee was Dr. Birgitta Ringbeck, the ministerial councilor responsible for all UNESCO matters at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. spear was proudto finally be able to hand over the application book, which is almost 1000 pages thick. "It was really a lot of work," he emphasizes again. The preliminary review by Unesco last September showed that good work had been done: "There were only a few indications of the correct formal structure of the application, which could all be taken into account," says Scharf.

The second step on a long road to the decision in 2023

The document did not spend much time in Berlin, as it was immediately forwarded to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Incidentally, this is only step two of four on the way to becoming a World Heritage Site.

Next, the application is submitted to a total of three specialist committees for advice.

They draw up a report that ultimately serves as a basis for the World Heritage Committee (21 members).

This supreme authority meets once a year and decides on new admissions.

In 2022 the congress will meet in Kazan/Russia.

The district application will not be on the agenda until 2023.