Changes the faction: City councillor Jonas Pioch goes to the SPD. © FKN
The 34-year-old city councillor Jonas Pioch is moving from the Landsberg centre to the SPD. A commentary by Werner Lauff.
An analogy came to our mind when we learned that city councillor Jonas Pioch is leaving the Landsberg centre and joining the SPD parliamentary group. We thought of footballer Mitchell Weiser, who joined the Werder Bremen squad from Bayer Leverkusen in 2022, the day before the transfer window closed. Weiser was looking for a permanent place in a team: "I want to play," he said. Shortly before, Bayer Leverkusen had spurred Weiser's decision to make the switch, first by withdrawing his shirt number 23, then by saying that he had "no sporting prospects" at the Werkself. Since he already knew Werder through a loan, Bremen were now his dream club.
This is likely to have happened in the case of Jonas Pioch. The lawyer, born in 1989, has long been of the opinion that the office of a city councillor can only be exercised as a team sport; this is the only way to create an eye level with the top administration. His desire for team building runs like a red thread through Pioch's involvement, early on in the youth advisory council, later at the training fair. "We only managed to do that as a team," he is often heard saying. Vanities and power struggles are rather distant from him. He has little time for the urge for offices and even less for officials who give up tasks at the first difficulty. His way is to do a good job in a concentrated manner. That's why, at the age of 34, a group of companies recently entrusted him with the management of the legal and compliance departments, in a difficult economic sector characterized by hundreds of standards from all areas of law.
The decision that the SPD parliamentary group could be the right team for him was nourished by the person of the SPD parliamentary group chairman, Dieter Völkel. Pioch appreciates Völkel for his legal competence and his ability to argue precisely. Völkel is also a guarantor that city councillors are not subject to party constraints, which was probably the most important prerequisite for understanding. Pioch is now switching to the camp of the city "government", but will certainly maintain his critical attitudes, as in the case of the housing association.
His move to Team Völkel also creates new perspectives for the very experienced but still young city councillor. In the next election, there will be personnel changes in the SPD parliamentary group and thus vacancies. Pioch, who received around 4,500 votes in the last election, can dose how much he volunteers in addition to his job and family. We are betting that Pioch will not push into the spotlight there either, but rather act as an influencer who helps steer city politics and bring it forward. This is how he already understands his office today. That's why he is always the contact person for citizens, whose position he represents in the city council, when he shares the underlying values, for example when it comes to construction issues such as densification.
Soccer player Mitchell Weiser is leaving his old club after announcing a lack of prospects because he is looking for a team that values its talents. If we are not entirely wrong, this also explains Pioch's switch to the SPD. He stays in the league and has the same goal. Only this time it is a continuation of the journey in the team bus.
