Hamburg extends its chairmanship of the Justice Ministers Conference due to the situation in Saxony-Anhalt

Against the background of the possible formation of an AfD state government in Saxony-Anhalt, Hamburg will extend its chairmanship of the Justice Ministers' Conference. This was agreed upon in close coordination within the ministries of justice, said the spokesman for the Hamburg justice authority, Dennis Sulzmann, when asked by the German Press Agency.

Justice Senator Anna Gallina (Greens) should actually have handed over the baton to Saxony-Anhalt on January 1st. She will now hold the chairmanship for six months longer and then hand it over to Hesse for the second half of the year, which will also chair the Justice Ministers' Conference in 2028.

“The background to the decision is that the formation of a government in Saxony-Anhalt has not yet been completed,” said Sulzmann. “Due to the current chairmanship, Hamburg already has the necessary organizational structures.” Hesse is prepared accordingly thanks to the takeover, which is planned for 2028 anyway. This ensures “the smooth implementation of the Justice Ministers’ Conference and the associated tasks and procedures”.

Given the political situation in Saxony-Anhalt, the Prime Minister's Conference (MPK) will also deviate from the usual chairmanship sequence. However, Rhineland-Palatinate will remain chairman there for another year.

Actually, Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Sven Schulze (CDU) should have taken over the chairmanship next week. However, after the AfD's victory in the state elections at the beginning of September, he declared his renunciation in a letter to the head of the Rhineland-Palatinate government, Gordon Schnieder (CDU).

The further order of the chairing countries of the MPK should remain unchanged. This means that Schleswig-Holstein will take over the presidency in October 2027 as originally planned. The state parliament will be re-elected there in April next year.

A few days ago, the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) abandoned its principle of unanimous decisions. From now on, the IMK considers it to be decided what receives a majority of at least 13 of the 16 votes in the committee. It was said that the aim was to prevent any blockade by the AfD.

In general, an AfD minister from Saxony-Anhalt would not find a connection in the IMK: Like all other department heads, he could take part in the meetings of the interior ministers' conference of the federal and state governments, but not in the usual separate preliminary discussions of the so-called A and B states, said the spokesman for the B states, Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU). The “A countries” are informally the SPD-led countries, the “B countries” are the Union-led countries.

“The decision taken by the CDU and CSU is clear: there is no cooperation with the AfD,” he says. This means that the question of an AfD interior minister in the group of B countries is completely absurd. “That won’t happen,” he confirms. From the ranks of the SPD-led states it is said that the AfD would not be accepted into their group.

In the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on September 6th, the AfD was the strongest force with 43.8 percent, ahead of the CDU with 17.2 percent. The AfD is three votes short of an absolute majority. According to his own words, top candidate Ulrich Siegmund would like to be elected as the first AfD Prime Minister shortly before Christmas.