More than 30 years after reunification, 6 of the 15 federal ministries still have their first office in the old capital. The number of political commuters between Berlin and Bonn will increase significantly again in 2022. Most recently, they buy tickets for one million euros.
According to a report, the number of flights by government employees between the offices in Berlin and Bonn more than doubled in the first half of 2022. From January to June, 4,668 tickets for flights between Berlin and Bonn with a total value of 1,007,775.40 euros were purchased, reported the “Welt am Sonntag”, citing figures from the Federal Ministry of the Interior. In the first half of 2021 there were only 2105 tickets for 445,130 euros.
In addition to travel activities by ministry employees, flights by employees of downstream authorities as well as the Chancellery, the President’s Office and the Press Office were counted. A comparison with ticket numbers from before the Corona crisis is not possible because earlier evaluations included the travel activities of employees of all constitutional bodies. 6 of the 15 federal ministries continue to have their primary office in Bonn.
Expensive travel between the old and new capitals has been a source of debate for decades. The “Welt am Sonntag” refers to a request from the Budget Committee of the Bundestag. As early as 2008, he demanded that the federal government take “appropriate measures to ensure that the presence of federal government employees at committee meetings is limited to the ‘absolutely necessary minimum'”. Right down to the wording, this is taken over by the “sharing costs report” prepared annually by the Federal Ministry of Finance. “All departments continue to strive to reduce staff trips between the two places of work to what is absolutely necessary,” the newspaper quoted the March report as saying.
The Ministry of Finance sees an overall reduction in the number of Berlin-Bonn flights by federal officials. Strategically important and politically-related priority areas have already been relocated to the Berlin office in recent years. “In addition, the coronavirus pandemic has meant that committee meetings have increasingly taken place digitally,” it said in March. Recently, however, personal meetings have apparently increased again, because the latest figures speak a different language.
For years, the budget committee of the Bundestag has been calling for the division of the seat of government between Berlin and Bonn to be phased out. The argument: the many political commuters not only harm the climate, but also the quality of government.