The spoken word shall prevail.

Dear Sir or Madam,
dear colleagues on the Mainz City Council,

Following the swearing-in of the new City Council members and before bidding farewell to the deserving Council members who are stepping down today—in other words, in the interim between two Council terms—the agenda now gives me the privilege of saying a few words.

And I think that doing so at this interim stage is quite fitting. Because somehow one has the feeling that our time is itself an interim period that places very special demands on all of us and on politics, especially local politics. We often refer to this interim period somewhat awkwardly as "transformation." By this, we simply mean that we can already see a future on the horizon in which many things will be very different from today – whether due to digitalization and AI, because we need to do more for climate protection, in the world of work, in communication, in biotechnology and medicine, or even in the global security situation. In fact, almost all areas of life are currently undergoing massive change. This affects all levels of government and every individual, and therefore local communities in particular.

At the same time, we do not yet have clear answers to this change; we do not yet know for sure how we can best utilize the opportunities of this future; we are still feeling our way forward. This makes many people feel uncertain and some feel afraid. Because we do not yet have any proven recipes for the future, and indeed cannot have any, there is often a great temptation and desire to cling all the more to the recipes that have worked in the past – and sometimes to defend them tooth and nail. Out of fear that we will not be able to cope with change, that everything will get worse. This can quickly turn into pessimism about the future and a longing for the stability of yesterday.

This is understandable. But it is a fallacy. You cannot freeze a country, a society, or a city at today's level. History always moves forward. Just as the era of the carriage was followed by the era of the car, and cities had to respond to that, so now we are entering an era of mobility of possibilities, of which the car is only one.
And if we try to cling desperately to what worked yesterday, we will simply lag behind in the future and be quite annoyed that others are much further ahead and better.

That doesn't mean that what we did yesterday or are doing today was wrong, but that it had its time and now something new is needed. I would say that much of what we are doing and have done in the meantime can also be called experiments for the future. And if we are optimistic and courageous enough to try new things, then some of these experiments for the future will become the new standard responses with which we can then shape change safely, without being overtaken by it by clinging to the recipes of the past.

This was precisely our task in the interim period between the old and the new during the last legislative period, and it will be just as much our task in the future.

And I am convinced that local parliaments in particular can decide on these future experiments and campaign for support for them. Because in our democracy, they are the parliaments that are closest to the people. They are the parliaments that can rely on enormous citizen proximity and also great citizen participation. And they are the parliaments in which such experiments with the future can be launched and promoted pragmatically, in a matter-of-fact manner, locally and together.

Local parliaments can work together with the people to try new things with optimism. And in this way, they can renew the belief from the bottom up that the future can be better than the present. Because we in Germany have lost this optimism. However, I am firmly convinced that we have lost it unjustifiably.

We see this in Mainz: if we compare Mainz five years ago with Mainz today, then certainly not all problems have been solved, but in many ways we are better off. We have survived a pandemic. We are on our way to becoming a global center for biotechnology. We are on the way to changing mobility, making the city greener, we have built new urban districts and further increased the proportion of subsidized housing in new construction projects. We have improved the situation for our daycare staff and built new daycare centers using new construction methods. To name just a few examples.
I am certain that if we continue to boldly experiment with the future, our city will be even better off in five years' time.

Ladies and gentlemen,

At this point in my speech, it would normally be appropriate to quote the President of the Federal Republic of Germany in order to speak about the community with additional borrowed authority. But I think it is even more fitting today to quote the national soccer coach. Because I think that, on the day after the team was eliminated, he gave the speech that everyone should hear:

"If we always fall into gloom and everything is gray, everything is bad, then no one will improve, and that applies in soccer as well as in normal society. [...]

I believe that if everyone starts in their own small circle, in their street, helping their neighbors, [...] and doesn't always immediately see the negative, but tries to support each other, to integrate all people, to welcome them and help them feel comfortable, and to unite people to work together with you toward a better future [...]"

I don't know how you feel, ladies and gentlemen, but I have the feeling that he is not only describing how the country can find its way out of the bad mood, but he is also describing the motivation for the vast majority of us here in this council to engage in local politics.

And that is precisely why I believe that we in this council and in all local parliaments in Germany can make a major, perhaps even the greatest, contribution to strengthening the sense of community and optimism that Nagelsmann calls for.

Nagelsmann also describes the modus operandi of how we as a society can achieve this in terms of how local politics can and should be:

"You can always see problems. And we have problems in this country. But you can also simply talk about solutions. [...]

Whether they work or not, you don't know. You have to try, have the courage to try things. And if it doesn't work [...], then have the courage to do something new, to make new decisions. [...]"

Ladies and gentlemen,

it is no coincidence that Nagelsmann's appeal to civil society has so many parallels with local politics. This is not only because of the proximity between parliament and citizens here on the ground. Rather, it is because this parliament is made up of citizens, volunteers who want to do exactly what Nagelsmann is calling for: solving problems together, helping their neighbors. Because they come to you with their problems, but also with their own ideas for solutions. Let's make use of that together.

Mainz is a special city with a special sense of community, which is perhaps why election results in Mainz look so different from those in many other municipalities. And perhaps that is precisely why Mainz is particularly well suited to boldly trying out new solutions and launching joint projects for the future, turning them into new responses to change.

I look forward to doing this together with you over the next five years and making the most beautiful city in the world even a little bit more beautiful. And to finding solutions that give people back a little bit of the certainty that the future will be better than the past. Different, but not worse because of it.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those who are leaving the council today and whom I will honor in a moment. You have made Mainz a better place with your great commitment and have fought democratically for the right way to do so. This is precisely the recipe for success in democracy: that we exchange ideas, that ideas compete, that ideas are also corrected, and that in the end, the best solution emerges.

This is not easy. It takes energy and time. And we know that the increasingly harsh political discourse has not made it any easier or more pleasant. But it is the foundation of our democracy. And on behalf of the citizens and the administration, I would like to thank you for this.

I know that you will all continue to shape Mainz. And I am sure that together, as a city, we will find many excellent solutions and recipes for the future over the next five years.

I look forward to this optimistic Mainz cooperation.