On Thursday, the city councilors in the Römer carried out the first recall of four department heads in the magistrate.

In a motion dated June 17, the four parties of the new coalition - the Greens, SPD, FDP and Volt - heralded the early recall of Uwe Becker, Jan Schneider, Daniela Birkenfeld (all CDU) and Klaus Oesterling (SPD).

The Hessian municipal code provides for a simplified recall procedure after local elections in order to enable the new political majority to change government more easily.

Martin Benninghoff

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Two consultations and votes are planned for this, the first on this Thursday.

As expected, the votes were clear, with the CDU department heads, as expected, their own parliamentary group voted against the recall.

The second vote will follow after the city council's summer break on September 8th.

The terms of office of the department heads will only officially expire at the end of this day in just under two months, so that the new candidates can be elected.

Until then, the previous city councilors will remain in office.

Overall, this process must be completed on September 30th, six months after the start of the new parliamentary term, which began on April 1st.

For the first deliberation this Thursday, the city parliament had increased the otherwise applicable limitation of speaking time per parliamentary group from the usual ten to 20 minutes, thus giving sufficient space for a comprehensive discussion for the dismissal of the mostly long-serving department heads.

For example, Nils Kößler, the CDU parliamentary group leader, praised the departing department heads of his party: City treasurer Becker is a “pilot off board”, and that in difficult times.

The new political opponent, the Greens, was also full of praise for the heads of the previous coalition, of which the Greens were part.

Your group leader Dimitrios Bakakis wanted "no accounting", as he said.

Ursula Busch, the party leader of the SPD, warned the recalled, however, "in the disappointed pain of farewell to smash so much porcelain that earlier services are forgotten".

Apparently this was meant to be the city treasurer Becker, who had last criticized the new coalition.

The FDP pokes at Schneider

The 51-year-old Becker is still mayor and city treasurer as well as department head for investments and churches until he is recalled. He is to be followed in the office of city treasurer by the Green politician Bastian Bergerhoff, who played a key role in forging the Roman alliance. The future head of integration, Nargess Eskandari-Grünberg (The Greens), is planned as mayor. As the second city councilor, Frankfurt's CDU district chairman Jan Schneider was dismissed for the first time on Thursday. The 40-year-old native of Frankfurt has been a city councilor since 2013, initially as a department head for reform projects, and since 2016 for construction and real estate, reform projects, citizen service and IT. CDU parliamentary group leader Kößler praised him as an "innovative department head". The new FDP parliamentary group leader Yanki Pürsün, however, said: "The needThere are reasons to set up your own digitization department. ”The tip was directed against the city councilor Schneider, who was previously responsible for digitization.

The third CDU head of department to be recalled, 61-year-old Daniela Birkenfeld, has been head of social affairs since 2007. She is to be followed by Elke Voitl from the Greens, who has been firmly anchored in local politics for years as the office manager of Stefan Majer (The Greens), among others. In addition to the health department, Majer will take over the transport department on an interim basis until he will retire due to old age in two years. He replaces SPD head of department Klaus Oesterling, whose term of office would officially end in a year. In order to do justice to the new majority relationship in the coalition, the 69-year-old Oesterling was also dismissed prematurely in a first resolution to make the place free for the representative of the Greens.