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Munich, Dresden and Berlin

With Manfred Richter More than fifteen million people live in the Korean capital of Seoul, city which is divided in 25 districts. Mayors of six districts and a Mayor from Gwangju were invited by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty to visit Munich, Dresden and Berlin in order to acquire information and knowledge about the financial situation, and especially about solutions to overcome debt in Germany’s municipalities. Korean municipalities are still extremely dependent on the central government; nevertheless, they foresee that due to the high increase in the general State’s debt, there will be repercussions in the resource assignment to municipalities.

The current discussion about the financial crisis of municipal clinics in Munich provided the participants with an almost ideal outlook to become immersed in the subject. Roland Werner, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Transport in the Free State of Saxony, as well as representatives from the city of Dresden and the Saxony Association of Liberal Municipal Politicians, highlighted the scope of action that the municipalities could recuperate if they promote consistent and precise privatizations of communal property.

The conversations held in the Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce and in the German Federation of Municipalities, emphasized the importance of executing privatizations in due time, based exclusively on economic facts and avoid, to a great extent, political interventions such as the ones that occurred when privatizing water companies in Berlin. In an exchange meeting with Manfred Richter, Treasurer of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty and previous Mayor of Bremerhaven, the participants displayed the gathered experiences: Privatization can be successful only if the company that will be privatized can compete with other offering parties and therewith exists a market regulator.