Frankfurt Mayor Mike Josef punishes green coalition partners

Dhe first far-reaching decision made without prior notice by Frankfurt Mayor Mike Josef (SPD), who took office in May, is directed against his own coalition in Römer, which is made up of the Greens, SPD, FDP and Volt. Contrary to what was discussed on the sidelines of the coalition agreement two years ago, Josef decreed in writing that after the departure of Green City Councilor Stefan Majer, the health department would not go to Majer’s Green colleague, Elke Voitl, head of the social affairs department. Instead, Majer’s successor, the new head of mobility, Wolfgang Siefert, also a Greens politician, is to take over the health department, drug department and clinics. Siefert has no connection to health issues. Josef gave the reason for the order that he was concerned with the question of who the Höchst Clinic would be best located with.

Formally, his decision is not a breach of the coalition agreement. The “health” department remains with the Greens as stipulated in the contract. However, there is always an unwritten law between coalition partners that it is up to the parties to nominate their candidates. The Greens had agreed internally in spring 2021 that the then new social affairs officer Voitl should take over the health department in summer 2023 when Majer retires.

“We are very surprised about this divisional distribution,” says Voitl. “This has not been agreed with us.” And further: “We assume that the order will be corrected promptly.”

“We expect a correction”

Treasurer Bastian Bergerhoff, spokesman for the Greens magistrate members, also confirms Voitl’s assessment: “We expect the mayor’s decree to be corrected – we want to concentrate on work.” Especially in the health department there is a lot to do after Corona, things have to be reorganized . The urgently needed work on the station district must also continue. Not to mention the situation in the clinics. According to Bergerhoff, the entire department “cannot tolerate any further unrest”. Voitl had already taken part in the so-called routines and meetings in the health department in the past few weeks. Everything is prepared, they say, in order to be able to continue working without transition.

“It’s important that healthcare gets the attention it needs,” said Volt Councilwoman Eileen O’Sullivan. And Volt faction leader Martin Huber cannot imagine that the assignment to the mobility department “will remain so in the long term”. He had “imagined it would be easier” to work with the new mayor.

Josef’s actions also surprised his own party. “We got the news from the newspaper,” says SPD faction leader Ursula Busch; Josef did not speak to her. “We are amazed.” And she adds: The SPD in Römer considers itself part of the coalition, “we feel bound by agreements that have been made”.

Does Josef want to take over supervisory boards?

It is unclear why the Frankfurt mayor upsets the Greens so much. According to reports, it is actually a conflict between Josef and the FDP economic department head Stephanie Wüst. It is said that neither Josef nor Wüst worked on its solution. But even the Greens, as the leading force in the magistrate, had shown no interest in reaching an agreement.

There is talk of Josef claiming, like his predecessors, whether Peter Feldmann or the long-standing mayor Petra Roth (CDU), to take the chair of the supervisory board at the Frankfurt trade fair and the energy supply company Mainova. Since Mayor Feldmann was voted out of office in November, Wüst has been performing this task and is apparently not prepared to give up this position. Only at Tourismus+Congress GmbH did Wüst hand over the chairmanship of the supervisory board to Josef.

If this assessment by observers is correct, then Josef’s intention with his departmental decree was to put pressure on the Greens to induce them to cede the two supervisory board posts to the mayor. This may sound absurd to some, but the Römer states that Josef had a “classic deal” in mind and that he used the only means of power in dealing with the city councils that he had under the Hessian municipal code: the distribution of departmental responsibilities. The understanding of the coalition for this approach is limited. Josef only creates chaos and stirs up disenchantment with politics.