Lord Mayors and District Councillors meet for service briefing
This week, District President Mark Weinmeister welcomed the heads of the North and East Hessian districts as well as the Lord Mayor of Kassel to his first mayors' and district councillors' service meeting at the Regional Council. This time, the regular exchange between the RP and the municipalities was marked by the consequences of the war in Ukraine for the region.
For the regular exchange, District President Weinmeister welcomed the District Administrators Jürgen van der Horst (Waldeck-Frankenberg District), Winfried Becker (Schwalm-Eder District), Andreas Siebert (Kassel District), Torsten Warnecke (Hersfeld-Rotenburg District), Bernd Woide (Fulda District) and Lord Mayor Christian Geselle (Kassel) in the Walter Lübcke Hall of the Regional Council.
The first meeting of the mayors and district councillors after the change of office at the head of the Regional Council provided the first opportunity for District President Weinmeister to exchange views on current topics and projects with the top municipal officials from North-East Hesse. The meeting was influenced by the criminal war of aggression that Russia has been waging against Ukraine for more than four weeks. The participants unanimously condemned the Russian aggression against a sovereign country in the strongest possible terms.
Restart civil defence in the region
The war in Ukraine has also raised urgent new questions for the regional authorities in North-East Hesse, which had actually been considered settled since the end of the Cold War. In addition to energy supply and economic relations with Eastern Europe, these include above all civil defence: here it is the responsibility of the districts to provide vital administrative services, protect the population and support the armed forces. In cooperation with the state of Hesse, structures must be established and capacities created here in the short and medium term, which have been cut back since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. The RP Kassel, as the regional supervisory authority in civil protection and disaster management, has an important hinge function here.
District President Weinmeister assured the districts of close coordination in the upcoming management of civil defence tasks: "The European peace order has been severely shaken by the Russian attack on a neighbour in the heart of Europe. This brings with it the painful realisation that peace and security cannot be taken for granted, even in Germany. As regional administrative authorities, we must now do our part to strengthen civil defence in North-East Hesse and put it back on a sustainable footing. This can only be done in step.
Other points of discussion at the meeting of the mayors and district councillors included the securing of skilled labour in the region and the situation of municipal budgets.