A state association

As can be seen from the press,  Dis­trict admin­is­tra­tors, admin­is­tra­tive direc­tors and may­ors are plan­ning to set up a sup­port asso­ci­a­tion for the nation­al park on Feb­ru­ary 17th, 2015 with the head of the nation­al park admin­is­tra­tion, Dirk Tre­ichel, and the bless­ing of the Bran­den­burg agri­cul­ture min­is­ter. It is obvi­ous­ly intend­ed to raise funds that — for good rea­sons — are actu­al­ly not acces­si­ble to state admin­is­tra­tions. The state dis­guis­es itself as a pri­vate asso­ci­a­tion in order to get addi­tion­al mon­ey. Such a thing could be called a “state asso­ci­a­tion”. Accord­ing to the fed­er­al Ger­man asso­ci­a­tion law, asso­ci­a­tions are actu­al­ly an expres­sion of civic engage­ment and not a play­ground for civ­il ser­vants who — ide­al­ly still dur­ing their paid ser­vice — pre­tend they were a pri­vate asso­ci­a­tion. At the time, the fathers of the Ger­man Civ­il Code (BGB) imag­ined it to be com­plete­ly different.

The work of the long-dis­­band­ed asso­ci­a­tion “Inter­est group for the pro­tec­tion of the Low­er Oder Val­ley”, an asso­ci­a­tion of the oppo­nents of the Nation­al Park, to which also recent and fos­sil “pub­lic ser­vants” had come togeth­er at the time, is still to be remem­bered. It is there­fore a step for­ward that an asso­ci­a­tion for and no longer against the nation­al park is being found­ed by the pub­lic sector.

But in Bran­den­burg, too, there has been free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion for 25 years, and we will be watch­ing the new “Schein­vere­in” from admin­is­tra­tive man­ag­er Tre­ichel with interest.

Thomas Berg
CEO