Stuttgart 21 mediation fortifies democracy

In the row over the plans to reconstruct the German city of Stuttgart's main railway station and turn it into an underground through station, the mediator Heiner Geißler has recommended that the project go ahead, albeit subject to a number of changes. This mediation points the way forward, writes the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung: "If Geißler's mediation sets an example for the future planning of major projects then 'citizen participation' will become genuine participation and citizen hearings will cease to be an onerous formality performed for the sake of sticking to the letter of the law and safeguarding the authorities. It will become a genuine part of the deliberation process. ... Democracy - this is and was the lesson we learned from Stuttgart - can be an exciting thing if it is extracted from parliament and the discussions among always the same politicians. The mediation was an experiment in which the representatives of an Internet-oriented civil society sat down at the negotiating table with representatives of representative democracy. This experiment has set a shining example: politicians will have to deal differently with their citizens in future. Democracy means respecting and listening to the people even when elections are not just around the corner."

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