"We take rural areas seriously and we want them to be adequately represented in national politics." This was announced by the SPD parliamentary group chairman, Günter Rudolph, on Wednesday in Wiesbaden and, together with the district administrator of the district of Giessen, Anita Schneider, and the member of the state parliament Knut John from Eschwege, North Hesse, presented the concept of the Social Democrats to improve life in the small towns and villages in the countryside in the future. If it is up to the comrades, the municipal financial equalization will be changed so that the municipalities in rural areas have more freedom of action.

"As the SPD parliamentary group, we are concerned with actually implementing the constitutional principle of ensuring equal living conditions," said Rudolph and added: "And we miss, especially in the current state government, that rural areas are adequately represented." To change this, the Social Democrats have developed a 20-page concept containing a colourful bouquet of proposals. Among other things, a nationwide charging infrastructure for electric vehicles should enable rural residents to no longer have to drive combustion engines in the future, the bicycle network is to be expanded and local transport in rural areas is to be expanded.

Moving away from rural areas

John himself comes from the Werra-Meißner district and helped develop the concept as a spokesman for rural areas. He warned of a further exodus of people if the infrastructure continues to be neglected as in the past. In Hesse, almost half of the population lives in the countryside, which accounts for about 85 percent of the area. Therefore, the Social Democrats also want to ensure in the areas of education, housing, culture and energy production that the rural population finds similar living conditions to the city dwellers.

"There is no minister from the North Hessian region, and that shows that one obviously does not see the importance of rural areas in this way. This is an indictment of poverty," Rudolph continued. Therefore, the Hessian Social Democrats demand that a ministry be created in Kassel. Rudolph referred to Bavaria, where a ministry outside Munich had been located.

Mobility plays a special role for Anita Schneider. "If I don't arrive in half an hour by public transport in the upper center, then it is not attractive," she said, referring to study results. She therefore called for express bus lines and more rail connections outside the conurbations. In addition, there is a considerable need for smaller and barrier-free apartments in rural areas. "If we want local people to be able to grow old, then we must also invest in needs-based housing," she said.

Criticism of statutory health insurance physicians

Medical care in rural areas is already a particular challenge today, and John estimates that this will increase considerably over the next five years. Therefore, the SPD wants more study places for human medicine to be created at Hesse's universities. These study places were to be relocated to the countryside in a branch campus model. "Medical care in rural areas needs to be completely rethought," said Schneider. Her district has begun, for example, to set up so-called med centers, in which various doctors practice.

She expressed criticism of the associations of statutory health insurance physicians, which had "driven the medical on-call services so far down". "We only have one on-call service in the city of Giessen. For many people, this means a round trip of 80 kilometers," she described the situation that led to people calling the emergency services without a medical reason, which was therefore completely overloaded. "We will not hold out for long," predicted the district administrator and called for talks with the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians.