Zschadraß’ Ländliches Leben, Germany

Summary

In the midst of a seemingly rich Germany, numerous towns, villages and rural districts are broke. The pathway to insolvency typically includes the following steps. Over the course of ten to twenty years, a community heaps up debt because revenue is permanently too low. To raise funds, towns then sell assets and establish public-private partnerships or so-called cross-border leasings. Usually things like the tramway, the water and sewage works and/or social housing is wrested from democratic control. After only a few years, this extra cash has melted like snow in the sun, but the running costs for the now-rented infrastructure are far higher than before. Finally the local audit court imposes a spending freeze: the town or community council can now only spend what is absolutely necessary and not a cent more. Within this intensified neoliberal logic, libraries, swimming pools and kindergartens often become a superfluous luxury. Particularly annoying is that this is a catch-22 situation: communities lose any opportunity to open up new sources of income such as, managing wind or solar farms for themselves. One such financially tied town is Colditz in Saxony.[1]

For the incorporated village of Zschadraß this is doubly detrimental, because it is not allowed to finance the village kindergarten itself, and any new income sources are automatically used to repay the regional debt.

Background

In 2014, local village politicians founded an ecological and social foundation to provide financial support for public institutions in jeopardy. The foundation in turn founded a municipal company (Kommunale Wind GmbH & Co. KG), of which it holds 50%. This company operates several solar parks and a wood-fired heating system, and, in 2009, built a large 2.3 MW wind turbine in Zschadraß. This wind turbine is operated by the small association Ländliches Leben e.V., which finances new solar parks from the profits and also uses some of the money directly to fund social projects in the village The village’s politically active people are all members of either the foundation’s advisory board or its steering committee. The communal authorities, for example, helped the foundation find areas and rooftops that could be used for energy systems, and the foundation donates money directly to the local sports associations, the school and the kindergarten. School meals for the children of poor families as well as the yearly school holiday camp are also paid for by the foundation, and the kindergarten receives additional funding of 70 EUR per month per child. Once the wind turbine has been paid for, the entire profits are to go to the kindergarten, which will then be free of charge.[2]