Government elections BS Looking back on the term of office of Basel government president Cramer

On October 20, the canton of Basel-Stadt will hold general elections for the new government. In a series, the Keystone-SDA news agency reviews the most important dossiers of the incumbent government councillors. Part 7: Conradin Cramer (LDP).

Conradin Cramer (LDP)

The former lawyer and notary has been a member of the Basel government since the beginning of 2017 and took over the Department of Education from his party colleague Christoph Eymann. Following Beat Jans' election to the Federal Council, the 45-year-old ran for the presidency of the government and his election last April was only a formality. These are just some of the issues that shaped Cramer's time in office - without claiming to be exhaustive.

Presidential Department:

Eurovision Song Contest: shortly after Nemo's victory at the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in May, Cramer emphasized that Basel would be an "excellent" venue for the ESC. Less than four months after taking office, he was able to present a coup: Basel prevailed over Geneva and will actually host the ESC in May 2025). Cramer told the media that he was "boundlessly delighted" and couldn't stop smiling. It will be a celebration - and not just for the people who have a ticket for the main events.

On September 11, parliament approved a gross budget of CHF 37.5 million for the ESC. The small party EDU wants to launch a referendum against this. Cramer has indicated that he does not believe the referendum will be successful.

Relaxation of housing protection: In the canton of Basel-Stadt, property owners should be able to increase rents more than before following renovation work. After just under 100 days in office, Cramer announced that he wants to relax the housing protection provisions that came into force at the end of May 2022 at ordinance level. Specifically, the government wants to "moderately" increase the overcharge rate applied by the Housing Protection Commission over the course of the coming year.

Cramer described housing protection as an "urgent issue". We are in a deadlocked situation in which nobody is happy. According to an initial analysis commissioned by the government, the new provisions of the Housing Protection Act will reduce rent increases. According to Cramer, there will be fewer total renovations and therefore fewer vacancies.

However, Cramer also noted a number of side effects. For example, there are fewer renovations, even if the decline cannot be measured in reliable figures. "However, a majority of those surveyed assume that energy-efficient renovations will decrease." This is bad news, as the canton wants to be climate-neutral by 2037. "We have a conflict of objectives here between housing protection regulations and climate targets."

Review of the climate specialist unit: The climate specialist unit created two years ago by the then President of the Government Beat Jans in the Presidential Department is being evaluated externally. Cramer announced this in mid-August as part of his 100-day media conference. The evaluation should show where there is room for improvement in terms of coordination, said Cramer. He did not want to know anything about possible conflicts. In his view, it is a normal process to evaluate newly-created structures after a certain period of time. During the election campaign, Cramer had expressed skepticism about the specialist unit.

Department of Education:

University contract: In May 2021, Cramer presented a new university contract with a "dynamic funding model". The University of Basel will receive around CHF 1.355 billion as a global amount from the two sponsoring cantons of Basel-Stadt and Baselland for the years 2022 to 2025. The new university agreement, which has been declared "balanced", slightly reduces the contribution from the co-sponsoring canton of Baselland. Specifically, the canton of Baselland will now pay CHF 670 million and Basel-Stadt around CHF 685 million.

The canton of Basel-Stadt now has to pay a location advantage supplement of 10 percent. In addition, the contributions to the residual deficit after deduction of the full costs for students are now calculated according to the respective economic capacities of the cantons. Cramer's successor Mustafa Atici (SP) is currently negotiating intensively with the canton of Basel-Landschaft regarding the performance mandate for the university from 2026.

Biozentrum construction debacle: Cramer inaugurated the University of Basel's new Biozentrum in September 2021. Construction of the 72-metre-high Biozentrum began in 2013. Occupancy was originally planned for 2017. However, there were repeated delays to the historically largest public-sector building construction project. In addition, the budgeted costs got out of hand. Instead of 328 million francs, they were around 100 million francs higher at 430 million francs. In its report published in September 2022 on the mishap-ridden construction history of the Biocenter, the Parliamentary Investigation Commission (PUK) of the Basel Grand Council sharply criticized the Basel Government Council. In general, it criticized inadequate planning, neglect of supervisory duties and an unclear procedure for bearing the additional costs.

Artificial ice rink renovation project: Cramer suffered a defeat in March 2022. At that time, Parliament unanimously rejected a renovation project for the Margarethen artificial ice rink that he had submitted. By referring a motion, he also set the course for a fundamentally new concept for ice sports. Two preliminary committees of the Grand Council had criticized the renovation project presented by the government in no uncertain terms. At a cost of around 45 million francs, it showed a poor cost-benefit ratio and did not take into account the overall needs of ice sports in Basel.

Cheaper daycare centers: Basel parents have been paying less for a place in a daycare center since August 1. This comes after the SP put pressure on the government with an initiative and Cramer presented a counter-proposal to the petition for a referendum at the end of 2022. The Grand Council's counter-proposal included many of the initiative's demands, but omitted the controversial point of free childcare for all families. As one of the main changes to Cramer's counter-proposal, the Education and Culture Commission included higher wages for daycare staff and further reductions in parental contributions.

Musical Theater: Together with Finance Director Tanja Soland (SP), Cramer defended the government's plans to convert the Musical Theater into an indoor swimming pool in March 2024. The vote on the initiative to preserve the cultural venue is still pending.

Renovation of St. Jakobshalle: Instead of 108 million, the costs for the renovation and modernization of St. Jakobshalle, built in 1975, amounted to 141 million francs. And even after repeated improvements, the hall still does not meet the desired requirements. In a special report published in April, the Audit and Finance Committees sharply criticized the St. Jakobshalle renovation project. The report summarizes a planning and construction history that was characterized by many deficiencies and in some cases opaque supplementary loans. The head of the Department of Education, as the representative of the users, had only inadequately fulfilled his duty of supervision, according to the GPK. The renovated and expanded St. Jakobshalle was opened in October 2018.

Support class initiative: The support class initiative submitted in 2022 wanted to create the legal possibility of teaching pupils with behavioral problems in separate classes again. Cramer held on to the basic principle of inclusive schools for a long time. As a concession to the initiative, he put together a counter-proposal at the end of 2023, which provided for so-called short-term "learning islands" at primary level and a "special offer plus" for pupils with behavior that endangers themselves or others. However, there was no mention of separate remedial classes. These were only integrated into the counter-proposal by the Education and Culture Committee of the Grand Council.

Last Wednesday, parliament approved the counter-proposal supported by the government by 92 votes to 0 with 4 abstentions. The initiative was withdrawn.

The counter-proposal stipulates that schools can create remedial classes, but only for children with learning difficulties and learning disorders and not for children with behavioral problems. The proposal leaves it up to schools to decide whether they want to introduce remedial classes or not. In addition, teachers are to be supported in the classroom with double staffing of curative and socio-educational staff.

SDA