Citizens’ jury with referendum in Flensburg
Flensburg is the first local authority in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein to hold a Citizens’ Jury followed by a referendum. The focus is on the future of mobility in the Baltic Sea city.
The mini-public will run from 17 April to 30 May 2026. The referendum will take place in 2027 on the day of the state parliamentary elections. The entire process forms part of the "Klima trifft Kommune" (Climate Meets Local Authority) pilot project.
Areas of focus
The Citizens’ Jury will address three areas of focus:
1. Roads and paths: For whom or what?
How should we deal with situations where different modes of transport and usage needs compete for space on the roads and paths?
2. Parking: Where and how?
How should the city use its influence in the design of parking and storage facilities?
3. Regulating traffic: How, when and where?
In which areas should the city use its influence to (re)regulate the flow of traffic?
The Citizens’ Jury may also set its own priorities.
Procedure for determining topics
A multi-stage procedure was used to determine the topics, so that as many different views as possible could be incorporated into the process.
Firstly, in January and February 2025, local political representatives and various departments of the Flensburg administration were surveyed using questionnaires on the topic of changes in transport policy. Secondly, an event for various interest groups took place on 26 February 2025.
Public survey
In the third step, the entire population of Flensburg was able to take part in a survey in May and June 2025. Both digitally via the city’s participation platform and through questionnaires made available in public spaces, all residents of Flensburg had the opportunity to submit their key mobility issues. A total of 713 people took part in the survey.
In consultation with local politicians, the planning team had drawn up the proposed topics for the Citizens’ Jury from all the participation results. The City Council’s main committee approved the proposed topics on 9 December 2025.
Citizens’ Jury develops solutions
The Citizens’ Jury will meet from 17 April to 30 May 2026. Following hearings with experts and extensive discussions across four sessions, the mini-public will develop solutions for transport planning in the city of Flensburg.
Whether these are implemented will ultimately be decided by the entire population of Flensburg in a sreferendum. All citizens are called upon to vote at the ballot box on some of the Citizens’ Jury’s recommendations on the day of the state election on 18 April 2027. The result is binding.
Mini-public members selected by lottery
The 32 members of the Citizens’ Jury were selected from the general public by lottery. Participants were chosen at random from the official register of the Residents’ Registration Office, taking into account filters such as age, gender and residential district. In total, 1,500 people from Flensburg were contacted in this way in January 2026.
Those selected had until 6 February 2026 to respond. 99 people who had not responded by the deadline were visited at home. Through this so-called ‘door-to-door selection process’, people were personally invited to join the Citizens’ Jury. The process aims to encourage participation from people who, based on experience, rarely get involved in participatory processes.
174 interested parties
More than 30 per cent of those contacted responded to the invitation. 174 people had expressed an interest in participating in the mini-public. This represents a response rate of 11.6 per cent.
From the applications, a group of people was randomly selected to provide as accurate a representation as possible of Flensburg’s population, based on criteria such as age, gender, educational attainment, residential district, migration background, travel habits and membership of the Danish minority. To this end, those selected who were interested in participating provided the relevant details in their applications.
The Citizens’ Jury process is being reviewed and evaluated by the Institute for Democracy and Participation Research at the University of Wuppertal to ensure compliance with quality standards for randomly selected citizen participation.
Klima trifft Kommune
The Citizens’ Jury and referendum in Flensburg form part of the pilot project “Klima trifft Kommune" run by Mehr Demokratie (More Democracy) and the Gesellschaft für Klima und Demokratie (Society for Climate and Democracy). The project focuses on linking formally non-binding climate citizens' juries with binding referenda. The city of Flensburg is participating in this project as a pilot municipality. Also taking part are the municipalities of Osterburg and Pinneberg, as well as the Berlin district of Marzahn-Hellersdorf.
The Robert Bosch Foundation and the Deutsche Postcode Lotterie (German Postcode Lottery) are funding the project. The shared aim is to involve the public more closely in concrete political decisions and to bring democracy to life.
Project awarded
On 4 June 2025, the “Klima trifft Kommune" project was awarded the “Bewährt vor Ort" (Proven Locally) seal by the German Association of Towns and Municipalities and the “Re:Form” initiative. The project makes local authorities more resilient to climate change by involving citizens early in decision-making processes, enabling them to develop solutions for climate targets whilst simultaneously strengthening trust in democracy.
The “Bewährt vor Ort” seal recognises successfully tested changes to administrative practice and its rules, as well as projects implemented jointly by an administrative body and a non-profit organisation. In 2025, a non-partisan jury of administrative practitioners honoured pioneering municipal innovations for the second time. A total of 29 projects across four thematic areas were recognised.