The German public has long been accustomed to Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder ruffling feathers with his remarks. The outspoken head of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) party often antagonizes his political allies as well as his opponents.

This was also the case with his latest proposal, which occurred at the beginning of last week, when the CSU group in the Bavarian state parliament held a closed-door meeting in the picturesque Banz monastery north of Bamberg. During that meeting, Söder said the number of federal states should be reduced from the current 16 in the foreseeable future. That would mean some states would have to merge.

"Larger units are more successful than small ones," said Söder, whose state of Bavaria is Germany's largest by area. However, the combative premier did not make any concrete suggestions as to which states should be merged. Only one thing seemed clear: Bavaria should stay as it is.

Söder added that, for him, any new division of the states should prioritize economic strength above all else.

Four states support the other twelve

For some time now, it has been clear that in Germany's "Länderfinanzausgleich" (fiscal equalization) system, whereby poorer states receive money from richer ones, only four states are donors: The economically strong southern states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, Hesse, and the city-state of Hamburg with its profitable port. The other states are therefore somewhat dependent on these four.

The current system is intended to help create approximately equal living conditions throughout Germany.

In the first six months of last year alone, the four donor states paid more than €11 billion ($12.8 billion) to the 12 less wealthy states. Bavaria itself contributed around €6.7 billion, more than half of all the payments.

Bavaria filed a lawsuit against the current structure of these compensation payments with the Federal Constitutional Court in 2023, though it has has not yet got round to dealing with the lawsuit.

It was not always the case that Bavaria was Germany's main sponsor: For many years, Bavaria, once a largely agricultural region, was a state that received money from the others. Until the 1970s, Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia with its strong coal and steel regions, subsidized Bavaria.

Only one merger to date

The German constitution, the Basic Law, stipulates the only way a reorganization of the federal states could take place: Via a federal law passed by the Bundestag. This has only happened in Germany's post-war history: In 1952, the three western states of Baden, Württemberg-Baden, and Württemberg-Hohenzollern were merged to form the new southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, which still exists today.

An attempt to form a unified state from Berlin and Brandenburg in 1996 was on a slightly different legal footing. Many thought it did not make much sense for the German capital, completely surrounded as it is by the state of Brandenburg, to be its own separate city-state.

In this case, referendums held in the two states could have brought them together. But while a narrow majority of Berlin voters opted for a merger, in Brandenburg, 62.7% voted against it. The project was abandoned.

Time and again over the past decades, there have been discussions about whether the northern states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein should be merged with the city states of Hamburg and Bremen. But here, too, things have never moved beyond the discussion stage.

Söder's idea is met with humor

Saxony-Anhalt's Premier Reiner Haselhoff (CDU) offered nothing more than a mildly humorous response to Söder's proposal: The small eastern German state has a strong wind and solar power industry and also supplies renewable electricity to Bavaria. "Until the constitution is amended, we promise to uphold solidarity and continue to supply Munich, the state chancellery, and Bavaria with electricity," Haselhoff said.

In Rhineland-Palatinate, which, according to Söder, could be merged with the small state of Saarland, a new state parliament will be elected in March this year. The regional CDU branch believes it has a good chance of taking over the state government, which has been led by the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) for many years. "Larger units, as called for by the Bavarian premier, do not solve structural problems," CDU lead candidate Gordon Schnieder said.

Saarland's State Premier Anke Rehlinger, of the Social Democrats, also spoke up. With something of a rhetorical wink, she said that she had expected the "annual media exchange" with Söder on this topic to take place on Ash Wednesday after the Carnival season.

During these Ash Wednesday speeches, it is customary for German politicians to comment on current issues in a more casual and humorous manner.

This article was originally written in German.

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