About the IMK

Since 1954, the Standing Conference of German Interior Ministers (German: “Innenministerkonferenz”, IMK) presents the central permanent structure for cooperation among the German states (German: “Länder”) in the domain of home affairs and security. The Federal Minister of the Interior is not a formal member but takes part as a permanent guest.
Via the IMK, practitioners and policymakers take joint decisions and adopt policy measures with the aim of improving coordination and streamlining action across borders. The IMK likewise presents a tool for collective responses to crisis situations and arising threats.

Tasks and Structure

In Germany, with its federal system, legislative competencies are distributed between the federal government and the state governments. Home affairs, security and policing fall within the exclusive competence of the 16 federal states.
For cross-border coordination and cooperation, the Länder have organised themselves within the framework of the IMK, which comprises multiple levels. At the technical level, six permanent working groups regularly bring together practitioners and senior representatives of the state interior ministries to discuss operational, administrative and other matters relating to the topics of the IMK. At the political level, interior ministers as well as state secretaries are responsible for the political coordination and decision-making. They meet at least twice a year (in spring and fall) for the annual conferences of the IMK. The Federal Minister of the Interior also attends the conferences as a permanent guest.
The IMK is chaired by the federal states on a rotating basis. Since 2005, the IMK Presidency rotates annually and in alphabetical order. Each Presidency is supported by a permanent office, which is situated in the Federal Council (German: “Bundesrat”). In 2023, Berlin held the IMK Presidency after it last held the Presidency sixteen years ago in 2007.

Ministerial Conferences

The ministers of the interior (in some states: senators of the interior) personally meet at least twice a year within the framework of the annual IMK conferences. If necessary, extraordinary meetings are arranged at short notice (e.g. in case of a crisis or if the threat landscape or political situation so requires).
The regular ministerial conferences are held in spring and autumn. They provide a framework for the interior ministers to discuss current developments and trends, exchange views and best practices, and to coordinate collective action and joint responses. The agenda is set both ‘bottom up’ – based on the input and processes from the IMK’s permanent working groups – as well as ‘top down’ through ministries (from both the state and federal level) formally requesting topics and items to be placed on the agenda.
Each conference is prepared at the level of the state secretaries a few weeks beforehand in the so-called “pre-conferences”. The state secretaries “pre-discuss” the agenda and may even decide to preliminarily agree on non-controversial and technical points, which then only have to be formally adopted by the ministers. By contrast, more contentious issues or political points that cannot be resolved at the level of the state secretaries will be discussed at ministerial level during their annual conference a few weeks later. This two-pronged approach is intended to facilitate the political coordination and decision-making among the German interior ministries in view of the large number of issues and topics requesting action and which are usually placed on the agenda of the IMK.

Deciding by Consensus

Similar to other cooperation formats and governing bodies elsewhere, the IMK takes their decisions unanimously. This means that a consensus must always be reached and all 16 federal states must agree before a decision can be adopted. However, not all topics are adopted at the ministerial conferences. The IMK may also adopt decisions throughout the year by written procedure. These are usually induced and coordinated by the federal state that holds the presidency.

The IMK’s Permanent Working Groups

Next to the political level, the IMK operates via six permanent working groups, which prepare a large share of the items to be discussed by the ministers during the annual conferences. The IMK’s six permanent working groups are organised as follows:

• Working Group I
  Constitutional law, public administration and immigration (including data protection)
• Working Group II
  Internal security (including policing matters and the fight against terrorism)
• Working Group III
  Local and regional affairs
• Working Group IV
  Protection of the constitution (domestic intelligence services)
• Working Group V
  Fire and rescue services, emergency management and civil protection
• Working Group VI
  Organisation, public law and personnel matters

A-States and B-States

Traditionally, the governing coalitions of the federal states are led by the two major parties in Germany: the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the so-called Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU). Although the political landscape has widened and voting behaviour is constantly changing, preliminary discussions and political consultation in the IMK context continue to take place in the setting of the so-called A and B states.
A-states are led by a SPD government, B-states are governed by the CDU/CSU. If a “grand coalition” has been formed, the party affiliation of the head of government decides whether the state is listed as A or B state. This unofficial categorisation goes back to 1976 and derives from the conference of state ministers of education and cultural affairs. It has been used ever since and has become part of all German state-level ministerial conferences today.

History of the IMK

When the Federal Republic of Germany was formally founded on 23 May 1949, federalism was constitutionally anchored in its Basic Law. As a key principle of Germany’s political order, it grants the federal states far-reaching competences and requires close cooperation between the Federal Government and the federal states. Particularly areas such as domestic policy, where the Federal Government has no (exclusive) legislative competence, require close and regular coordination with and among the federal states.
In the early years of the Federal Republic, coordination and cooperation mostly took place on an ad-hoc basis and almost exclusively directly between the officials of the individual Länder ministries and authorities. In 1954, the IMK was established to facilitate and structure cooperation across the German states and anchor operational and technical cooperation at the political level. Since then, the heads of the interior ministries have been meeting regularly within the IMK framework of the Standing Conference of the Interior Ministers and Senators of the Länder. Initially, multiple meetings were held each year. Yet, the format of a two-day ministerial autumn conference was soon established, preceded by a working meeting in the spring. Today, both meetings take place as three-day ministerial conferences.