Press release from September 1st, 2021

The Munich mobility transition camp will set up its tents on the Theresienwiese from September 7th to 12th. This is the status after three months of tough negotiations between the IAA critics and the city of Munich.

However, three days before the construction, the conditions notice and thus real planning security are still missing. In addition, the district administration department (KVR) announced conditions in a cooperation meeting on Monday that are completely disproportionate from the point of view of the camp organizers. For example, the KVR does not want to allow participants to be provided with food from a donation-funded “kitchen for all”. In addition, no circus tents are to be set up. The “comfort” of the participants should not be the main focus, the authorities justify their decision. “This is absurd. Spending the night on the stony Theresienwiese is anything but comfortable anyway. It is completely incomprehensible why the city is now putting even more obstacles in our way and continuing to massively hinder our necessary civil society protest. This smacks of harassment,” says Vanessa Probst from the camp’s organization team. From the activists’ point of view, the “kitchen for all” is an essential part of the climate camp, as it enables consumption-free and sustainable nutrition for the participants. The circus tents are needed to conduct the workshops in a corona-compliant manner. The camp organizers do not want to accept the curtailment of their freedom of assembly and are prepared to enforce this in court if necessary if no solutions are found through negotiations. They find it particularly annoying that the authorities have only now informed them of the restrictions, even though they had already registered the camp with the known content three months ago. In recent months, the KVR has repeatedly refused to give its approval, claiming that there is no space for the four-hectare climate camp on the 42-hectare Theresienwiese because the rally of the anti-IAA protest alliance #aussteigen will also take place there for around two hours on September 11. In order to provide the infrastructure for a functioning camp, contracts for electricity, water, waste disposal, tents, (portable) toilets and technology had to be concluded in advance, and the necessary food had to be purchased - and all this without notice. “The city of Munich has withheld any planning security from us. The costs now amount to several tens of thousands of euros, which we have to collect through laborious crowdfunding,” reports Vanessa Probst. “Nevertheless, one thing is certain: we will start setting up the camp on Friday!”

Climate justice, raw material extraction and flight are central themes in the camp

The mobility transition camp is intended to express the protest against the IAA and at the same time draw attention to the climate catastrophe. “With our tent city in the middle of

Munich, we want to show what it means when floods or

fires destroy our homes. At the same time, we want to set an example of a climate-friendly society for a week - with grassroots democracy, workshops in circus tents and a self-organized vegan kitchen,” says Frederik Müller from the organization team. “And in contrast to the IAA Mobility, which continues to be a pure sales event for more and more cars, we want to find real answers to how we can achieve mobility with far fewer cars.” In terms of content, the camp participants will primarily deal with the topics of climate justice, raw material extraction in countries in the South - including for electric cars - and flight as a result of climate change. To protect against infection with Corona, the organizers of the climate camp have developed a comprehensive hygiene concept. In addition to the mask requirement and distance rules, the 3G rule should apply to camp participants.

The following organizations and alliances support the demand for a central camp area in Munich:

• #noIAA
• KonTra IAA – Congress for transformative mobility – Sand in the gears – Smash IAA – No Future for IAA – VolxKüche Munich – Soliküche Augsburg – Fridays for Future Munich – Youth organization BUND Naturschutz – IAA demo and rally Press contact Mobilitaetswende Camp Munich