City refuses to say how mayor voted on Munich Airport deportation terminal

Munich City Council has declined to say how Mayor Dominik Krause voted when the supervisory board of Flughafen München GmbH, the company that runs Munich Airport, approved a building for deportations at the airport. The city says board members are bound by confidentiality and that this covers how they vote.

CSU city councillors Nihat Demir, Armin Gastl and Laurenz Kiefer had asked in an enquiry dated 20 July 2026 why the mayor voted against the project. They cited media reports saying Krause, who represents the city on the board, had opposed it and had announced his position beforehand. The city holds a 23 per cent stake in the airport company. The councillors argued that the Bavarian Municipal Code requires people sent by the city to such bodies to inform it about important matters and provide information on request.

According to a statement released by the supervisory board, it decided by majority at its meeting on 14 July 2026 to approve a construction contract and a long-term lease with the federal government for the project, known as "BPOL Sonderbau MUC". The airport company will construct the building and rent it to the federal government, and it will be used only by the Federal Police. The board said the company merely provides the infrastructure, and that carrying out return flights is solely the responsibility of the Federal Police.

In his reply, Dr Christian Scharpf, head of the city's Department of Labour and Economic Affairs, said supervisory board meetings are not public and members are bound to secrecy under German company law. The law makes an exception where members must report to a local authority, but Scharpf said this only applies to important matters. He argued that this was not the case here, because the airport company's articles do not give the shareholders' meeting, and therefore the city, any say on the matter, and because of the nature of the decision and the financial volume of the project.

Scharpf declined to answer whether the mayor voted against the terminal, what his reasons were, which city interests he represented, or whether council positions were taken into account. He said there had been no need to discuss the mayor's voting intentions in city bodies beforehand, because the airport's supervisory board is a mandatory board under the Co-determination Act, whose members are generally not bound by instructions and hold a personal mandate.

Asked whether the mayor intends to inform the city council afterwards about how he exercised his mandate and why he voted as he did, the answer was: "No."