# Albert Füracker

# Albert Füracker

Albert Füracker (born 3 February 1968 in Parsberg) is a German politician of the [Christian Social Union in Bavaria](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria) (CSU). He has been a member of the Landtag of Bavaria since 20 October 2008, directly elected for the constituency of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz. Since 21 March 2018 he has been Bavaria’s state minister of finance and Heimat; until 11 November 2018 the portfolio was styled finance, regional development and Heimat, and from 12 November 2018 Staatsminister der Finanzen und für Heimat. He is a deputy member of the German Bundesrat and sits on its finance committee and its committee for digital policy and state modernisation.

He comes from the hamlet of Degerndorf in the market town of Lupburg, in the Upper Palatinate, which the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* described as a settlement of about 150 people, and he ran the family farm as a full-time farmer until he entered the Landtag. After the Mittlere Reife at the Gymnasium in Parsberg in 1985 he trained as a farmer from 1985 to 1988 and, from 1988 to 1990, qualified at the Triesdorf technical school as a state-certified technician in agriculture, then took over the parental holding. He joined the Young Union in 1986 and the CSU in 1987, served as deputy state chairman of the Young Union from 1997 to 2001 under Markus Söder, and held a Lupburg council seat from 1990 to 2020 and a Neumarkt district-council seat from 1990. The Landtag biography lists him as second mayor of Lupburg from 2002 to 2010 and as deputy Landrat until 30 April 2014; the Bundesrat’s biography gives the mayoral term as running to 2011. Since July 2015 he has chaired the CSU in the Upper Palatinate, and he has sat on the CSU executive since 2011.

In October 2013 Minister-President Horst Seehofer appointed him state secretary for Heimat in the finance ministry led by Söder, with a duty station in Nuremberg. The *Süddeutsche Zeitung* then portrayed the former chairman of the Landtag’s agriculture committee as quick to learn a new brief and respected in the opposition, and recorded that party colleagues had noticed how often he sought Seehofer’s proximity. Söder, his former Young Union chair, had brought him into the ministry; Landtag colleagues later called the pair “fraternal twins” who praised one another in nearly identical language, while Füracker handled broadband, the state development programme and the relocation of public authorities and left the public stage to the minister. He succeeded Söder as finance minister in March 2018 and has remained in the state government through the legislative periods that began in 2018 and 2023, the second of them under a renewed CSU coalition with the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters). By virtue of office the Landtag’s disclosure register lists him as chairman of the supervisory boards of Munich Airport, Nuremberg Airport and the Nuremberg trade fair, as head of BayernLB’s general meeting and as chairman of that bank’s economic advisory board.

The budgets he has presented are organised around a balanced account, the “black zero,” without new state borrowing. For 2026/2027 the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* reported a double budget of €168 billion that draws €4.9 billion from reserves, leaves about €1 billion in that fund, and assigns more than 70 percent of spending to personnel and municipalities. SPD finance spokesman Volkmar Halbleib called the draft a social imbalance and the debt rule a form of “fiscal schizophrenia”; Green deputy Claudia Köhler pointed to a renovation backlog built up over years of consumptive spending; AfD budget spokesman Andreas Winhart described the plan as a sham package. Füracker answered that ending a one-off €3,000 payment at a child’s first birthday would move the money into daycare places and that “not a single euro” of that shift would remain with the finance minister.

## Early life, education and farming

### Family background and schooling

Albert Füracker was born on 3 February 1968 in Parsberg, Bavaria, then part of West Germany. He grew up on his parents' farm at Degerndorf, a village in the market municipality of Lupburg, in the district of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz in the Upper Palatinate. In May 2025 he described Degerndorf as a place of about 150 people—"151 when I am at home"—and said it had been his home for 57 years. At a citizens' assembly that October, Lupburg's mayor, Manfred Hauser, reported 345 residents in Degerndorf and 2,567 in the municipality; the Bavarian statistical office's communal statistics put Lupburg's population at 2,582 at the end of 2024.

From 1974 to 1978 he attended the primary school (Grundschule) in Lupburg, and from 1978 to 1985 the Gymnasium in Parsberg, which he left with the Mittlere Reife, the intermediate secondary-school certificate. The dates and certificate are those given in the curriculum vitae published by the Bavarian Ministry of Finance and Home Affairs and by the Landtag, whose biography is based on his own information. He has said that he left the Gymnasium at that stage in order to take over the farm, and without regret; he recalled that his marks had sometimes been weaker and that he had repeated the ninth year. His speech was strongly marked by the Upper Palatine dialect. He has said that a teacher telephoned his mother to warn that, unless he learned standard German, he would have little chance in life, because he was hard to understand.

### Agricultural training and the Degerndorf farm

From 1985 to 1988 Füracker trained as a farmer (Landwirt). From 1988 to 1990 he attended the Technikerschule at Triesdorf, in Weidenbach, Middle Franconia, and qualified as a state-certified agricultural technician (staatlich geprüfter Techniker für Landbau). Triesdorf is a campus of agricultural schools built around the Landwirtschaftliche Lehranstalten; the state technician school there describes its course as two years of full-time further education for the same Landbau qualification, aimed at work on a farm or in agricultural services.

In 1990 he took over his parents' full-time farm (Vollerwerbsbetrieb) at Degerndorf and ran it as a full-time farmer until 2008. The *Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Wochenblatt* reported that his father left those decisions to him and that the farm did not suffer as a result. He has described the farm work of his childhood as heavy physical labour. Explaining why the Upper Palatinate is also called the "Stoapfalz", he said that stones had to be picked off the fields every year, a task he disliked. He preferred the animals, and has said that thinking of work on the meadows still brings back the smell of fresh hay. He gave up full-time farming when he entered the Landtag of Bavaria on 20 October 2008.

## Local politics and rise in the CSU

### Junge Union

Füracker joined the Young Union (Junge Union, JU) in 1986 and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) in 1987. From 1989 to 1997 he was a JU district chairman (Kreisvorsitzender) and, in the same years, an assessor (Beisitzer) on the JU's Bavarian state executive; from 1997 to 2001 he was deputy state chairman. His JU membership ended in 2003.

Markus Söder chaired the Bavarian JU from 1995 to 2003, so the deputy term fell wholly inside Söder's chairmanship. In July 2015, covering his move into regional office, *nordbayern.de* noted that the *Süddeutsche Zeitung* had just called him "Söders Zwillingsbruder" and that he had been Söder's JU deputy.

### Municipal offices in Lupburg and Neumarkt

In 1990 he joined the council of Lupburg, a market municipality, and the district council (Kreistag) of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz. The Landtag of Bavaria biography, from his own information, dates the Lupburg seat to 1990–2020 and the district seat from 1990, honorary mandates beside full-time farming until 2008.

In Bavaria voters elect the first mayor directly; any further mayor is chosen by the municipal council from its members for the council term, and the district council likewise elects the deputy Landrat from its members for its term. Füracker was second mayor of Lupburg from 2002. The closing date is not uniform: the Landtag biography stops at 2010, while the CSU parliamentary group's profile runs the office to 13 January 2011.

The mayoralty was not a CSU monopoly. Willibald Keßler of the Unabhängige Parteifreie Wählergemeinschaft (UPW), a local Free Voters list, told UPW councillors in October 2007 that he would not stand again. Before the 2008 election the Lupburg CSU executive unanimously recommended Robert Hoidn; Füracker, then local chairman and second mayor, made the case. Hoidn led the first round, but Alfred Meier (UPW) won the 16 March runoff, 60.3 percent to 39.7 percent, under the headline "UPW hält Lupburg". Meier, re-elected in 2014 with nearly 95 percent, held the office until his death in 2015, when CSU candidate Manfred Hauser won the by-election with 62.7 percent. The second-mayoralty thus ran alongside UPW first mayors.

He was deputy Landrat from 2002 until 30 April 2014, the last day of Albert Löhner's term as Landrat (1 May 1996 – 30 April 2014). Löhner was a CSU politician, and the deputy's term ended with the council term; Füracker remained a district councillor.

### CSU district and regional leadership

In the party he was deputy CSU chairman for the Neumarkt district from 1993 to 2005 and chairman from 2005 to 2015. At the 2005 delegate conference he succeeded Hans Bradl, who was not standing and whom the board had proposed, with more than 90 percent of 238 delegates. Alois Karl, then mayor of Neumarkt, took the first deputy chair with only 74 percent, which *neumarktonline* likened to a reprimand.

He chaired the Lupburg CSU from 2003 to 2009 and was the CSU's chairman for the Bundestag constituency (Bundeswahlkreisvorsitzender) from 2006 to 2015. The Landtag biography and the CSU group's profile date his term as secretary (Schriftführer) of the Upper Palatinate Bezirk executive to 2001–2015. The CSU historical register instead gives 1999–2015 for that post and lists him on the Bezirk board from 1991. He has sat as an assessor on the CSU party executive since 2011; the register also places him in the Präsidium from 2015, the year he took the Bezirk chair.

On 18 July 2015 the Bezirk congress in Barbing elected him chairman of the Upper Palatinate CSU in place of Emilia Müller. She had named him weeks earlier, calling the handover a practical decision while she was occupied as social-affairs minister and also unwell. Sole candidate, he received 198 of 201 votes, a margin the Oberpfalz CSU had not previously given a chairman. With about 19,800 members the association was then the CSU's second largest, behind Upper Bavaria. Party chairman Horst Seehofer called him a "Prinzling", alluding to a remark that Bezirk chairs returned above 90 percent were potential successors; the report said Füracker was not treating the vote as a claim on that role. The new post meant leaving the Neumarkt district chair, whose successor was still open, with another delegate meeting set after the summer break.

## Bavarian Landtag

### Elections in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz

Albert Füracker has been a member of the Landtag of Bavaria since 20 October 2008 for the Christian Social Union (CSU), with the direct mandate for Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz (Stimmkreis 303). In 2008 that constituency was the rural district of the same name in the Upper Palatinate, and the Landtag has listed him for the same Stimmkreis in every term since.

On 28 September 2008 he took 29,619 first votes, 49.48 percent, a plurality rather than an absolute majority, on a turnout of 62.0 percent (60,505 of 97,530 eligible voters). Hans Gerngroß of the Free Voters was second with 9,871 votes (16.49 percent), ahead of Carolin Braun of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) on 8,689 (14.52 percent).

On 15 September 2013 he was returned with 37,821 first votes (56.65 percent). Turnout was 68.27 percent (67,688 of 99,154). Braun was again second, with 9,463 votes (14.17 percent), then Gerngroß with 7,888 (11.81 percent) and Roland Schlusche of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) with 4,347 (6.51 percent).

On 14 October 2018 the share fell to 50.3 percent. The final comparison published with the 2023 results shows a later gain of 1,562 votes, to 40,100, so the 2018 total was 38,538 first votes. Turnout was 76.3 percent (77,224 of 101,202). He led Matthias Penkala of the Free Voters; that list took 12.8 percent, the Greens 11.4 percent, [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (AfD) 10.0 percent and the SPD 6.0 percent.

In 2023 he won 40,100 first votes, 51.3 percent of 78,128 valid ballots, one point above 2018, on a turnout of 77.3 percent (78,606 of 101,714). Christian Pfab of the AfD was runner-up with 11,641 votes (14.9 percent), just ahead of the Free Voters on 14.1 percent; the Greens fell to 8.1 percent and the SPD to 5.1 percent.

### Agriculture committee and the energy-transition commission

In the 16th term Füracker joined the Committee on Food, Agriculture and Forestry on 4 December 2008 and chaired it from 21 October 2009 until 7 October 2013. The committee elected him that day with no votes against; the Green members were absent. He succeeded Gerhard Eck, newly appointed interior state secretary; the CSU held the nomination, and chairs were ordinarily elected unopposed. The committee prepares plenary decisions on bills and motions and decides petitions for the agriculture ministry’s field. Its title then was food, agriculture and forestry; the present committee’s title also includes tourism.

From 13 July 2011 to 7 October 2013 he also sat on the Commission for the Parliamentary Accompaniment of the Energy Transition in Bavaria. Set up on 13 July 2011 for the rest of that term, the nine-member body was to follow the Energiewende, explain it to the public, and back a target of half of Bavaria’s electricity from renewables within ten years. It was asked to press for a rapid nuclear exit, with storage, grids and efficiency, while balancing supply security, climate protection and affordable prices, and it could only propose measures for the ordinary committees. Seats followed group strength: four CSU, two SPD, and one each for the Free Voters, Greens and Free Democratic Party. Füracker was one of the four CSU members, with Tobias Reiß, [Markus Blume](/people/markus-blume) and Christa Stewens; the report names him as a member, not as chair or rapporteur.

The commission held 32 public sittings and one closed sitting, with hearings on grids, storage, generation, regulation, heat and buildings, mobility, efficiency and cost, and adopted an interim report on 27 September 2012. In February 2013 the SPD, Greens and Free Voters tried to dissolve it; after the plenary refused, those groups largely stopped attending. The final report of 2 July 2013 (Drucksache 16/17500) passed with the CSU and FDP against the other three groups, whose text was printed as a minority opinion.

## State secretary and finance minister

### Appointment under Horst Seehofer

On 10 October 2013 Horst Seehofer, minister-president of Bavaria, appointed Albert Füracker a state secretary in the State [Ministry of Finance](/organizations/ministry-of-finance), Regional Development and Heimat, with the consent of the Landtag of Bavaria, in the all-Christian Social Union cabinet formed after the September election. Finance minister Markus Söder kept the budget and tax administration and added regional development, broadband, review of moving authorities out of the large cities, demographic coordination and the basic questions of digital government; the ministry was renamed to match, and a second seat in Nuremberg was planned. Füracker served with a second state secretary, Johannes Hintersberger. Reporting on 9 October had already named him, the day before the Landtag's consent and the formal appointment.

The Landtag's record of membership of the state government runs from 10 October 2013 to 20 March 2018. Füracker's own biographical note on the same page ends the state secretaryship on 13 March 2018, the day Seehofer's resignation as minister-president took effect; the successor cabinet was appointed on 21 March.

### Cabinet of Markus Söder

On 21 March 2018 Söder, by then minister-president, appointed Füracker state minister of finance, regional development and Heimat—the office Söder had just left—with Hans Reichhart as state secretary.

The same reshuffle moved management of state real estate (Immobilien Freistaat Bayern) and the state's construction and housing companies from the finance ministry to a new ministry for housing, building and transport. After the October 2018 election Söder governed with the Free Voters. On 12 November 2018, again with the Landtag's consent, he was appointed state minister of finance and for Heimat; "für Landesentwicklung" left the title. Spatial planning and regional development passed to the economy ministry under [Hubert Aiwanger](/people/hubert-aiwanger), and a new digital-affairs ministry took the strategic questions of digital administration. Finance and Heimat kept broadband, the technical side of digital administration, IT security, the Bayern-Server and state communications, and gained folk traditions, Heimat care, folk music and regional identity. The Landtag dates the longer title from 21 March to 11 November 2018 and the shorter one from 12 November 2018.

On 15 March 2018 nordbayern.de called the state secretary Söder's close friend and wrote that the two had been friends since the Young Union, when Füracker was deputy to Söder as its Bavarian chairman. Füracker's Landtag biography dates that deputy chairmanship to 1997–2001. In 2021 the *Münchner Merkur* reported that some party colleagues, as conveyed by tagesschau, saw him more as a functionary than as a confidant, and that on becoming minister he called himself "ausbefördert".

### Portfolio and reappointments

The ministry's organisation chart of October 2026, under Füracker and state secretary Martin Schöffel, shows offices in Munich and Nuremberg and seven departments: the budget, financing, cash and accounts; the law of the public service and personnel administration, including civil-service law; tax policy and the organisation of the tax administration; state shareholdings, including BayernLB, airports, trade fairs and the state lottery administration; Heimat, including projects, demography, administrative reform and the castles administration; financial relations with the federation, the Länder, municipalities and the European Union; and digitalisation, broadband and surveying. Agencies in the portfolio include the state tax office and the tax offices, the state finance office, the State Office for Digitalisation, Broadband and Surveying, the office for IT security, and the Bavarian Administration of State Castles, Gardens and Lakes.

In the Bundesrat of Germany he was a deputy member for Bavaria from 22 October 2013 to 17 April 2018, a full member from then until 27 November 2018, and a deputy member again from that date, sitting on the finance committee and the committee for digital affairs and modernisation of the state. On 8 November 2023 Söder, with the Landtag's consent and still in coalition with the Free Voters, reappointed him state minister of finance and for Heimat, with Schöffel as state secretary.

## Budgets, debt and the COVID-19 response

### Debt brake and the balanced budget

As Bavarian finance minister from March 2018, Albert Füracker presented the budgets of the coalition of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria and the Free Voters under Minister-President Markus Söder. Article 109 of Germany's Basic Law and Article 82 of the Bavarian constitution require a balance without borrowing, except for disasters and extraordinary emergencies with a repayment plan. The coalition called its ordinary budgets balanced without new debt — a *schwarze Null* — while drawing on reserves and still carrying older debt.

On 16 May 2019 the Landtag of Bavaria adopted the 2019/20 double budget at €127.4 billion, €64.9 billion in 2019 and an expected €59.4 billion in 2020. The 2020 fall followed the end of the old fiscal-equalization system, into which Bavaria still paid nearly €7 billion in 2019. No new borrowing was planned. Josef Zellmeier called it the 14th and 15th such budget, with €1 billion for repayment and the investment share up from 12.4 to 13.7 percent. Claudia Köhler of Alliance 90/The Greens called it unfair to later generations; the Alternative for Germany attacked thin repayment, and the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) wanted more for housing, transport and childcare. The Bavarian Supreme Audit Office later noted that the government had already dropped, in 2019, the aim of eliminating credit-market debt by 2030, and that the Landtag deleted that statutory target on 19 March 2020, after debt had fallen from 2012 through 2019.

### Pandemic borrowing and aid

COVID-19 broke the sequence. In March 2020 Füracker introduced a €10 billion supplement; five days later the cabinet doubled business and health aid to €20 billion, and the Landtag suspended the debt brake, at first for a year, so cash could be paid at once. Firms could apply for €5,000 to €30,000 — about 120,000 applications were already in — while the LfA guarantee capacity rose from €500 million to €2 billion, the state guarantee ceiling from €4 billion to €40 billion, and a BayernFonds of €20 billion was proposed for temporary company stakes.

The in-budget Sonderfonds Corona-Pandemie could borrow up to €20 billion in 2020–2022. Actual borrowing was €7.2 billion in 2020, €2.9 billion in 2021 and €63.5 million in 2022, €10.2 billion in all; unused authority was cancelled at the end of 2022. The off-budget BayernFonds, framed at €46 billion for guarantees and borrowing, in practice borrowed €40.4 million; after the Federal [Constitutional Court](/organizations/constitutional-court) barred shifting emergency credit across years, the Landtag dissolved the fund on 31 July 2024 and repaid that debt from the ordinary budget.

The original laws required 20 equal annual installments, reaching €510.5 million a year from 2025. Citing the weak economy, the 2024/25 law instead fixed €100 million over two years rather than €870.9 million; in 2024 the fund repaid €200 million and still held €9.9 billion, within budgeted state debt of €36.43 billion. Later laws held corona repayment at €50 million a year through 2027 and left about €9.76 billion to be repaid from 2028 at €574.1 million a year through 2044. The audit office says the slower path must still meet the constitutional repayment rule; its criticism of paying running costs from reserves is taken up in the criticism section.

### Later budgets, reserves and social spending

With emergency credit closed, Füracker again proposed no new borrowing, reserves filling the gap. Argument over that balance, and over cuts to family and care payments, peaked when he introduced the 2026/27 draft on 10 December 2025.

In April 2025 the Landtag passed a supplement of €76.7 billion, with €11.6 billion of investment (15.1 percent) and €4.4 billion drawn from reserves, and with no new debt. The Greens called it unambitious, and the AfD said spending was too high. The general reserve, between about €8 billion and €10 billion since 2019, was expected to be just under €6 billion at the end of 2025, with a further €4.9 billion transferred by the end of 2027, leaving about €1 billion.

On 23 April 2026 the coalition passed the 2026/27 double budget at €168.1 billion, again without new state debt. Nearly €5 billion was to come from reserves and about €7 billion over the two years from the federal infrastructure fund. The investment share was 17 percent, with €59.5 billion for education, science and research and €12.8 billion for municipal equalization in 2026; a hiring freeze also blocked new teacher and police posts.

In November 2025 the cabinet scrapped the Kinderstartgeld, a €3,000 payment at a child's first birthday, promised that June in place of Familiengeld and due from January 2026. Söder said about €3 billion through 2030 would instead pay day-care running costs: "a childcare place before a direct payment." In December 2025 the Landtag halved the voluntary Landespflegegeld from €1,000 to €500 a year, with 2025 paid in full; the health ministry said the saving would go into local care rather than to recipients.

Füracker said none of the cancelled Kinderstartgeld would stay at the finance ministry. SPD spokesman Volkmar Halbleib called that a breach of trust to protect the black zero; Köhler said families had been left without a transition, and AfD spokesman Andreas Winhart objected to moving money from households to public childcare. At the final vote Köhler called the use of federal-fund money for projects already decided a sleight of hand, and Halbleib called Bavaria a free rider on federal investment; Füracker answered that the totals were the largest yet because reserves and Berlin's money were being used.

## Tax policy and fiscal equalization

### Bavarian property-tax model

On 10 April 2018 the Federal Constitutional Court held that unit values for property tax in the old Länder of Germany had breached equality at least since 2002, because they were still tied to 1964. New legislation was due by the end of 2019; the old rules could run no later than 31 December 2024. The reform under federal finance minister [Olaf Scholz](/people/mig-olaf-scholz) kept a value-based model, but a 2019 amendment of the Basic Law let states deviate. Seven did. For non-agricultural property, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Hesse and Lower Saxony wrote their own laws; Saxony and the Saarland kept federal valuation with different measurement rates. The alternatives are a land-value tax, which omits buildings, or an area tax based on physical size. Only Bavaria withheld the extra municipal rate on vacant building land known as Grundsteuer C.

The Landtag passed Bavaria’s area model, the Einfachgrundsteuer, on 23 November 2021. From 2025, Grundsteuer B uses plot and building area and use, not value: €0.04 per square metre of land and €0.50 of building, housing at 70 percent, with further cuts for social housing and listed buildings. [The base](/organizations/the-base) dates from 1 January 2022 and changes only if area or use changes; municipalities still set the multiplier. Albert Füracker, the Christian Social Union finance minister, called value-based assessment a “hidden wealth tax” that would raise bills “through the back door,” and said skipping seven-year revaluations would limit bureaucracy. He put municipal receipts at about €1.9 billion a year. Nationwide, Grundsteuer B raised €15.6 billion in 2024, the last year on the old values. The Bavarian SPD said identical areas are taxed whether rural or in a prime urban location, so larger, often cheaper plots and tenants lose relative to valuable houses. Spokesman Volkmar Halbleib wanted valuation by worth and a Grundsteuer C on empty building land.

### Länderfinanzausgleich and the constitutional complaint

Since 2020 the Finanzkraftausgleich, still commonly the Länderfinanzausgleich, has adjusted each Land’s VAT share rather than moving cash between treasuries. Preliminary finance-ministry figures, published by the Federal Statistical Office as of 22 June 2026, put the volume at €18.654 billion in 2024 and €19.999 billion in 2025. Bavaria’s deductions were €9.774 billion (about 52 percent) and €11.660 billion (about 58 percent). Baden-Württemberg and Hesse followed, at €5.038 billion and €3.736 billion in 2024 and about €4 billion each in 2025; Hamburg paid €106 million, then €331 million. Berlin received the most, €3.943 billion then €4.223 billion, ahead of Saxony. In 2023 Bavaria paid about €9.1 billion of roughly €18.3 billion. The state finance ministry puts cumulative contributions as a payer at nearly €140 billion, against about €3.4 billion received before the early 1990s.

Füracker called the 2024 result a system “völlig aus dem Ruder gelaufen,” and in March 2026 one “völlig aus den Fugen geraten.” In Oberammergau that February he said Franz Josef Strauß would have answered accusations of lacking solidarity with “Solidarisch sind wir schon, aber blöd sind wir nicht.” He argues that a recipient such as Bremen can finish above Bavaria per inhabitant, and that four payers cannot outvote twelve recipients. The statute can be ended in 2031, with a replacement due within five years. Bavaria sought abstract review in Karlsruhe in 2023. In March 2026 Füracker said the case was on the court’s list for the year, though a judgment was not assured. Hamburg’s finance senator Andreas Dressel (SPD) said his city, also a payer, would defend solidarity and hoped Minister-President Markus Söder would drop the suit.

### Positions on wealth and inheritance taxation

Füracker has opposed a wealth tax, calling it in February 2026 a “Bürokratiemonster,” and has rejected further tax rises as a brake on investment. He also opposed January 2026 SPD plans to narrow inheritance-tax reliefs for large fortunes. On *jetzt red i* he warned of a “Neiddebatte,” spoke of “hart erarbeitetes Vermögen einer Familie,” and said, “Da kann man mit mir einfach nicht drüber reden.” He wanted higher allowances, frozen for 17 years as property values rose, and regional rules, because a house near Munich has gained more than one in Stralsund. Bavarian SPD chair Ronja Endres answered, “Erben ist nicht ungerecht, nichts darauf zu zahlen ist ungerecht,” and said 85 percent of firms, those under €5 million, would be untouched. After other states blocked a 2022 Bundesrat initiative, Bavaria asked the Federal Constitutional Court to let Länder design inheritance and gift tax. State secretary [Michael Schrodi](/people/michael-schrodi) warned of a “Steueroase für Superreiche,” at odds with economic and legal unity and equivalent living conditions. The court heard the case in October 2026.

## Heimat policy and the relocation of public authorities

### Heimatstrategie

In the Bavarian government, Heimat is both a term for local belonging and the name of a portfolio. On 24 March 2026 Finance and Heimat Minister Albert Füracker distinguished a “technical” policy of infrastructure, municipal finance and structural measures from an “emotional” one of dialogue, heritage and voluntary work, and called the relocation of authorities another pillar of the Heimatstrategie. He tied it to Article 3(2) of the constitution of Bavaria: the state must secure gleichwertige Lebensverhältnisse und Arbeitsbedingungen—equivalent living and working conditions—“in ganz Bayern, in Stadt und Land.” Voters approved the sentence on 15 September 2013, by 4,936,357 yes votes, 89.6 percent of valid votes.

The cabinet adopted the strategy on 5 August 2014 in Nuremberg, at its first meeting outside Munich. Minister-President Horst Seehofer and finance and Heimat minister Markus Söder, both of the Christian Social Union, set five pillars: wider aid for weaker areas; nearly 600 million euros through 2018 for Franconia and the Upper Palatinate; relocation of authorities, which Söder presented as structural policy; broadband and digital administration; and a revision of municipal financial equalization.

### Relocation programme and its results

Behördenverlagerung moves posts from costly agglomerations, chiefly Munich, into structurally weaker regions, without compelling staff to move. Füracker told the Landtag of Bavaria, “Wir verlagern Stellen und nicht Menschen.” On 29 June 2021 the cabinet extended that rule to 2030: 14 projects, about 2,670 jobs and 400 study places, mostly from greater Munich, including a property-tax office of about 300 posts shared by Zwiesel and Viechtach, about 300 at the state finance office in Weiden, and about 400 study places at the public-service higher-education institution in Kronach.

The first stage, as Füracker stated it in 2026, is 2,511 jobs and 730 study places, about half of each along the Czech border. He said that on 31 December 2025, 64 of 65 projects had started at 46 places, 43 of them structurally weak, with 2,513 employees and students on site—85 percent of the jobs and all of the study places. The Landtag account names the justice IT centre in Amberg, a state tax office in Zwiesel in the Bavarian Forest, “Digitale Landkarten Bayern” in Windischeschenbach and an e-government centre in Marktredwitz. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported about 60 jobs in Windischeschenbach, a town of some 5,000: only eight Munich staff moved with the mapping office, and about two-thirds of the workforce were under 30.

In 2026 he put that package at 2,685 jobs and 440 study places, with the Schweinfurt and Weiden offices started, and warned that austerity budgets and 14 projects still to be financed, including the rural-development office in Mühldorf am Inn, limited any further round. He told the Landtag that the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, not the ministry, had assessed the first stage, and he cited about 440 million euros in extra demand for 2017–2025. He did not call the delayed Marktredwitz prison a failure.

Katharina Schulze of the Greens said “Dezentralität ja, Symbolpolitik nein,” pointing to the Würzburg state archive’s move to Kitzingen, about 83 million euros for few jobs, and said an office supplies neither medical care, shops nor a bus. Arif Taşdelen of the Social Democratic Party called relocation necessary but not sufficient: a new authority replaces neither a doctor nor a school. Andreas Winhart of the Alternative for Germany said regionalization must not be an end in itself, because full costs had not been shown. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that the Upper Palatinate rural-development office, moved earlier from Regensburg to Tirschenreuth, faced a 6.7-million-euro renovation of an 8-million-euro building, and that its head said experienced staff had left. A 2022 study by the Dresden branch of the ifo Institute for Economic Research found that authorities placed in weak regions mainly employ residents and rarely attract highly qualified newcomers.

## State shareholdings and public administration

### Airports, trade fair and BayernLB

Füracker chairs the supervisory board of Flughafen München GmbH, owned 51 percent by the Free State of Bavaria, 26 percent by the federal government and 23 percent by the City of Munich. At Nuremberg Airport the Free State and the City of Nuremberg each hold 50 percent, and the board elected him chairman on 27 July 2018 after Markus Söder gave up the seat on becoming minister-president. At NürnbergMesse GmbH, owned 49.969 percent each by Bavaria and Nuremberg, the chair rotates every three years between the finance minister and the lord mayor; Füracker resumed it in January 2025 and led the board’s 150th meeting on 4 July 2025.

In the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic), Füracker said in January 2021 that federal-state aid would miss Munich Airport because the city refused its share while the company could survive on equity and credit. In March 2023 he said the airport had come through without state aid. The supervisory board approved 2024 earnings before tax of €103.1 million, on 41.6 million passengers, short of a pre-crisis peak of about 48 million. Nuremberg remained in deficit: in January 2024 he said that, despite about 3.9 million passengers, further capital in the single-digit millions was still required, and for 2024 the airport reported more than four million passengers and a loss of €5.6 million.

The third runway stayed on hold under the coalition with the Free Voters, and on 18 June 2026 the Landtag of Bavaria rejected a motion by Alliance 90/The Greens to abandon it. Füracker, for the Christian Social Union, said Bavaria would not give up the building right even without a present need—possibly the last chance in Germany to meet growing air traffic—while Florian Streibl said the Free Voters would block a third runway while they stayed in coalition.

Füracker is not on the supervisory board of Bayerische Landesbank: in December 2025 it was chaired by Wolf Schumacher, with Ministerialdirektor Harald Hübner, the ministry’s Amtschef, and Ministerialdirigentin Judith Steiner for the ministry. He chairs the Wirtschaftsbeirat, which advises the bank on business policy and customer contacts. After the European Central Bank objected to a silent participation built since 1994 from housing loans, that capital stayed in the bank and Bavaria’s holding rose from about 75 percent to about 80.17 percent on 1 January 2025, without new cash from the owners. Füracker said this committed the state to the Landesbank and avoided the sort of capital top-up Hesse had made at Helaba.

### Digital administration, surveying and state property

An organisation plan of October 2026 assigns departments for shareholdings (including the Landesbank, airports, trade fairs and the state Grundstock), for civil-service law, pay and pensions, and for digitalisation, broadband and surveying, including the IT service centre and the cadastre.

Füracker reported more than five million visitors in 2024 to the Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser, Gärten und Seen, about 11 percent more than in 2023, with income of about €82 million against operating spending of about €97 million. Work on the state rooms at Neuschwanstein Castle was nearly finished, and Nymphenburg Palace and the Munich Residence set visitor records. On 27 May 2025 he appointed Hermann Auer, head since 2014 of the ministry unit responsible for the administration, president from 1 June; it then had about 1,330 staff.

Fifty-one offices for digitalisation, broadband and surveying, with 22 branch offices, keep the land cadastre, and the same state office runs the IT-Dienstleistungszentrum, which supplies e-government systems and central IT infrastructure for the administration and the courts. Boundary stones are set by those authorities, with the Feldgeschworene, an honorary municipal office, taking part where a local statute so provides.

## Criticism and political disputes

### Court of Auditors and opposition budget critiques

The Bavarian Supreme Audit Office (Bayerischer Oberster Rechnungshof, ORH) has questioned the use of Bavaria’s reserves for lasting spending. Its 2019 report said that, despite high tax receipts, withdrawals should not finance new permanent programmes, and accused the state government of losing sight of sustainable finance and of breaking its word on debt repayment. Finance minister Albert Füracker, of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, called the report “in parts, unfortunately, very one-sided”. He defended a “triad” of a solid budget, investment and social policy, and rejected what he described as a demand to put the money only into “concrete and roads” rather than support for families and people needing care.

The 2026 report put the combined budget-security, cash and guarantee reserve at €10.4 billion at the end of 2024, with planned withdrawals leaving about €1 billion by the end of 2027. It said the 2025–2027 budgets could be balanced in the estimates only by large reserve drawings, and recommended that planned spending again follow expected revenue without such withdrawals. It still found the 2024 accounts orderly, while noting nearly 40,000 new posts since 2015, more than 400 often poorly coordinated subsidy programmes, and a missed goal of full digitisation by the end of 2025.

In the Landtag of Bavaria in December 2025, opposition speakers treated the debt-free 2026/27 draft as misleading. Andreas Winhart of the Alternative for Germany called it a “Mogelpackung” and criticised both climate spending and the shift from direct family payments to public childcare. Claudia Köhler of Alliance 90/The Greens asked why there was a “mega renovation backlog”, from universities to police stations, and criticised the late cancellation of the planned Kinderstartgeld. Volkmar Halbleib of the Social Democratic Party of Germany spoke of a “social imbalance”, citing family cuts and the reduction of the state care allowance from €1,000 to €500 a year, which he tied to the “dogma” of a balanced budget. Füracker said not one euro from dropping the Kinderstartgeld stayed with his ministry, because it was redirected to day-care centres; coalition speakers said support for families and care remained inside those systems.

### Disputes inside the governing coalition

Disputes inside the coalition have concerned both climate finance and software. In May 2021 environment minister Thorsten Glauber, of the Free Voters of Bavaria, proposed a climate fund on the order of €2 billion a year before a joint concept was agreed. Füracker called that contrary to internal arrangements and “completely unserious”, and said policy could not be made with “Luftbuchungen”, figures not yet matched by funds.

In January 2026 digital minister Fabian Mehring, also of the Free Voters, told the *Augsburger Allgemeine* that geopolitics had changed and that long-term use of Microsoft should be reassessed without a fixed outcome. Füracker replied by press release that the remarks “border on fake news”: the digital ministry had signed the existing framework contract; his ministry was only bundling licences already in use; and no new framework contract was under negotiation. He accused Mehring of a zigzag that would unsettle municipalities. Mehring said Füracker was confusing that contract with talks on a state licence worth billions, and called a press-release rebuke “bad style”. Minister-president Markus Söder said the row belonged inside government and found Füracker’s case convincing, noting that the digital ministry used the same licences.

On 28 January 2026 Füracker told the Landtag that state and municipal administration had used Microsoft products “since the 1960s”, and that the 51 surveying offices had worked “completely with open-source workplaces since the 1960s”. Microsoft was founded on 4 April 1975; reporting treated both claims as incompatible with that date. In June the government set the bundling talks aside. Mehring called that a “victory of digital reason”; the finance ministry said only existing contracts had been at issue.

### Mask-procurement inquiry and public statements

Füracker was not among those accused of commissions on protective-mask contracts in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Landtag inquiry opened in December 2021 nevertheless asked his ministry for files on state shareholdings, because the remit covered public business since 2016 in which deputies might have been involved. The ministry first said it need not collect records from privately organised subsidiaries it did not already hold. After chair Winfried Bausback, a former justice minister, cited parliamentary scrutiny powers and a 2017 judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court, the ministry agreed to assist and promised the greatest possible transparency. Füracker was not presented as a suspect in the contracts linked to former justice minister Alfred Sauter.

## Personal life and civic associations

### Family and religion

Füracker is a Roman Catholic. The Landtag of Bavaria records him as married, with four children; the Bavarian Ministry of Finance and Home Affairs gives the same family details and describes him as Catholic. He lives in Degerndorf, a village in the market municipality of Lupburg, in the district of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz in the Upper Palatinate. In a May 2025 interview he said that Degerndorf had about 150 inhabitants—"151 when I am at home"—and that it had been his home for 57 years. In November 2018 the *Nürnberger Nachrichten* group likewise identified him as the minister "aus Degerndorf bei Lupburg".

In a 2008 Landtag-election text that Neumarkt Online published without editorial revision, he named his wife as Evelyne and the children, then minors, as Ludwig (15), Johanna (12), Martin (9) and Marlene (5). Later official biographies do not name the children. He and Evelyne Füracker have appeared together at *Fastnacht in Franken*, the carnival gala that Bayerischer Rundfunk broadcasts from Veitshöchheim. An *Onetz* report on the sitting of 21 February 2025, using a Deutsche Presse-Agentur photograph by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand, captioned the Christian Social Union finance minister as arriving with his wife Evelyne Füracker.

### Local clubs and agricultural organizations

The Landtag biography, printed from the member's own information, lists memberships and no offices. In Degerndorf and Lupburg they are the volunteer fire brigade of Degerndorf, Sportverein Lupburg and its Alte Herren, the Lupburg shooting club, Burgverein Lupburg, the Degerndorf fruit-and-garden society, the Lions Club Oberpfälzer Jura (a club of [Lions Clubs International](/organizations/lions-clubs-international)) and the Förderverein Alt-Lupburg und Umgebung. The ministry biography adds SSV Jahn Regensburg.

The fire brigade and the farmers' association carry more weight in rural Bavaria than the smaller village societies. Municipalities must provide firefighting and technical rescue as their own mandatory task, and fire-service duty is honorary unless the statute says otherwise. At the end of 2025 the Landesfeuerwehrverband Bayern counted 7,430 volunteer brigades and 321,406 active members in them. Alongside the brigade, Füracker lists the Bayerische Jungbauernschaft, the Bayerischer Bauernverband (BBV), the Parsberg forest-owners' association, the Bayerischer Waldbesitzerverband, and the alumni bodies of the Triesdorf technician school and of agricultural technical schools. The BBV, a public-law corporation founded on 7 September 1945, describes itself as party-independent and interdenominational, the professional representation of Bavarian agriculture and forestry, with about 5,800 local branches and about 132,000 members. He also lists Bolivienhilfe e.V. (P. Luis Espinal), based in nearby Berching, founded in 1994, which states that it has more than 500 members and supports projects in Bolivia.

In the May 2025 interview he said he could not recall missing his district's harvest-festival parade in 40 or 45 years, and that such occasions bring village life together. The published list places him in that setting without recording a rank or board post.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/albert-furacker