The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia has selected the city of Bonn as a model municipality for testing digital committee meetings. Bonn is thus one of around 20 municipalities taking part in the state's model project.

While digital committee work has already been tested in other federal states for some time, this will now also be the case in North Rhine-Westphalia in accordance with a resolution passed by the NRW state parliament on June 30, 2021. As part of the pilot project, the technical and legal requirements for digital and hybrid meetings of democratically elected bodies at municipal level are to be developed.

Mayor Katja Dörner approached the NRW State Chancellery at the beginning of July and expressed the city's interest in becoming a model municipality. "In view of the rising number of coronavirus infections, the digitalization of committee work is an important step. I am delighted that the city of Bonn can now help to further professionalize virtual and hybrid committee meetings as part of the model project. Networking with other municipalities is certainly very helpful for this," said the Mayor of Bonn.

The city of Bonn had already launched a project to digitize committee meetings in spring, as the council and its specialist committees were only able to meet in a reduced format due to the pandemic. The aim is to enable digital transmission from all meeting rooms and, for example, to be able to connect administrative staff to individual meeting points digitally. As a model municipality in the state, the digitalization project can now be expanded.