The Conference of Minister-Presidents (German: Ministerpräsidentenkonferenz, MPK) [1] is a committee formed by the sixteen States of Germany (Bundesländer) to coordinate policy in areas that fall within the sole jurisdiction of the Länder, e.g.
[2] Since the MPK itself is not an official constitutional body, its meetings are purely informal, coordinating in nature.
[4] The first meeting of the minister-presidents of all German states after the Second World War took place in Munich at the beginning of June 1947.
However, the representatives of the states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the Margraviate of Brandenburg left the conference right at the beginning of the discussions because they were unable to get their demand for the immediate formation of a German central administration accepted.
[5] The meeting of the heads of government of the states of the three western occupation zones from 8 to 10 July 1948 in Koblenz is considered to be the "actual birth of the Conference of Prime Ministers" (even before the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany).
[5] Unlike the Bundesrat, the Conference of Prime Ministers is not a constitutional body and is not involved in federal or state legislation.
The Conference of Minister-Presidents also proposes a list of 21 of the 24 German members (and the same number of deputies) of the European Committee of the Regions to the federal government, which then proposes the full list of elected representatives to the EU Council of Ministers for appointment for the five-year term of office.
For example, after the MPK chairmanship passed from Berlin to North Rhine-Westphalia in 2005, MP Klaus Wowereit was co-chairman of the social democratic-led A states for a further 4 years (chairmanship by the B states NW, NI, HE, SN) until he was replaced by MP Kurt Beck (Rhineland-Palatinate) in 2009.