CITIZEN'S ACTION GROUP representation .without necessarily presenting an alternative model, others see themselves as a sort of addition and completion to "our" parliamentary system. The parties and the labor unions see the CAG 's as a way of increasing the possibilities of democracy, as "an instrument for individual participation in daily decision-making".(12) It is becoming increasingly clear that government institutions, middle-class political parties, labor unions and the various churches are trying to integrate the CAG's into the governmental decision-making process, which ultimately means that they wish to provide the CAG's with a limited field of action in which to participate in decision-making, while leaving the real decisions up to the various parliaments. A majority of National Association of Citizen's Action Groups for Environmental Protection (B.B.U.) members see themselves in this light, as shown in a declaration made by their executive committee in September, 1975: "a huge majority of the CAG 's are leading the way to permanent reform, but they are not a revolutionary vanguard". * * * Here we see that most CAG's undertake action primarly within the legal framework of the present system. They are trying to slow down or halt erroneous local or federal decisions and planning by appeals to administrative courts. That is why the political parties, above all the SPD and the FDP, are making an attempt to integrate the citizen's action group movement into their own political strategy. Peter Schulz, head of the Hamburg government, puts it this way: "Just because our citizen's action groups sometimes annoy us does not mean that they are bad in themselves. It is only due to the work of this or that CAG that this or that untenable situation has been seen as such, whereas the administration has not been aware of the dimensions and the urgency of the issue before ...".(13) A great deal of experience (12) Die Quelle, officials' paper of the DGB, Oct. 1976, p. 395. (13) State Press service, Hamburg: speech given by Mayor Schulz at the 250th meeting of Central Hamburg administration, 25.2.1972. 69
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