Overview

• Berlin’s House of Representatives completed the first reading of a bill to overhaul the Neutralitätsgesetz by removing its blanket prohibition on teacher headscarves.
• Under the proposed rules, teachers would only face headscarf bans when there is demonstrable evidence of a specific threat or disturbance in the classroom.
• The legislative drive responds to multiple court decisions, including by the Düsseldorf Administrative Court, that deemed absolute bans on religious symbols incompatible with educational freedom.
• Greens MP Tuba Bozkurt and Left MP Elif Eralp criticized the amendment as a cosmetic fix and called instead for the full abolition of the neutrality law.
• CDU and SPD lawmakers are expected to maintain their conditional approach after the first reading, making further concessions unlikely.