which in 1963 resulted in the Élysée Treaty. A monumental stone before the old spa house recalls this historic event. On 1 April 1960, the town of Bad Kreuznach was declared, after application to the state government, a große kreisangehörige Stadt ("large town belonging to a district"). In 2010 Bad Kreuznach launched a competition to replace the 1950s addition to the Alte Nahebrücke ("Old Nahe Bridge"). The bridge, designed by competition winner Dissing+Weitling architecture of Copenhagen, is scheduled for completion by 2012. Amalgamations In the course of administrative restructuring in Rhineland-Palatinate, the hitherto self-administering municipalities of Bosenheim, Planig, Ippesheim (all three of which had belonged until then to the Bingen district) and Winzenheim were amalgamated on 7 June 1969 with Bad Kreuznach. Furthermore, Rüdesheim an der Nahe was also amalgamated, but fought the amalgamation in court, winning, and thereby regaining its autonomy a few months later. As part of the 2009 German federal election, a plebiscite was included on the ballot on the question of whether the towns of Bad Kreuznach and Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg should be merged, and 68.3% of the Bad Kreuznach voters favoured negotiations between the two towns. On 25 May 2009, the town received another special designation, this time from the Cabinet: Ort der Vielfalt – "Place of Diversity". Religion As at 31 August 2013, there are 44,851 full-time residents in Bad Kreuznach, and of those, 15,431 are Evangelical (34.405%), 13,355 are Catholic (29.776%), 4 belong to the Old Catholic Church (0.009%), 77 belong to the Greek Orthodox Church (0.172%), 68 belong to the Russian Orthodox Church (0.152%), 1 is United Methodist (0.002%), 16 belong to the Free Evangelical Church (0.036%), 41 are Lutheran (0.091%), 2 belong to the Palatinate State Free Religious Community (0.004%), 1 belongs to the Mainz Free Religious Community (0.002%), 4 are Reformed (0.009%), 9 belong to the Alzey Free Religious Community (0.02%), 2 form part of a membership group in a Jewish community (0.004%) (162 other Jews belong to the Bad Kreuznach-Koblenz worship community [0.361%] while a further one belongs to the State League of Jewish worship communities in Bavaria [0.002%]), 9 are Jehovah's Witnesses (0.02%), 1 belongs to yet another free religious community (0.002%), 5,088 (11.344%) belong to other religious groups and 10,579 (23.587%) either have no religion or will not reveal their religious affiliation. Politics Town council The council is made up of 44 council members, who were