Bundestag
German Bundestag Deutscher Bundestag | |
|---|---|
| 18th Bundestag | |
 | |
| Leadership | |
| Structure | |
| Seats | 631 |
 | |
Political groups | Government (504)
Opposition Parties (127)
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| Elections | |
| Closed list Mixed-member proportional representation | |
Last election | 22 September 2013 |
Next election | 2017 or earlier |
| Meeting place | |
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| Reichstag building Mitte, Berlin, Germany | |
| Website | |
| www | |
| This article is part of a series on the |
| Politics of Germany |
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The Bundestag (German pronunciation: [ˈbʊndəstaːk], "Federal Diet") is a constitutional and legislative body in Germany.
The Bundestag was established by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 as the successor to the earlier Reichstag. It meets in the Reichstag Building in Berlin. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag. Representatives of the Bundestag are directly elected, usually every four years although earlier if the Chancellor loses a vote of no confidence and asks the President to dissolve the Bundestag and hold an election. In the 19th century the name Bundestag was the unofficial designation for the assembly of the sovereigns of the German Confederation in the Free City of Frankfurt.
History
With the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866 and the founding of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1871, the Reichstag was established as the German parliament in Berlin, which was the capital of the then Kingdom of Prussia (the largest and most influential state in both the Confederation and the empire). Two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage (and not the three-class electoral system prevailing in Prussia until 1918). The Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After the Revolution of November 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Constitution, women were given the right to vote for (and serve in) the Reichstag, and the parliament could use the no-confidence vote to force the chancellor or any cabinet member to resign. In March 1933, one month after the Reichstag fire, the then president, Paul von Hindenburg, a retired war hero, gave Hitler ultimate power through the Decree for the Protection of People and State and the Enabling Act of 1933, although Hitler remained at the post of Federal Government Chancellor (though he called himself the Führer). After this the Reichstag met only rarely, usually at the Krolloper following the Reichstag fire starting in 1933 to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government. It last convened on 26 April 1942.
With the new constitution of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new (West) German parliament. Because West Berlin was not officially under the jurisdiction of the Constitution and because of the Cold War, the Bundestag met in Bonn in several different buildings, including (provisionally) a former water works facility. In addition, owing to the city's legal status, citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in elections to the Bundestag, and were instead represented by 20 non-voting delegates, indirectly elected by the city's House of Representatives.
The Bundeshaus in Bonn is the former Parliament Building of Germany. The sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its move to Berlin in 1999. Today it houses the International Congress Centre Bundeshaus Bonn and in the north areas the branch office of the Bundesrat (upper house). The southern areas became part of German offices for the United Nations in 2008.
The former Reichstag building housed a history exhibition (Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte) and served occasionally as a conference center. The Reichstag building was also occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung, the body which elects the German Federal President. However, the Soviets harshly protested against the use of the Reichstag building by institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and tried to disturb the sittings by flying supersonic jets close to the building.
Since 1999, the German parliament has again assembled in Berlin in its original Reichstag building, which dates from the 1890s and underwent a significant renovation under the lead of British architect Sir Norman Foster. Parliamentary committees and subcommittees, public hearings and faction meetings take place in three auxiliary buildings, which surround the Reichstag building: the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, Paul-Löbe-Haus and Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus.
In 2005, a small aircraft crashed close to the German parliament. It was then decided to ban private air traffic over Central Berlin.
Tasks
Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the German political system.
Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Bundestag considers the legislative function its most important responsibility, concentrating much of its energy on assessing and amending the government's legislative program. The committees (see below) play a prominent role in this process. Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered.
The Bundestag members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public; the Bundestag in turn elects the Chancellor and, in addition, exercises oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, and direct questioning of the chancellor or cabinet officials. For example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour (Fragestunde), in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member. Members can ask related questions during the question hour. The questions can concern anything from a major policy issue to a specific constituent's problem. Use of the question hour has increased markedly over the past forty years, with more than 20,000 questions being posed during the 1987-90 term. Understandably, the opposition parties are active in exercising the parliamentary right to scrutinize government actions.
One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the British Parliament is the lack of time spent on serving constituents in Germany. This is in part due to Germany's electoral system. A practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service is the limited personal staff of Bundestag deputies. Despite these constraints, especially those deputies that are elected directly usually try to keep close contact with their constituents, and to help them with their problems, particularly when they are related to federal policies or agencies.
Constituent service does also take place in the form of the Petition Committee. In 2004, the Petition Committee received over 18,000 complaints from citizens and was able to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to more than half of them. In 2005, as a pilot of the potential of internet petitions, a version of e-Petitioner was produced for the Bundestag. This was a collaborative project involving The Scottish Parliament, International Teledemocracy Centre and the Bundestag ‘Online Services Department’. The system was formally launched on 1 September 2005, and in 2008 the Bundestag moved to a new system based on its evaluation.[1]
Election
Members serve four-year terms, with elections held every four years, or earlier in the relatively rare case that the Bundestag is dissolved prematurely by the president. The Bundestag can be dissolved by the president on the recommendation of the chancellor if the latter has lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag, if the recommendation is made and accepted before the Bundestag acts to elect a new Chancellor. This has happened three times: 1972 under Chancellor Willy Brandt, 1983 under Chancellor Helmut Kohl and 2005 under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The procedures for these situations are governed by Articles 67 and 68 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.
All candidates must be at least eighteen years old; there are no term limits. The election uses the MMP electoral system. In addition, the Bundestag has a minimum threshold of either 5% of the national party vote or three (directly elected) constituency representatives for a party to gain additional representation through the system of proportional representation.
Thus, small minority parties cannot easily enter the Bundestag and prevent the formation of stable majority governments as they could under the Weimar constitution. Since 1961, only two new parties (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and PDS/The Left) have entered the Bundestag.
The most recent election, the German federal election, 2013, was held on 22 September 2013.[2]
Distribution of seats in the Bundestag
Half of the Members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 299 constituencies (first-past-the-post system), the other half are elected from the parties’ Land lists in such a way as to achieve proportional representation for the total Bundestag (if possible).
Accordingly, each voter has two votes in the elections to the Bundestag. The first vote, allowing voters to elect their local representatives to the Bundestag, decides which candidates are sent to Parliament from the constituencies.
The second vote is cast for a party list; it determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag.
At least 598 Members of the Bundestag are elected in this way. Parties that gain more than 5% of the second votes or win at least 3 direct mandates are allocated seats in the Bundestag in proportion to the number of votes it has received (d'Hondt method until 1987, largest remainder method until the 2005 election, now Sainte-Laguë method).
In addition to this, there are certain circumstances in which some candidates win what are known as overhang seats when the seats are being distributed. If a party has gained more direct mandates in a Land than it is entitled to according to the results of the second vote, it does not forfeit these mandates because all directly elected candidates are guaranteed a seat in the Bundestag.
Election result
Template:German federal election, 2013
Distribution of seats by party in the 17th Bundestag (2009 to 2013)
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| Distribution of seats in the 17th Bundestag: | ||||
| + | CDU and CSU: | 237 | (38.1%) | including 22 overhang seats |
| + | SPD: | 146 | (23.5%) | |
| + | FDP: | 93 | (15%) | |
| + | The Left: | 76 | (12.2%) | |
| + | Alliance '90/Greens: | 68 | (10.9%) | |
See the List of Bundestag Members for lists of changes and current members.
List of Bundestag by session
| Seat distribution in the German Bundestag (at the beginning of each session) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bundestag | Session | Seats | CDU/CSU | SPD | FDP | Alliance '90 / The Greens1 |
The Left2 | German Party | Others Sonstige |
| 1st Bundestag | 1949–1953 | 402 | 139 | 131 | 52 | – | – | 17 | 633 |
| 2nd Bundestag | 1953–1957 | 487 | 243 | 151 | 48 | – | – | 15 | 304 |
| 3rd Bundestag | 1957–1961 | 497 | 270 | 169 | 41 | – | – | 17 | – |
| 4th Bundestag | 1961–1965 | 499 | 242 | 190 | 67 | – | – | – | – |
| 5th Bundestag | 1965–1969 | 496 | 245 | 202 | 49 | – | – | – | – |
| 6th Bundestag | 1969–1972 | 496 | 242 | 224 | 30 | – | – | – | – |
| 7th Bundestag | 1972–1976 | 496 | 225 | 230 | 41 | – | – | – | – |
| 8th Bundestag | 1976–1980 | 496 | 243 | 214 | 39 | – | – | – | – |
| 9th Bundestag | 1980–1983 | 497 | 226 | 218 | 53 | – | – | – | – |
| 10th Bundestag | 1983–1987 | 498 | 244 | 193 | 34 | 27 | – | – | – |
| 11th Bundestag | 1987–1990 | 497 | 223 | 186 | 46 | 42 | – | – | – |
| 12th Bundestag | 1990–1994 | 662 | 319 | 239 | 79 | 8 | 17 | – | – |
| 13th Bundestag | 1994–1998 | 672 | 294 | 252 | 47 | 49 | 30 | – | – |
| 14th Bundestag | 1998–2002 | 669 | 245 | 298 | 43 | 47 | 36 | – | – |
| 15th Bundestag | 2002–2005 | 603 | 248 | 251 | 47 | 55 | 2 | – | – |
| 16th Bundestag | 2005–2009 | 614 | 226 | 222 | 61 | 51 | 54 | – | – |
| 17th Bundestag | 2009–2013 | 622 | 239 | 146 | 93 | 68 | 76 | – | – |
| 18th Bundestag | 2013– | 630 | 311 | 192 | – | 63 | 64 | – | – |
1 1983 to 1994 The Greens and 1990 to 1994 Alliance 90, since 1994 Alliance 90/The Greens
2 1990 to 2005 PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), 2005 to 2007 The Left Party.PDS, since 2007 The Left
3 BP 17, KPD 15, WAV 12, Centre Party 10, DKP-DRP 5, SSW 1, Independents 3
4 GB-BHE 27, Centre Party 3
Presidents since 1949
| Name | Party | Beginning of term | End of term | Length of term | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Erich Köhler* (1892–1958) | CDU | 7 September 1949 | 18 October 1950 | 1 year, 41 days |
| 2 | Hermann Ehlers** (1904–1954) | CDU | 19 October 1950 | 29 October 1954 | 4 years, 10 days |
| 3 | Eugen Gerstenmaier*** (1906–1986) | CDU | 16 November 1954 | 31 January 1969 | 14 years, 76 days |
| 4 | Kai-Uwe von Hassel (1913–1997) | CDU | 5 February 1969 | 13 December 1972 | 3 years, 312 days |
| 5 | Annemarie Renger† (1919–2008) | SPD | 13 December 1972 | 14 December 1976 | 4 years, 1 day |
| 6 | Karl Carstens§ (1914–1992) | CDU | 14 December 1976 | 31 May 1979 | 2 years, 168 days |
| 7 | Richard Stücklen (1916–2002) | CSU | 31 May 1979 | 29 March 1983 | 3 years, 363 days |
| 8 | Rainer Barzel*** (1924–2006) | CDU | 29 March 1983 | 25 October 1984 | 1 year, 210 days |
| 9 | Philipp Jenninger*** (b. 1932) | CDU | 5 November 1984 | 11 November 1988 | 4 years, 6 days |
| 10 | Rita Süssmuth (b. 1937) | CDU | 25 November 1988 | 26 October 1998 | 9 years, 335 days |
| 11 | Wolfgang Thierse (b. 1943) | SPD | 26 October 1998 | 18 October 2005 | 6 years, 357 days |
| 12 | Norbert Lammert (b. 1948) | CDU | 18 October 2005 | present | 19 years, 69 days |
*resigned for medical reasons
**died in office
***resigned for political reasons
†first woman to hold the post
§ resigned when he became President of Germany
Organisation
Parliamentary groups
The most important organisational structures within the Bundestag are parliamentary groups (Fraktionen; sing. Fraktion), which are formed by political parties represented in the chamber which incorporate more than 5% of the Bundestag legislators; CDU and CSU have always formed a single united Fraktion. The size of a party's Fraktion determines the extent of its representation on legislative committees, the time slots allotted for speaking, the number of committee chairs it can hold, and its representation in executive bodies of the Bundestag. The Fraktionen, not the members, receive the bulk of government funding for legislative and administrative activities.
The leadership of each Fraktion consists of a parliamentary party leader, several deputy leaders, and an executive committee. The leadership's major responsibilities are to represent the Fraktion, enforce party discipline, and orchestrate the party's parliamentary activities. The members of each Fraktion are distributed among working groups focused on specific policy-related topics such as social policy, economics, and foreign policy. The Fraktion meets every Tuesday afternoon in the weeks in which the Bundestag is in session to consider legislation before the Bundestag and formulate the party's position on it.
Parties which do not fulfill the criterion for being a Fraktion but have at least three seats by direct elections (i.e. which have at least three MPs representing a certain electoral district) in the Bundestag can be granted the status of a group of the Bundestag. This applied to the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) from 1990-1998. This status entails some privileges which are in general less than those of a Fraktion. In the current Bundestag, there are no such groups (the PDS had only two MPs in parliament until 2005 and could thus not even considered a group anymore; the party has now returned to the Bundestag with full Fraktion status).
Executive bodies
The Bundestag's executive bodies include the Council of Elders and the Presidium. The council consists of the Bundestag leadership, together with the most senior representatives of each fraktion, with the number of these representatives tied to the strength of the Parliamentary groups in the chamber. The council is the coordination hub, determining the daily legislative agenda and assigning committee chairpersons based on Parliamentary group representation. The council also serves as an important forum for interparty negotiations on specific legislation and procedural issues. The Presidium is responsible for the routine administration of the Bundestag, including its clerical and research activities. It consists of the chamber's president (usually elected from the largest fraktion) and vice presidents (one from each fraktion).
Committees
Most of the legislative work in the Bundestag is the product of standing committees, which exist largely unchanged throughout one legislative period. The number of committees approximates the number of federal ministries, and the titles of each are roughly similar (e.g., defense, agriculture, and labor). Between 1987 and 1990, the term of the eleventh Bundestag, there were twenty-one standing committees. The distribution of committee chairs and the membership of each committee reflect the relative strength of the various Parliamentary groups in the chamber. In the eleventh Bundestag, the CDU/CSU chaired eleven committees, the SPD eight, the FDP one, and the environmentalist party, the Greens (Die Grünen), one. Members of the opposition party can chair a significant number of standing committees (e.g. The finance committee is always chaired by the biggest opposition party). These committees have either a small staff or no staff at all.
Principle of discontinuation
As is the case with some other parliaments, the Bundestag is subject to the principle of discontinuation, meaning that a newly elect Bundestag is legally regarded to be a body and entity completely different from the previous Bundestag. This leads to the result, that any motion, application or action submitted to the previous Bundestag, e.g. a bill referred to the Bundestag by the Federal Government, is regarded as completed by non-decision (German terminology: "Die Sache fällt der Diskontinuität anheim"). Thus any bill that has not been decided upon by the beginning of the new electoral period must be brought up by the government again, if it aims to uphold the motion, this procedure in effect delaying the passage of the bill. Furthermore, any newly elected Bundestag will have to freshly decide on the rules of procedure (Geschäftsordnung), which is done by a formal decision of taking over such rules from the preceding Bundestag by reference.
Any Bundestag is considered dissolved only once a newly elected Bundestag has actually gathered in order to constitute itself (Article 39 sec. 1 sentence 2 of the Basic Law), which has to happen within 30 days of its election (Article 39 sec. 2 of the Basic Law). Thus, it may happen (and has happened) that the old Bundestag gathers and makes decisions even after the election of a new Bundestag that has not gathered in order to constitute itself. For example, elections to the 16th Bundestag took place on 18 September 2005,[3] but the 15th Bundestag still convened after election day to make some decisions on German military engagement abroad,[4] and was entitled to do so, as the newly elected 16th Bundestag did not convene for the first time until 18 October 2005.[5]
See also
References
- ^ Trenel, M. (2007). "Öffentliche Petitionen beim deutschen Bundestag - erste Ergebnisse der Evaluation des Modellversuchs = An Evaluation Study of Public Petitions at the German Parliament" (PDF). TAB Brief Nr 32. Deutscher Bundestag. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 January 2011. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ Hawley, Charles (15 January 2009). "Political Landscape in Flux ahead of 2009 Votes". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
- ^ "Press Release: Verkürzte Fristen zur vorgezogenen Neuwahl des Deutschen Bundestages". www.bundeswahlleiter.de. Bundeswahlleiter = Federal Director for Elections (Federal Returning Officer). 25 July 2005. Archived from the original on 7 October 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2008.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help); Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ "Stenographischer Bericht der 187. Sitzung des 15. Deutschen Bundestages am 28. September 2005 = Stenographic report of the 187th session of the 15th Deutscher Bundestag on 2005-09-28" (PDF). dip21.bundestag.de. Deutscher Bundestag. 28 September 2005. Retrieved 20 October 2008.
- ^ "Stenographischer Bericht der 1. Sitzung des 16. Deutschen Bundestages am 18. Oktober 2005 = Stenographic report of the 1st session of the 16th Deutscher Bundestag on 2005-10-18" (PDF). dip21.bundestag.de. Deutscher Bundestag. 18 October 2005. Retrieved 20 October 2008.
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