At a late hour, the Bundestag is often a ghost round. In the wide round of the plenary hall sit a few deputies, who usually listen tired as tired speakers. The sparse applause, often well past midnight, underlines the dreariness of the scenery under the Reichstag dome.
This should be over now. When the Bundestag starts this Wednesday in its last two weeks of the year, new rules will apply. At midnight at the latest, there should be a break from work in the future, for members of parliament as well as for employees, including, for example, the ushers and stenographers.
The political groups had been thinking about reforming parliamentary work for some time. When a member of the CDU collapsed during a speech at the beginning of November and a left-wing parliamentarian on the same day underwent a feeble attack, there was some movement.
Recently there is a compromise. In order to avoid night sessions - usually from Thursday to Friday - five agenda items will be moved from Thursday to Wednesday. However, this action comes at the expense of speaking time - in most debates it is reduced from the original 38 minutes to 30 minutes on the relevant agenda item, which has a corresponding effect on the duration of the contributions of the individual Members. Parliament's Question Time, in which MEPs request information from representatives of the Government, is also concerned: on Wednesday, instead of 90, it will only take 60 minutes.
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CDU politician Michael Grosse-Broemer: "Meaningful and practicable streamlining".
Last week, both the parliamentary parliamentary group leaders and the senate council of the Bundestag agreed on this regulation. However, not mutually agreed - the AfD faction did not carry the compromise. Therefore, as envisaged in the Bundestag's Rules of Procedure, this Wednesday's vote in plenary must be on the reform. It should be accepted with the votes of Union, SPD, Greens, Left and FDP.
AfD would rather meet more often
It had agreed on a "meaningful and workable streamlining of the plenary operation," said the Union's group CEO Michael Grosse-Brömer the SPIEGEL. Similarly expressed the parliamentary managing director of the FDP parliamentary group, Marco Buschmann: "all democratic parties must have interest in pragmatic rules, which ensure the working ability of the parliament."
The AfD, on the other hand, sees itself as isolated despite the fact that, according to statements by its group manager Bernd Baumann, it was willing to compromise. He called the agreement "scandalous". This leaves "barely adequate time" for the speakers of an opposition party to hold a debate. "For the AfD, in the majority of cases, speaking time would be reduced by 20 percent to four minutes per speaker," Baumann predicted.
The AfD had brought another variant into play: more weeks of meetings. In late November, Baumann suggested in a mail to the other faction leaders, among others, to increase the number of weeks of meetings in the coming year by two and start with a first additional week of meetings already in the second calendar week of the new year.
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AfD politician Bernd Baumann and Alice Weidel: Speech time would shorten in the majority of cases
But the thrust did not come well, as could be heard from circles of other factions. The mail from 26 November was sent at noon - at 0 42 clock, a few hours before a scheduled on the same day regular round of the faction CEO. It had been "raid-like", it says from one of the other factions. For some parties, the second calendar week has been planned for a long time: The FDP traditionally holds its Epiphany meeting on January 6 in Stuttgart, the CSU national group meets from 6 to 8 January in the Bavarian Seeon monastery.
Criticism of CDU politician Grosse-Broomer
CDU politician Grosse-Broomer spoke of a proposal by the AfD group "at the last minute", which was "neither practicable nor credible". This accusation AfD politician Baumann does not want to apply. Already on November 11, according to his version, he was brought an increase in the number of weeks of meetings at a dinner of the faction CEO with Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) into the game. "Even Mr. Schäuble has pointed out that our proposal would be seriously considered, since at earlier times the Bundestag had also met in more weeks of meetings," said Baumann to SPIEGEL.
The fact is: there will be an additional week of meetings in 2020 anyway. On January 31 of this year, all political groups - including the AfD - in the council of elders had agreed to increase their number to 22 in the coming year - currently there are 21.
Grosse-Brömer points this out to block the accusation of the AfD. "Unfortunately, the AfD refuses" our proposals in large parts, "said the CDU politician, which again shows that" this party has no interest in a good culture of debate and also takes on the employees of the Bundestag not enough consideration " ,
The AFD Group may well be able to get over the new regulation, even if it accuses the other groups of being aiming at the speaking time of their deputies. She has let evaluate that most of her speeches are seen on the Internet - regardless of the time of the Bundestag. In the past 30 days, his group has "counted 1.9 million video views on YouTube," said Baumann, the coalition factions of the Union and SPD, however, "just 35,000."