Eligibility clause: The hurdle for entering parliament

The threshold clause is intended to prevent parliament from splintering too much.

• Since its

  introduction

  , it has been

  criticized

  time and again

• Different threshold clauses are

  used

  at different parliamentary levels

• For the

  European elections in 2024

  , a threshold clause could be applied again for the first time

- The Federal Constitutional Court is located in Karlsruhe -

Karlsruhe - The

threshold clause

is a mechanism that

occurs

in

proportional representation

.

Simply stated, it means that a party or a person only

receives

a

mandate

if they

do not fall below

a certain

percentage of the vote

.

There are threshold clauses in many countries of the

European Union

, and in

Germany

they are also used on many levels of political decision-making.

Although they are supposed to prevent the fragmentation of parliament, they were and are not free from

criticism

.

Origins of the most famous threshold: the five percent hurdle

Many will have heard of the so-called five percent hurdle at school.

It describes the threshold clause at the

Bundestag level

.

However, due to the federalism system, there are different levels of government and parliaments that

apply

different threshold clauses

:

• State parliaments

  work with different threshold clauses, often also with

  five percent

• As a

  rule,

  no threshold clause

  applies to

  local elections

• City-states

  like Berlin or Hamburg rely on a

  three percent

  hurdle

  for district elections

The reason for the application of a threshold clause in Germany goes back to the

Weimar Republic

.

One of the reasons for the

failure of the Weimar Republic

is the fragmentation of the then parliament.

Up to 17 parties

were in the Reichstag at the same time and thus ensured political

destabilization,

because

building consensus was

almost impossible

with so many political actors

.

Therefore, in

1953,

the

five percent hurdle was

anchored

in the Basic Law to prevent the history of the fragmentation of the Bundestag from repeating itself.

The threshold as a blockade of progress?

Over the years there have been repeated discussions about the

political legitimacy of the threshold clause

.

The pros and cons are

still relevant today

.

Advocates of

the threshold clause

argue

that in this way they

can

keep small parties out of the Bundestag

, at the time with a view to the NPD or the Republicans, who therefore only made it into state parliaments without a threshold clause.

Also,

the hurdle is in fact not final

: Anyone who

receives

three

direct mandates

is allowed to move into the Bundestag, regardless of the voting share and threshold clause achieved.

This exception is

called the

basic mandate clause

.

Opponents of the threshold clause

, on the other hand, criticize the fact that its application means that a large number of electoral votes are not taken into account.

In 2013 almost 16% of all votes cast were later not represented in the Bundestag.

Opponents of the threshold clause believe that

small parties

and thus

new ideas

would find it difficult to make it into the Bundestag.

Elimination clause: not (yet) in the European elections

The handling of the threshold clause in the election of the

European Parliament

is completely different

.

Until 2011

, the five percent hurdle also existed here for Germany.

However, the

Federal Constitutional Court

considered their application

unconstitutional

and pointed to the

differences between the Bundestag and Parliament

: the European Parliament

does not

elect

a government

and a large number of participating parties would

not have a demonstrably

bad effect on the political process.

After the Federal Constitutional Court declared the five percent hurdle in European elections to be unconstitutional, the EU relented and set a

three percent hurdle

for the 2014 election

, which was again rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court.

Since

2014

,

there has been no threshold clause in

Germany in

European elections

.

In recent years, however, politicians in the grand coalition of the

SPD and CDU / CSU have

increasingly advocated the

reintroduction

of a threshold clause.

Together with European colleagues,

a Europe-wide threshold clause

was passed in 2019

that could prevent micro-parties such as Die PARTEI, die Piraten or Free Voters from entering parliament.

It will only be applied in the

European elections in 2024

.

A ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court is still pending.

Here are a few backgrounds to the #locking clause, which - at the instigation of the BReg - should apply from the next #European elections in 2024.https: //t.co/wyusu91xlX

- parliamentwatch.de (@a_watch) May 26, 2019