The plenary hall is an important place for democracy
The
plenary hall
is home to the German
Bundestag
and the
plenary
.
In him
Meetings are held on legislation and government control.
There is a traditional
seating arrangement
and binding
rules of conduct
for MPs.
- The plenary hall of the Bundestag is located in the Reichstag building on Platz der Republik -
Berlin, government district - The
German Bundestag
holds
its public sessions in the
plenary hall
.
The plenary hall is located in the
Reichstag
and covers an area of one thousand two hundred square meters
and a capacity of seven hundred seats.
It is characterized by a representative architecture.
With
its twenty-three meter high and forty meter wide glass dome, the
building in the
neo-renaissance
style
shapes the cityscape and is an integral part of the Berlin skyline.
The large glass dome is accessible.
From the
viewing platform
you get a great panoramic view of the capital.
Directly below this glass dome is the
plenary hall
, where the plenary holds its
plenary sessions
.
The
federal eagle is
denounced as an important element on the front of the plenary hall
- a state symbol and a striking work of art at the same time.
The so-called “
fat hen
” is made of aluminum, weighs two thousand five hundred kilos and is fifty-eight square meters.
Composition and tasks of the plenary in the plenary hall
The
plenary
is composed of the popularly elected
MPs
together.
The
composition
is therefore always the result of the
Bundestag election
, which is why it can change after each legislative period.
The most important
tasks of the
plenary
and the
Bundestag
include:
legislation
Control of government work
Election of the Federal Chancellor
Decision on the federal budget
Decision on deployments of the Bundeswehr abroad
Public function
The seating arrangements in the plenary hall
The central location in the
plenary hall
is the
lectern
.
The President of the Bundestag sits behind the lectern.
The
government
bench on which the
Federal Chancellor
and the
Federal Ministers
sit is to the right of the lectern.
Opposite the lectern are
the rows of seats for the
delegates,
arranged
in a semicircle
.
In the
plenary hall
, the MEPs sit
according to parliamentary groups
and thus usually according to parties.
It is a tradition that
the seats on the right-hand side are occupied by the
Conservatives
from the lectern and the
President of the Bundestag
.
The seats in the middle are occupied by the
Liberals
and the seats on the left by the Socialists.
In the current 19th
Bundestag
, from the perspective of the lectern, the
709 members of the
following parties
sit from right to left
:
Possibly non-attached
AfD
FDP
CDU / CSU
Alliance 90 / The Greens
SPD
the left
There is
no fixed
seating arrangement
within the parliamentary groups
.
Only the
parliamentary group committee
and the
parliamentary directors
have
permanent seats
in the front benches
.
There
are
seats
for visitors
on a
grandstand
above the
plenary hall
.
Fixed rules for MPs
The
rights and obligations of the members of the
Bundestag
are listed
in the Basic Law, the Law on Members of Representatives and the Rules of Procedure of the
German Bundestag
.
The latter also includes
rules
in the
plenary hall
for members of the
German Bundestag
.
The
rules
in
plenary
include, for example, the
distribution of speaking time
.
The larger the group, the more speaking time it has in a debate.
The exact speaking time is determined using a fixed
distribution
key.
Non-attached MPs are given individual speaking time.
The various forms of
voting
with which the members of the
Bundestag
can decide something are also regulated.
The MPs usually vote with a show of
hands
.
Further admissible voting forms are:
Stand up
Mutton jump
roll-call vote
secret election
In addition to the rules in the
plenary session,
there are also various
rights and obligations.
These ensure that the
focus is on
exercising the mandate
. This applies, for example, to the
obligation to notify
, the
handling of donations
and
benefits
as well as
secondary activities.
