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Plenary hall of the Bundestag, meanwhile with new seating arrangements
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
The Greens no longer want to take the CSU into account when implementing the planned reform of the electoral law.
"Electoral law reforms are passed as far as possible in consensus with all democratic parties, that is also our claim," said parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
“We will approach the others. But if it turns out that the CSU, as in the last eight years, obstructs every possibility, then you have to do it without them if necessary, «said Haßelmann. It could not be "that a small regional party blocked every sensible proposal for a necessary reform of the electoral law for years." The aim is to reduce the size significantly and to approach the target size of 598 MPs, said Haßelmann.
In their coalition agreement, the SPD, the Greens and the FDP agreed to revise the electoral law within the first year "in order to prevent the Bundestag from growing in the long term."
Hasselmann now said that the time pressure was great.
In the last two legislative periods, a reform had been discussed for three years, "until either no or only a very poor agreement was reached shortly before the next federal election."
The target size of the parliament is 598 members.
However, this is increased by the fact that a party that wins more direct mandates than it is entitled to after the second vote result is allowed to keep these seats.
The other parties receive compensation mandates for this, which leads to a further increase.
In the most recent election, the number of MPs rose from 709 to 736. The Bundestag has never been bigger.
CSU won 45 out of 46 possible direct mandates
The CSU in particular benefits from the current system because it traditionally wins many direct mandates in Bavaria and thus sends more MPs to Berlin than it is actually entitled to according to the second vote result, which is decisive for the proportional distribution.
Even if the second vote result for the CSU in the election in September was comparatively weak with a historically poor 31.7 percent, it still managed to win 45 of the 46 constituencies in Bavaria with its direct candidates.
So that nothing changes in the overall distribution of proportional representation, the other parties receive so-called compensation mandates - the parliament is further inflated.
In the last legislative period, the Greens, FDP and Left had submitted a joint draft law for a reform, but were unable to enforce it.
The Union and the SPD then only agreed on a mini-reform with very limited effects.
Only from 2024 onwards will the number of constituencies be reduced from 299 to 280 as part of a major reform.
fek / dpa / AFP
