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Politics from outside the plenum: Unvaccinated AfD MPs currently have to sit in the stands and give their speeches from there
Photo: Michael Kappeler / dpa
In the Bundestag, as in many places in Germany, the 2G plus rule applies.
A whole series of unvaccinated politicians from the AfD parliamentary group must therefore follow parliamentary events from the stands.
The parliamentary group has now filed a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court against the new corona rules in the Bundestag.
Accordingly, on January 18, among other things, an application was made to issue a temporary order to lift the new rules, as the dpa news agency learned from the parliamentary group.
At the end of December, the AfD parliamentary group had already filed a lawsuit in Karlsruhe because of the non-appointment of committee chairs in the Bundestag with candidates from their ranks.
The new 2G-plus rule in parliament must be lifted immediately so that every member of parliament can again perform his or her parliamentary duties on an equal basis and without discrimination, regardless of their vaccination status, said the parliamentary manager of the AfD parliamentary group, Stephan Brandner.
"Only in this way can the right to an effective opposition enshrined in the Basic Law be guaranteed again." He spoke of an exclusion of freely elected MPs, which was aimed specifically at the AfD parliamentary group.
faction in the stands
Last week, the Bundestag decided on the tightened corona rules with the votes of the other parliamentary groups against those of the AfD.
Now only those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered with a daily negative test or booster vaccination have access to the plenary hall and the regular seats in the committees.
Those who do not follow the rules can follow the parliamentary debates from the stands - several AfD MPs have been sitting there for weeks, but only with a current negative test.
Participation in the committees is more difficult for the unvaccinated: there are smaller rooms.
In addition, for data protection reasons, not all meetings can be attended digitally - a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee recently took place without the AfD MP Joachim Wundrak.
»mere arbitrariness«
Several MPs are already sitting in the ranks of spectators during debates in the plenary hall, and the number is likely to increase further soon.
The recent shortening of recovered status to between 28 and 90 days after a positive PCR test means many MPs will soon lose their recovered status.
Because of the new regulation, parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel, who says she had Corona in November, will have to sit in the stands from February.
"The federal government must immediately withdraw the reduction in the status of convalescents, which is also highly controversial among scientists," she demanded.
Her co-group leader Tino Chrupalla called the shortening "mere arbitrariness".
mrc/dpa
