“Frighteningly ideological”: Union is annoyed by the traffic light plan to shrink the Bundestag
Created: 05/19/2022, 11:16 am
By: Catherine Brown
The German Bundestag is getting bigger and bigger.
The traffic light is now looking for a solution for the growing parliament.
© Michael Kappeler/dpa
The traffic light government is currently looking for a way to downsize the Bundestag.
By 2025 there should be fewer than 600 MPs.
Munich – The Bundestag is larger than ever before: 736 members of parliament sit in parliament – but it should actually only be 598.
This is due to overhang and compensation mandates.
The traffic light coalition now wants to delete these extra seats.
"Voters are entitled to a simple and manageable voting system," says Sebastian Hartmann (SPD)
Münchner Merkur
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"You should be clear, for example, how many seats are available in the Bundestag."
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Hartmann's proposal is that no more than the legally regulated 598 MPs should move into the Bundestag in the next federal election.
Together with MPs Till Steffen (Greens) and Konstantin Kuhle (FDP), he worked out the new regulation.
"It would have a strong impact on the ability of Parliament to work," says Hartmann.
"We have a very tense office situation right now."
The Bundestag continues to inflate from election to election - this makes work in the committees more difficult.
Taxpayers also have to pay their price: According to the Taxpayers' Association, the Bundestag is more than 400 million euros more expensive than a parliament with the statutory standard size of 598 seats in this electoral term.
Across party lines, there has long been agreement that the Bundestag should be downsized.
However, the Union reacted with outrage to the new solution proposed by the traffic light.
Traditionally, members of the CDU and CSU in particular have benefited from the overhang mandates.
Opposition criticizes government plans: "The traffic light is again acting in a frighteningly ideological manner"
In particular, the CSU is mathematically responsible for the oversized Bundestag.
If a party brings more direct candidates into parliament than it is entitled to after the second votes, overhang mandates are created.
The CSU has eleven of them.
In addition, there are 127 more extra seats that other parties in the Bundestag get as so-called compensatory mandates.
The traffic light proposal would mean that not every candidate who wins in his constituency after first votes can safely move into the Bundestag.
"The traffic light is again acting in a frighteningly ideological manner," complains Alexander Hoffmann (CSU).
Like the traffic light deputies Hartmann, Steffen and Kuhle, he also sits on the electoral law commission.
With their proposal, the three anticipated the deliberations of the electoral law commission, he says.
"The advance of the traffic light leads the electoral law commission ad absurdum." The traffic light apparently has "no interest whatsoever in a cross-party real result".
Traffic light plans for smaller Bundestag: "real basis" or "not good style"?
Union parliamentary group manager Thorsten Frei (CDU) believes that the traffic light coalition's proposal would "undermine the special role of the directly elected MPs".
The directly elected member of the Bundestag Nina Warken (CDU) also says: "I do not think the traffic light procedure is good style." The initiative was "constitutionally critical, especially with regard to the capping of direct mandates".
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The Greens MP Jamila Schäfer, who was also directly elected in Munich, says, on the other hand, that the proposal is "a real basis" to ensure the Bundestag's ability to work and to reduce the "ever-increasing costs".
SPD politician Hartmann assures that after the reform, voters will still be able to choose a candidate with a first vote.
However, if that person is no longer able to gain a seat in the Bundestag, the voters can send another candidate to Parliament with an additional substitute vote.
(Kathrin Brown)