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Plenary hall in the Bundestag
Photo: Michael Kappeler / picture alliance / dpa
In the coming days, the traffic light coalition wants to introduce an electoral law reform and thus a downsizing of the Bundestag.
The electoral law commission of the Bundestag should give the green light for the reform plan on Thursday, reports the "Bild am Sonntag" ("BamS"), citing parliamentary groups.
The parliamentary manager of the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, told the newspaper: "I expect approval from the traffic light groups."
The draft stipulates that after the next federal election in 2025, the parliament will have no more than the 598 seats provided for by law.
As a result of the so-called overhang and compensation mandates, there are currently 736 MPs.
The cornerstones of the reform plan had already become known in May:
Accordingly, it should remain with the personalized proportional representation right with first and second vote.
However, only the second vote should decide on the size of the Bundestag.
This would eliminate the overhang and compensatory mandates, but not all winners in the constituencies would move into parliament.
So far, overhang mandates have arisen when a party wins more direct mandates in a country than it is entitled to based on the result of the second vote.
The other parties then receive compensation mandates in order to restore proportional representation from the second votes.
The traffic light plan now provides that a party in a federal state is only allocated as many constituency mandates as it is entitled to based on the result of the second vote.
If she got more direct mandates, she doesn't get those in which she has the weakest election results compared to the other constituencies.
The CSU, which could lose more than a quarter of its direct mandates, would be particularly affected by the reform plans of the Ampel coalition partners.
CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt announced: "If the traffic light groups decide to do such a maneuver, we will immediately file a constitutional complaint." The first parliamentary manager of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei (CDU), also called the traffic light plans " simply unconstitutional".
The FDP has dampened expectations that the electoral law commission could give the go-ahead for a draft to downsize the Bundestag as early as next week.
Group Vice President Konstantin Kuhle wrote on Twitter about the report by "Bild am Sonntag": "It would be nice if things went that quickly." But expecting a reform in the coming days is "greatly exaggerated".
The commission for the reform of the electoral law will present its interim report by the end of August.
Then the legislative process begins.
"One thing is certain: the Bundestag must become smaller," Kuhle made clear.
ele/AFP/dpa