Bundestag

This article is about the current parliament of Germany. For the governing body of the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866, see Bundesversammlung (German Confederation). For other historical parliaments of Germany, see Reichstag (disambiguation).

German Bundestag (Federal Diet) Deutscher Bundestag
18th Bundestag
History
Established	1949
Preceded by	Volkskammer (East Germany) 1949–1990
Leadership
President of the Bundestag	Norbert Lammert, CDU since 18 October 2005
Vice Presidents of the Bundestag	Edelgard Bulmahn, SPD since 22 October 2013
	Petra Pau, The Left since 7 April 2006
	Claudia Roth, Alliance '90/The Greens since 22 October 2013
	Ulla Schmidt, SPD since 22 October 2013
	Johannes Singhammer, CSU since 22 October 2013
	Michaela Noll, CDU since 19 January 2017
Structure
Seats	630
Political groups	Government (502)   Union (309)   CDU (253)   CSU (56)   SPD (193) Opposition Parties (128)   The Left (64)   The Greens (63)   Independent (1)
Elections
Voting system	Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP)
Last election	24 September 2017
Next election	Next
Meeting place
Reichstag building Mitte, Berlin, Germany
Website
www.bundestag.de

Reichstag building

The Bundestag (German pronunciation: [ˈbʊndəstaːk], "Federal Diet") is a constitutional and legislative body at the federal level in Germany. For its similar function, it is often described as a lower house of parliament along the lines of the US House of Representatives and the Canadian or the British House of Commons. The German constitution, however, does not define the Bundestag and the Bundesrat as the lower and upper houses of a bicameral legislature.

The Bundestag was established by chapter III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Constitution) in 1949 as one of the legislative bodies of Germany and thus the historical successor to the earlier Reichstag.

Since 1999 it has met in the Reichstag Building in Berlin. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag. Members of the Bundestag (Mitglieder des Bundestages) are usually elected every four years by all adult German citizens in a mixed system of constituency voting and list voting. There are currently 631 seats; however, one – belonging to the CDU – remains vacant. The Election Day, however, can be earlier if the Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) loses a vote of no confidence and asks the Federal President (Bundespräsident) to dissolve the Bundestag in order to hold new general elections.

In the 19th century the name Bundestag was the unofficial designation for the assembly of the sovereigns and mayors of the Monarchies and Free Cities which formed the German Confederation (1815–1866). Its seat was in the Free City of Frankfurt on the Main.

History

With the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866 and the founding of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1871, the Reichstag was established as the German parliament in Berlin, which was the capital of the then Kingdom of Prussia (the largest and most influential state in both the Confederation and the empire). Two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage (and not the three-class electoral system prevailing in Prussia until 1918). The Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After the Revolution of November 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Constitution, women were given the right to vote for (and serve in) the Reichstag, and the parliament could use the no-confidence vote to force the chancellor or any cabinet member to resign. In March 1933, one month after the Reichstag fire, the then president, Paul von Hindenburg, a retired war hero, gave Adolf Hitler ultimate power through the Decree for the Protection of People and State and the Enabling Act of 1933, although Hitler remained at the post of Federal Government Chancellor (though he called himself the Führer). After this the Reichstag met only rarely, usually at the Krolloper (Kroll Opera House) following the Reichstag fire starting in 1933 to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government. It last convened on 26 April 1942.

With the new constitution of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new (West) German parliament. Because West Berlin was not officially under the jurisdiction of the Constitution, a legacy of the Cold War, the Bundestag met in Bonn in several different buildings, including (provisionally) a former water works facility. In addition, owing to the city's legal status, citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in elections to the Bundestag, and were instead represented by 22 non-voting delegates chosen by the House of Representatives, the city's legislature.

The Bundeshaus in Bonn is the former Parliament Building of Germany. The sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its move to Berlin in 1999. Today it houses the International Congress Centre Bundeshaus Bonn and in the north areas the branch office of the Bundesrat ("Federal Council", the Upper House of the German Federal Parliament representing the Länder, i.e. the federated States). The southern areas became part of German offices for the United Nations in 2008.

The German Unity Flag is a national memorial to German Reunification that was raised on 3 October 1990. It waves in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin, seat of the Bundestag.

The former Reichstag building housed a history exhibition (Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte) and served occasionally as a conference center. The Reichstag building was also occasionally used as a venue for sittings of the Bundestag and its committees and the Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly), the body which elects the German Federal President. However, the Soviets harshly protested against the use of the Reichstag building by institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and tried to disturb the sittings by flying supersonic jets close to the building.

Since 1999, the German parliament has again assembled in Berlin in its original Reichstag building, which was built in 1888 based on the plans of German architect Paul Wallot and underwent a significant renovation under the lead of British architect Sir Norman Foster. Parliamentary committees and subcommittees, public hearings and faction meetings take place in three auxiliary buildings, which surround the Reichstag building: the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, Paul-Löbe-Haus and Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus.

In 2005, a small aircraft crashed close to the German parliament. It was then decided to ban private air traffic over Central Berlin.

Tasks

Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the German political system.

Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Bundestag considers the legislative function its most important responsibility, concentrating much of its energy on assessing and amending the government's legislative program. The committees (see below) play a prominent role in this process. Plenary sessions provide a forum for members to engage in public debate on legislative issues before them, but they tend to be well attended only when significant legislation is being considered.

The Bundestag members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public; the Bundestag in turn elects the Chancellor and, in addition, exercises oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration. This check on executive power can be employed through binding legislation, public debates on government policy, investigations, and direct questioning of the chancellor or cabinet officials. For example, the Bundestag can conduct a question hour (Fragestunde), in which a government representative responds to a previously submitted written question from a member. Members can ask related questions during the question hour. The questions can concern anything from a major policy issue to a specific constituent's problem. Use of the question hour has increased markedly over the past forty years, with more than 20,000 questions being posed during the 1987-90 term. Understandably, the opposition parties are active in exercising the parliamentary right to scrutinize government actions.

Constituent service does also take place in the form of the Petition Committee. In 2004, the Petition Committee received over 18,000 complaints from citizens and was able to negotiate a mutually satisfactory solution to more than half of them. In 2005, as a pilot of the potential of internet petitions, a version of e-Petitioner was produced for the Bundestag. This was a collaborative project involving The Scottish Parliament, International Teledemocracy Centre and the Bundestag ‘Online Services Department’. The system was formally launched on 1 September 2005, and in 2008 the Bundestag moved to a new system based on its evaluation.

Electoral term

The Bundestag is elected for four years, and new elections must be held between 46 and 48 months after the beginning of its electoral term. Unless the Bundestag is dissolved prematurely, its term ends when the next Bundestag convenes, which must occur within 30 days of the election. Prior to 1976, there could be a period where one Bundestag had been dissolved and the next Bundestag could not be convened; during this period, the rights of the Bundestag were exercised by a so-called "Permanent Committee".

Election

Members serve four-year terms, with elections held every four years, or earlier in the relatively rare case that the Bundestag is dissolved prematurely by the president. The Bundestag can be dissolved by the president on the recommendation of the chancellor if the latter has lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag, if the recommendation is made and accepted before the Bundestag acts to elect a new Chancellor. This has happened three times: 1972 under Chancellor Willy Brandt, 1983 under Chancellor Helmut Kohl and 2005 under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The procedures for these situations are governed by Articles 67 and 68 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Law regarding the election procedure itself is the Federal Election Act 1956 (Bundeswahlgesetz/BWahlG)

All candidates must be at least eighteen years old; there are no term limits. The election uses the MMP electoral system. In addition, the Bundestag has a minimum threshold of either 5% of the national party vote or three (directly elected) constituency representatives for a party to gain additional representation through the system of proportional representation. Thus, small minority parties cannot easily enter the Bundestag and prevent the formation of stable majority governments as they could under the Weimar constitution.

The most recent election, the German federal election, 2017, was held on 24 September 2017.

Distribution of seats in the Bundestag

See also: List of German Bundestag constituencies

Bundestag ballot: constituency vote on left, party list (showing top five list candidates) vote on right

Half of the Members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 299 constituencies (first-past-the-post system), the other half are elected from the parties’ Land lists in such a way as to achieve proportional representation for the total Bundestag (if possible).

Accordingly, each voter has two votes in the elections to the Bundestag. The first vote, allowing voters to elect their local representatives to the Bundestag, decides which candidates are sent to Parliament from the constituencies.

The second vote is cast for a party list; it determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag.

At least 598 Members of the Bundestag are elected in this way. Parties that gain more than 5% of the second votes or win at least 3 direct mandates are allocated seats in the Bundestag in proportion to the number of votes it has received (d'Hondt method until 1987, largest remainder method until the 2005 election, now Sainte-Laguë method).

In addition to this, there are certain circumstances in which some candidates win what are known as overhang seats when the seats are being distributed. If a party has gained more direct mandates in a Land than it is entitled to according to the results of the second vote, it does not forfeit these mandates because all directly elected candidates are guaranteed a seat in the Bundestag. The other parties are then compensated by getting additional seats as well, the balance seats, so proportionality is preserved.

Distribution of seats by party in the 17th Bundestag (2009 to 2013)

Initial distribution of seats in the 17th Bundestag.

Chancellor Angela Merkel at a debate in the plenary of the German Bundestag, 2014

Distribution of seats in the 17th Bundestag:
+	CDU and CSU:	237	(38.1%)	including 22 overhang seats
+	SPD:	146	(23.5%)
+	FDP:	93	(15%)
+	The Left:	76	(12.2%)
+	Alliance '90/Greens:	68	(10.9%)

See the List of Bundestag Members for lists of changes and current members.

List of Bundestag by session

Seat distribution in the German Bundestag (at the beginning of each session)
Bundestag	Session	Seats	CDU/CSU	SPD	FDP	Alliance '90 / The Greens1	The Left2	German Party / Alternative for Germany	Others Sonstige
1st Bundestag	1949–1953	402	139	131	52	–	–	17	633
2nd Bundestag	1953–1957	487	243	151	48	–	–	15	304
3rd Bundestag	1957–1961	497	270	169	41	–	–	17	–
4th Bundestag	1961–1965	499	242	190	67	–	–	–	–
5th Bundestag	1965–1969	496	245	202	49	–	–	–	–
6th Bundestag	1969–1972	496	242	224	30	–	–	–	–
7th Bundestag	1972–1976	496	225	230	41	–	–	–	–
8th Bundestag	1976–1980	496	243	214	39	–	–	–	–
9th Bundestag	1980–1983	497	226	218	53	–	–	–	–
10th Bundestag	1983–1987	498	244	193	34	27	–	–	–
11th Bundestag	1987–1990	497	223	186	46	42	–	–	–
12th Bundestag	1990–1994	662	319	239	79	8	17	–	–
13th Bundestag	1994–1998	672	294	252	47	49	30	–	–
14th Bundestag	1998–2002	669	245	298	43	47	36	–	–
15th Bundestag	2002–2005	603	248	251	47	55	2	–	–
16th Bundestag	2005–2009	614	226	222	61	51	54	–	–
17th Bundestag	2009–2013	622	239	146	93	68	76	–	–
18th Bundestag	2013–2017	630	3105	192	–	63	64	–	–
19th Bundestag	2017-	709	246	153	80	67	69	94	–

  Parties in the ruling coalition

¹ 1983 to 1994 The Greens and 1990 to 1994 Alliance 90, since 1994 Alliance 90/The Greens
² 1990 to 2005 PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism), 2005 to 2007 The Left Party.PDS, since 2007 The Left
³ BP 17, KPD 15, WAV 12, Centre Party 10, DKP-DRP 5, SSW 1, Independents 3
⁴ GB-BHE 27, Centre Party 3
⁵ Vacant seat as of 04.09.2015 means the CDU/CSU reduced to 310 from 311

Seat distribution in the German Bundestag (at the beginning of each session). The graph shows not the absolute number of seats, but rather the relation of the number of seats a party has to the overall number of seats in that session, in percent. The colours stand for the following parties: Black: CDU/CSU, red: SPD, yellow: FDP, green: Greens, pink: PDS/Left Party, brown: German Party, grey: others.

Presidents since 1949

Presidents of the Bundestag

	Name	Party	Beginning of term	End of term	Length of term
1	Erich Köhler* (1892–1958)	CDU	7 September 1949	18 October 1950	1 year, 41 days
2	Hermann Ehlers** (1904–1954)	CDU	19 October 1950	29 October 1954	4 years, 10 days
3	Eugen Gerstenmaier*** (1906–1986)	CDU	16 November 1954	31 January 1969	14 years, 76 days
4	Kai-Uwe von Hassel (1913–1997)	CDU	5 February 1969	13 December 1972	3 years, 312 days
5	Annemarie Renger† (1919–2008)	SPD	13 December 1972	14 December 1976	4 years, 1 day
6	Karl Carstens§ (1914–1992)	CDU	14 December 1976	31 May 1979	2 years, 168 days
7	Richard Stücklen (1916–2002)	CSU	31 May 1979	29 March 1983	3 years, 363 days
8	Rainer Barzel*** (1924–2006)	CDU	29 March 1983	25 October 1984	1 year, 210 days
9	Philipp Jenninger*** (b. 1932)	CDU	5 November 1984	11 November 1988	4 years, 6 days
10	Rita Süssmuth (b. 1937)	CDU	25 November 1988	26 October 1998	9 years, 335 days
11	Wolfgang Thierse (b. 1943)	SPD	26 October 1998	18 October 2005	6 years, 357 days
12	Norbert Lammert (b. 1948)	CDU	18 October 2005	present	18 years, 240 days

*resigned for medical reasons
**died in office
***resigned for political reasons
†first woman to hold the post
§ resigned when he became President of Germany

Organisation

The Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, one of the official buildings of the complex

Parliamentary groups

The most important organisational structures within the Bundestag are parliamentary groups (Fraktionen; sing. Fraktion), which are traditionally formed by political parties represented in the chamber which incorporate more than 5% of the Bundestag legislators; CDU and CSU have always formed a single united Fraktion. The size of a party's Fraktion determines the extent of its representation on legislative committees, the time slots allotted for speaking, the number of committee chairs it can hold, and its representation in executive bodies of the Bundestag. The Fraktionen, not the members, receive the bulk of government funding for legislative and administrative activities.

The leadership of each Fraktion consists of a parliamentary party leader, several deputy leaders, and an executive committee. The leadership's major responsibilities are to represent the Fraktion, enforce party discipline, and orchestrate the party's parliamentary activities. The members of each Fraktion are distributed among working groups focused on specific policy-related topics such as social policy, economics, and foreign policy. The Fraktion meets every Tuesday afternoon in the weeks in which the Bundestag is in session to consider legislation before the Bundestag and formulate the party's position on it.

Parties which do not fulfill the criterion for being a Fraktion but have at least three seats by direct elections (i.e. which have at least three MPs representing a certain electoral district) in the Bundestag can be granted the status of a group of the Bundestag. This applied to the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) from 1990-1998. This status entails some privileges which are in general less than those of a Fraktion. In the current Bundestag, there are no such groups (the PDS had only two MPs in parliament until 2005 and could thus not even considered a group anymore; the party—now The Left—has now returned to the Bundestag with full Fraktion status).

Executive bodies

The Bundestag's executive bodies include the Council of Elders and the Presidium. The council consists of the Bundestag leadership, together with the most senior representatives of each fraktion, with the number of these representatives tied to the strength of the Parliamentary groups in the chamber. The council is the coordination hub, determining the daily legislative agenda and assigning committee chairpersons based on Parliamentary group representation. The council also serves as an important forum for interparty negotiations on specific legislation and procedural issues. The Presidium is responsible for the routine administration of the Bundestag, including its clerical and research activities. It consists of the chamber's president (usually elected from the largest fraktion) and vice presidents (one from each fraktion).

Committees

Most of the legislative work in the Bundestag is the product of standing committees, which exist largely unchanged throughout one legislative period. The number of committees approximates the number of federal ministries, and the titles of each are roughly similar (e.g., defense, agriculture, and labor). There are, as of the current eighteenth Bundestag, 23 standing committees. The distribution of committee chairs and the membership of each committee reflect the relative strength of the various Parliamentary groups in the chamber. In the current eighteenth Bundestag, the CDU/CSU chaired twelve committees, the SPD seven, The Left (Die Linke) two, and the Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), two. Members of the opposition party can chair a significant number of standing committees (e.g. The budget committee is always chaired by the biggest opposition party). These committees have either a small staff or no staff at all.

Principle of discontinuation

As is the case with some other parliaments, the Bundestag is subject to the principle of discontinuation, meaning that a newly elect Bundestag is legally regarded to be a body and entity completely different from the previous Bundestag. This leads to the result, that any motion, application or action submitted to the previous Bundestag, e.g. a bill referred to the Bundestag by the Federal Government, is regarded as void by non-decision (German terminology: "Die Sache fällt der Diskontinuität anheim"). Thus any bill that has not been decided upon by the beginning of the new electoral period must be brought up by the government again, if it aims to uphold the motion, this procedure in effect delaying the passage of the bill. Furthermore, any newly elected Bundestag will have to freshly decide on the rules of procedure (Geschäftsordnung), which is done by a formal decision of taking over such rules from the preceding Bundestag by reference.

Any Bundestag is considered dissolved only once a newly elected Bundestag has actually gathered in order to constitute itself (Article 39 sec. 1 sentence 2 of the Basic Law), which has to happen within 30 days of its election (Article 39 sec. 2 of the Basic Law). Thus, it may happen (and has happened) that the old Bundestag gathers and makes decisions even after the election of a new Bundestag that has not gathered in order to constitute itself. For example, elections to the 16th Bundestag took place on 18 September 2005, but the 15th Bundestag still convened after election day to make some decisions on German military engagement abroad, and was entitled to do so, as the newly elected 16th Bundestag did not convene for the first time until 18 October 2005.

See also

• Bundesrat (Germany)
• Länderkammer
• Parliamentwatch
• Politics of Germany

External links

• Official website
• German election database
• Map of constituencies
• Distribution of power
• Plenary speech search engine