Bundestag

The members of the Bundestag are representatives of the German people as a whole, are not bound by any orders or instructions and are only accountable to their electorate and their conscience.^[d] The minimum legal number of members of the Bundestag (German: Mitglieder des Bundestages) is 598;^[e] however, due to the system of overhang and leveling seats the current 20th Bundestag has a total of 735 members, making it the largest Bundestag to date and the largest freely elected national parliamentary chamber in the world.^[3] The members of the Bundestag refer to their workplace as Hohes Haus, august house.


The Bundestag is elected every four years by German citizens^[f] aged 18 and older.^[g] Elections use a mixed-member proportional representation system which combines first-past-the-post elected seats with a proportional party list to ensure its composition mirrors the national popular vote. Germany's parliament can only be dissolved by the President of Germany, and only after the chancellor failed to maintain the confidence of the parliament in a vote called for either by him or a majority of the house.


The Bundestag has several functions, among which a few are shared with the Bundesrat. It is the chief legislative body on the federal level, producing the federal government and its presiding chancellor. The individual states (Bundesländer) of Germany participate in the legislative process through the Bundesrat, a separate assembly sharing several privileges with the house.^[4] The Bundestag elects and oversees the chancellor and their ministers, to each of which the parliament constituted mirroring committees for oversight (Ausschüsse). Setting the government budget is the parliament's primary privilege, for which to execute it assembles the largest and most important committee of the house. Opposed to most debates in the Bundestag focussing on a specific topic, budget bills from the committee are heavily debated in the style of a review and general criticism on the government for the past year (Generaldebatte). The Bundestag also exclusively mandates about deployment, dispatch and assignments of the Bundeswehr, Germany's military. The commander-in-chief, which is the federal minister of defence, is obliged to and acting on behalf of the parliament (Parlamentsarmee).


Since 1999, the Bundestag has met in the Reichstag building in Berlin.^[5] The Bundestag also operates in multiple new government buildings in Berlin around the neo-renaissance house and has its own police force (the Bundestagspolizei), directly subordinated to the Bundestag Presidency. Since 2021, Bärbel Bas of the SPD is the president of the Bundestag, with as much as five vice presidents, one from each faction. The presidents and vice presidents of the parliament are elected by the members of the parliament from among their midst. Usually each faction's proposed candidate gets a simple affirmation for the office by a vote of the whole house, no matter whether the faction is governing or in opposition and regularly without distinction of person. The radical-right AfD is the first and only faction in the history of reunited Germany not being able to take seat in the Bundestag presidency, failing to do so in 17 votes of the house.^[6] The denial to affirm a vice president from the AfD is seen as a vote of no confidence and distrust of the house in the only faction observed by Germany's domestic intelligence agency.^[7]


As the President of Germany is the head of state, and the Bundestag would produce, oversee and control the government, the president of the Bundestag is the second-highest ranking administrator of Germany. The chancellor, albeit head of government, is only the third-highest ranking administrator and has to petition both the presidents he is subordinated to for certain procedures.


The 20th German Bundestag is the most visited parliament in the world, as well as the largest elected legislative body in the world.^[8]

Tasks[edit]

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 written question previously submitted by 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. The opposition parties actively exercise their parliamentary right to scrutinize government actions.


Constituent services also take place via 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.^[13]