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"Grilling" the chancellor publicly - and the question of how far the opposition can go

Parliament should become the focus of political decisions, the Bundestag should struggle more purposefully for solutions and concepts - the coalition and opposition agree on these points.

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"Grilling" the chancellor publicly - and the question of how far the opposition can go

Parliament should become the focus of political decisions, the Bundestag should struggle more purposefully for solutions and concepts - the coalition and opposition agree on these points. The vast majority of MPs want to overcome the political style of Angela Merkel's (CDU) era, which often attracted attention due to decisions being made in small circles and behind closed doors.

However, there is disagreement between the traffic light groups and the Union as to how this could be achieved. The governing coalition has now submitted a proposal to change the rules of procedure of the Bundestag, which, according to WELT information, has met with severe criticism from the Union faction: The members of the CDU and CSU feel their rights as opposition are massively restricted if the new traffic light Rules in the Bundestag apply.

In the Bundestag there are apparently fans of the sessions in the British House of Commons. There is often violent, passionate, sometimes tumultuous arguments. Some members of the Bundestag would also like to have a little more of the mood in London and the opportunities for parliamentarians there to cross-examine government representatives directly. Especially those of the Union.

“The rules of procedure of the Bundestag have essentially not been reformed since 1980 and have long since fallen out of date. This is also reflected in the often boring debates," says Patrick Schnieder (CDU), parliamentary director of the Union faction, WELT. What a whole series of representatives of the traffic light factions basically sees it that way.

Unlike the British House of Commons, in which the plenary debates are in the foreground, the Bundestag is a combination of speech and working parliament. The number of debates in the Reichstag that could be considered the great moments of parliamentarism are manageable, the strength lies in the work of the committees.

“If we want to strengthen our democracy, we have to make parliament the central and most important place of political debate again. This requires that the debates finally become more exciting and lively again," Schnieder demands.

In the Union, alive is understood to mean more opportunities to question the members of the federal government intensively, to "barbecue", as it is called in the US parliament. The traffic light representatives mean by alive, however, more insights into the work of the committees, i.e. where the actual legislative work is done. Both approaches would be compatible. But so far, the coalition and the Union have each stuck to their priorities.

The CDU/CSU now want to submit their own motion to change the Bundestag's rules of procedure this week. "Thanks to the coalition MPs, the already proverbial 'Scholzomat' comes into its own in the chancellor survey," scoffs the first parliamentary manager of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei (CDU). But what is also part of the truth: If members of parliament were to concentrate on key issues and not catalogs of topics, the chancellor could be pinched more.

However, the traffic light factions will not do this. The coalition rejects the Union's proposal to invite the Chancellor regularly every quarter to the Bundestag and to question him there. "We don't want to turn the chancellor questioning into an everyday ritual, that would wear out," says Johannes Fechner, SPD MP and member of the Rules of Procedure Committee.

The traffic light also does not want to support the demand of the Union faction to extend the regular duration of the government survey from 60 to 120 minutes. 90 minutes is enough for the coalition. In the future, two ministers will answer questions from Parliament during this time. What is promptly seen in the Union as a trick. Because the leadership of the debate could thwart the opportunity to follow up by leading to questions for the second cabinet member.

"There can be no question of a restriction of the rights of the opposition," SPD politician Fechner defends the traffic light plans: "You can also cross-examine two ministers, precisely because we are extending question time by 30 minutes."

What is more important to the coalition, on the other hand, is that there are deeper insights into the work of the Bundestag committees. To date, the committees have generally not met in public. However, they can decide to allow the public for a certain item or parts of it, which happens again and again. In its application, the traffic light is now planning for the committees to be able to decide themselves whether and to what extent they will advise in public meetings.

"They take particular account of the public's interest in public meetings," says the traffic light paper. This should initially apply to some of the committees. The committees on foreign, home affairs, defense policy and finance are largely left out because too much confidential data is being dealt with.

"The fact that we are finally shedding more light on the engine rooms of our parliamentary work - the committees - is an expression of transparency and offers the widest possible insight into how decisions are made," says Filiz Polat, the parliamentary director of the Greens, promoting the initiative.

In the future, citizens could experience live and practically how the "Struck law" works, named after the former SPD parliamentary group leader Peter Struck: According to this, no bill comes out of parliament the way it came in.

Not all members of the Bundestag, including those in the traffic light groups, like the fact that their committee meetings will be broadcast live in the future. Across the parties, parliamentarians see the danger that “even more window speeches” will then be held, as one member of the Bundestag puts it.

This is how people think, especially in the Union. That is why the application from the CDU and CSU, which will be submitted this week, says: “The principle of non-public committee deliberations will therefore be adhered to.”

"Kick-off Politics" is WELT's daily news podcast. The most important topic analyzed by WELT editors and the dates of the day. Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, among others, or directly via RSS feed.

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