Bundestag

The Federal Parliamentor occasionally Federal Diet(in German): Bundestag, pronounced/хbышустаники( listen)) is the supreme federal legislative body of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is comparable to a low chamber, similar to the United States House of Representatives or the United Kingdom House of Commons. Its main task is to represent the will of the people. Parliament decides federal laws, elects the German chancellor and controls the government's work. Deputies are elected every four years. The Bundestag was established by Title III of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (in German: Grundgesetz, pronounced/рs ə ə /のにzثt( listen)) in 1949 as one of the legislative organs of Germany and, therefore, is the historical successor of the former Reichstag.

The members of the Bundestag are representatives of the German people as a whole, are not bound by any order or instruction, and are only accountable to their electorate. The legal minimum number of Bundestag members (German: Mitglieder des Bundestages) is of 598; however, due to the protruding and level seating system, the current 20th Bundestag has a total of 736 members, making it the largest Bundestag to date.

The Bundestag is elected every four years by all German citizens over the age of 18. Elections use a mixed proportional representation system that combines seats elected by single-member majority vote and proportional party list to ensure that their composition reflects the national popular vote. Early elections are only possible in the cases described in articles 63 and 68 of the Fundamental Law.

The Bundestag has several functions. Together with the Bundesrat, the upper house, the Bundestag constitutes the legislative branch of the Federal Government. The federal states (Bundesländer) of Germany participate through the Bundesrat in a legislative process similar to an upper house in a bicameral parliament; however, the Basic Law considers the Bundestag and the Bundesrat to be separate from each other. However, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat work together in the legislative procedure at federal level.

Since 1999, it has met in the Reichstag building in Berlin. The Bundestag also operates out of multiple new government buildings in Berlin and has its own police force (Bundestagspolizei). The current president of the Bundestag since 2021 is Bärbel Bas of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The 20th Bundestag has five vice presidents.

Name

Bundestag translates to Federal Diet or Parliament, with Bund in this context meaning federation or league, and Tag (day) came to mean meeting in conference or depending on the context parliament -another example is Reichstag- because a council meeting would occur on a certain day of the week, month or year (similar to diet, which is from the Latin dies, day).

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. Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage (and not by the three-class electoral system that prevailed in Prussia until 1918). The Reichstag was not involved in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After the November Revolution of 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Constitution, women were given the right to vote (and be elected) in the Reichstag, and parliament could use a vote of no confidence to force the chancellor or any member of the cabinet to resign. In March 1933, a month after the Reichstag fire, the then President of the Weimar Republic, Paul von Hindenburg, a retired war hero, gave Adolf Hitler final power through the Decree for the Protection of the Individual. and the State and the Enabling Act of 1933, although Hitler remained in the position of Chancellor of the Federal Government (although he called himself Führer). After this, the Reichstag met only rarely, usually at the Krolloper (Kroll Opera) to unanimously approve government decisions. It met for the last time on April 26, 1942.

With the new Basic Law of 1949, the Bundestag was established as the new parliament of West Germany. 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 waterworks facility. Furthermore, due to the legal status of the city, the citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in the Bundestag elections, and were instead represented by 22 non-voting delegates elected by the House of Representatives, the city's parliament..

Federal House in Bonn is the former parliament building of Germany. Sessions of the German Bundestag were held there from 1949 until its transfer to Berlin in 1999. Today it houses the Bonn World Conference Center and in the northern areas the branch of the Bundesrat ("Federal Council"), which represents the Länder, the federal states. The southern areas became part of the German offices for the United Nations in 2008.

The old Reichstag building housed a history exhibition (Fragen an die deutsche Geschichte) and occasionally served as a conference center. The Reichstag building was also occasionally used as the venue for sessions of the Bundestag and its committees and of the Federal Assembly, the body that elects the Federal President. However, the Soviets strongly protested against the use of the Reichstag building by the institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and tried to disrupt the sessions by flying supersonic aircraft near the building.

Since April 19, 1999, the German parliament has met again in Berlin in its original Reichstag building, which was built in 1888 based on plans by German architect Paul Wallot and underwent renovation significant under the introduction of British architect Lord Norman Foster. Parliamentary committees and subcommittees, public hearings and parliamentary group meetings take place in three auxiliary buildings, which surround the Reichstag building: Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, Paul-Löbe-Haus and Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus.

In 2005, a small plane crashed near the German Parliament. Then it was decided to prohibit private air traffic over the center of the city.

Functions

The Bundestag is the Lower House of the German Parliament, with greater functions than those of the Bundesrat or Federal Council (Upper House and representative body of the federated states).

It is before him that the Chancellor and Ministers normally appear. It is made up of at least 598 deputies elected for four years through what is called partially personalized proportional election. The deputies are representatives of the entire people and are not bound by any mandate other than that of their own conscience; that is, prohibition of the imperative mandate. Their work is guaranteed by inviolability and immunity. In practice, the Bundestag works through parliamentary committees and parliamentary groups. Parliamentary groups are made up of at least 5% of the members of the Chamber who belong to the same party or different parties with common objectives, but who do not compete in any State (this is the case of the two Christian Democratic parties CDU and CSU)..

The Bundestag has legislative functions, electoral functions (such as the election of the Federal Chancellor, the vote of no confidence, the vote of confidence), government control functions (such as commissions of inquiry, questions, review of accounts) and functions of representation and formation of the public will.

Choice

Under the German Constitution, the Bundestag is elected by all German citizens over the age of 18 in a free, equal, direct and secret election. There is no obligation to vote.

Elections follow a mixed proportional and majority system. The parties are presented with regional lists for each federal state and with a "direct candidate" for each constituency (299 in total). Each elector has two votes: the so-called "first vote" (Erststimme) for the direct candidate, and the "second vote" (Zweitstimme) for a party list. The "second vow" (Zweitstimme) is decisive for the citizens, since they choose which political party would be part of the Executive, and its leader would head the German Government as federal chancellor.

Seats in the Bundestag are only allocated to parties that obtain a minimum of five percent of the "second vote" (five percent clause or Sperrklausel, by proportional representation) or three direct "first vote" (clause of the basic mandate or Grundmandatsklausel, by direct representation). These clauses must avoid the presence of minority groups in the Bundestag. If a party wins less than 5% and only one or two direct terms, only these directly elected MPs get their seat, the Grundmandatsklausel not being put into practice.

The Bundestag has been elected since 2009 according to the Sainte-Laguë method for a term of four years. The method is the following:

• The total number of votes (of the "second vote") that a party has obtained at the federal level multiplies with the total number of seats in the Bundestag (736 in total in 2021). This number is divided by the total number of valid votes cast. The result is the number of seats the party gets.
• With the same system, the total number of seats in a party is proportionally distributed among its different regional lists. Therefore, if in a federated state electoral participation is greater than in another, it will also get more seats in the Bundestag.
• Within each federated state, the most voted direct candidates in each constituency have secured their seat. If a party in a federated state belongs to more seats of those occupied by the chosen direct candidates, these seats will be distributed according to the regional party list.

• However, if a party has achieved in a federated state more direct mandates than the seats that would belong to it for its "second vote" ratio, the party can stay with these mandates (the so-called Überhangmandate or "excessary orders").

Reichstag in Berlin

In the 2009 elections there were 24 surplus terms for the CDU/CSU, bringing the total number of Bundestag seats to 622.

This effect of the Überhangmandate was widely discussed, because these surplus mandates only benefited the parties that won them and could even be decisive for the majority in the Bundestag. That is why with a reform of the electoral law in 2012 (for the first time in effect in the 2013 elections) compensation mandates (Ausgleichsmandate) were created: Parties without excess mandates will receive compensation mandates until the relations between the parties according to the "second vote" is hit again. This new system may result in a significant increase in the total number of seats.

The Bundestag elections of 2021
Party		Parliamentary leader	Scalls
	Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)	Rolf Mützenich	206
	The Union (CDU/CSU)	Friedrich Merz	197
	Alliance 90/Los Verdes (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen)	Katrin Göring-Eckardt Anton Hofreiter	118
	Free Democratic Party (FDP)	Christian Lindner	92
	Alternative for Germany (AfD)	Alice Weidel Tino Chrupalla	83
	The Left (Die Linke)	Amira Mohamed Ali Dietmar Bartsch	39
	Association of South Schleswig Voters (SSW)	Stefan Seidler	1

Composition in the XX legislature

Parliamentary groups

Parliamentary Groups of the German Federal Parliament

Parliamentary Group		Components	Whip	Leader	Scalls
	Social Democratic Party of Germany Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands	SPD	Katja Mast	Rolf Mützenich	206
	Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and Bavarian Social Union (CSU) Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands and Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern	CDU: 152 CSU: 45	Thorsten Frei	Friedrich Merz	197
	Alliance 90/Green Bündnis 90/Die Grünen	The Greens	Irene Mihalic	Katharina Drögez Britta Haßelmann	118
	Free Democratic Party Freie Demokratische Partei	FDP	Johannes Vogel	Christian Dürr	92
	Alternative for Germany Alternative für Deutschland	AfD	Bernd Baumann	Alice Weidel Tino Chrupalla	78
	The Left Die Linke	Die Linke	Jan Korte	Amira Mohamed Ali Dietmar Bartsch	39
	Not registered Fraktionslos	AfD: 2 SSW: 1 Independent: 3	Matthias Helferich Robert Farle Stefan Seidler Uwe Witt Johannes Huber Joana Cotar		6

Bundestag list by session

Parties in the governing coalition

Bundestag building in Berlin

The Bundestag Palace in Berlin.

Since the move of the German government institutions from Bonn to Berlin, the German parliament is located in the building of the former Reichstag, an emblematic building in the center of the city. After being virtually destroyed during World War II, it was restored and remodeled at the turn of the XX century to house the new Parliament of the Reunited Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The building built at the end of the XIX century after the German unification achieved in the Second Reich, under the hegemony of Prussia, has been the scene of the country's political upheaval.

Shortly after coming to power in 1933, Adolf Hitler dissolved parliament and called elections, leading the Nazi Party. A week before the vote, a fire broke out in the Reichstag building and Hitler, after accusing the communist and social-democratic opposition of the fire, enacted emergency laws, eliminating and persecuting many political opponents..

Currently, the modern dome of the building, made by the English architect Norman Foster, although totally different from the original, has become one of the symbols of the city, since access to it is open to the public and from inside you can see a wide view over the city.