Bundestag session canceled
AfD forces nocturnal mutton jump
7/8/2022 4:28 am
At night, the plenary hall of the Bundestag is usually only sparsely occupied. Strictly speaking, Parliament does not have a quorum. This is usually overlooked – but this time the AfD is standing in the way.
The AfD provoked a termination of the Bundestag session on Friday night. At just before one-thirty, the parliamentary group forced a mutton jump to check the quorum of Parliament. Strictly speaking, more than half of the 736 MEPs have to be present – which is actually never the case at night. So instead of the necessary 369 parliamentarians, only 184 came together in the end.
The Bundestag Vice President Aydan Özoguz then ended the session at 1:58 a.m., which had started at 9 a.m. on Thursday morning. With the so-called mutton leap, the deputies leave the hall and return through different doors, depending on how they want to vote. In this way, the majorities can be clarified just as clearly as the number of parliamentarians present.
The last item on the agenda should actually be voted on as to whether MEPs will be allowed to take part in committee meetings in digital form in the future. However, since the Bundestag proved not to have a quorum, the decision had to be postponed.