GRünen parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann wants to implement the electoral reform planned by the Ampel-Coalition for this year, if necessary against resistance from the CSU. “Electoral law reforms are passed if possible in consensus with all democratic parties, that is also our claim,” said Haßelmann to the newspapers of the Funke media group on Monday. “We will approach the others. But if it turns out that the CSU, like in the last eight years, obstructs every possibility, then you have to do it without them if necessary Suffrage reform blocked ”.
In their coalition agreement, the SPD, the Greens and the FDP agreed to revise the electoral law within the first year “in order to prevent the Bundestag from growing in the long term”. The target size of the parliament is 598 members. However, this is increased by the fact that a party that wins more direct mandates than it is entitled to after the second vote result is allowed to keep these seats. The other parties receive compensation mandates for this, which leads to a further increase. In the most recent election, the number of MPs rose from 709 to 736. The Bundestag has never been larger.
In the last legislative period, the Greens, FDP and Left had submitted a joint draft law for a reform, but were unable to enforce it. The Union and the SPD then only agreed on a mini-reform with very limited effects.
Hasselmann said the time pressure was great. In the past two legislative periods, a reform had been discussed for three years “until either no or only a very poor agreement was reached shortly before the next federal election”. “We therefore want to initiate a real reform in the first year. The goal is the significant reduction in size and the approximation to the target size of 598. “