Thursday, December 16, 2021
New space to the right of the center
Union must sit next to AfD in the future
The swap of places with the FDP in the Bundestag is sealed: As the ruling party, the Liberals have got their way and will in future sit in the middle of the plenary – and after 70 years on the right edge. For the CDU and CSU, the decision is an “expression of disrespect”.
Just one week after taking office, the traffic light coalition is throwing the Bundestag upside down: after more than 70 years, the SPD, Greens and FDP have given the plenary hall a new seating arrangement. With today’s parliamentary resolution, the FDP parliamentary group, which previously sat between the AfD and the Union, is moving to the side of the Greens and thus to the center of the plenary. At the same time, the members of the CDU and CSU will sit right next to the AfD parliamentary group in the future – which is causing considerable displeasure in the Union.
The parliamentary manager of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei, called the traffic light approach an “expression of disrespect”. He accused the coalition of wanting to “push his parliamentary group to the edge of the plenary”. The members of the CDU and CSU demonstratively crowned Frei’s appearance in the lively debate with a long final applause. His FDP counterpart, Johannes Vogel, described the placement of the Free Democrats as an anomaly in the political left-right scheme of the previous seating arrangement: “We are a force of the political center, and that is why we also belong in the center of the plenary.”
As early as 1949, the FDP was placed to the right of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the Bonn plenary hall. Until the 1950s there was a strong national liberal tendency in the FDP, while in parts of the Union there was still a debate about Christian socialism. But the FDP’s wish to swap places with the Union became a big issue in the last legislative period at the latest – above all because of the proximity to the AfD’s unpopular newcomers to parliament. “Every normal MP would not want to sit next to you,” said Jan Korte from the Left to the AfD. His parliamentary group supported the exchange of places initiated by the SPD, Greens and FDP. Green parliamentary group leader Irene Mihalic was Solomonic: The desire of the FDP for a change is “at least as understandable” as the desire of the Union to stick to the status quo.
There is no pre-Christmas peace between the parties
But the debate was characterized by mutual accusations: Both the coalition and the opposition emphasized that there are currently more important issues. This is exactly how the traffic light parties justified the fact that they originally wanted to bring the change to the seating arrangement through the Bundestag without a debate. The Union, on the other hand, insisted on a plenary debate, but described the entire reform as a superfluous “sideline”.
In any case, there was no question of pre-Christmas peace in the last week of the meeting of the year, because the AfD is also grumbling. After her candidate for the post of Vice President of the Bundestag – as usual – repeatedly failed to find a majority, her candidates for the chairmanship of the Bundestag committees for home affairs, health and development have now also failed. The AfD abstained from the vote on the seating arrangements. Your MP Stephan Brandner said he no longer wanted to sit next to the “green-left-submissive Postengrapscher troops” and the “blasé types from the FDP”, but in the end he was generous: “We don’t care who sits next to us anyway . “