Friday 5th November 2021
“Smells like arrogance”
First row between Union and traffic lights
The traffic light from the SPD, Greens and FDP is not yet there, but there is already massive criticism from the Union. This criticizes the insufficient number of members in the main committee of the Bundestag. This is dangerous because topics such as the Infection Protection Act are discussed here.
A few days before the first working session of the new Bundestag there is the first massive dispute between the Union parliamentary group and the future traffic light parliamentary groups of the SPD, Greens and FDP. “Although the traffic light coalition is only just about to form, it already smells of arrogance in power politics,” said the parliamentary manager of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Michael Grosse-Brömer.
The dispute revolves around how many MPs each parliamentary group sends to the so-called main committee. “The main committee will be the central body for parliamentary work in the coming weeks,” said Grosse-Brömer. With the Infection Protection Act, the committee will advise on the future basis for fighting pandemics and replace all specialist committees. “The main committee must therefore be of an appropriate size.” The traffic light groups want the committee to have 31 members. Accordingly, the SPD should send 9 MPs, the Union 8, Greens 5, FDP 4, AfD 3 and the Left 2. That is not enough for the CDU / CSU. The Union parliamentary group demands at least 39 members: SPD and Union 11, Greens 6, FDP 5, AfD 4, Linke 2. In each of the previous two election periods, the main committee had 47 members.
“Main Committee in Narrow Gauge Size”
In the Union parliamentary group, it is argued that, given the range of topics to be expected in the committee, specialist politicians should be able to cooperate – this is hardly possible if the staffing list is too narrow. In addition to Grosse-Brömer, the CSU parliamentary manager Stefan Müller will sit on the committee for the Union. The remaining members have not yet been named.
Grosse-Brömer said: “The traffic light groups are sacrificing serious parliamentary work on the altar of their coalition negotiations.” Because their people are bound in the negotiations, “they want a main committee the size of a narrow-gauge”. The schedule of the SPD Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz for the coalition negotiations “seems to be above everything,” criticized the CDU politician. “It really wouldn’t have been difficult to increase the number of MPs by eight.”
The Bundestag wants to use the main committee in the second session of the new Bundestag next Thursday. On a transitional basis, important issues are discussed in the body until the standing committees are constituted. It is considered a kind of super committee – important topics such as the planned changes to the Infection Protection Act in the fight against Corona will be discussed there. According to the representation of the Bundestag, the body can only discuss proposals that are referred to it by the plenary.
In addition, important urgent budget proposals can be referred to the main committee. Bundestag President Bärbel Bas from the SPD is in the chair. The negotiations on the composition of the main committee have been going on for a few days, according to information from the Union parliamentary group. The day before, however, the signal came from the future traffic light groups that the body should only have 31 members.