Bundestag faction: What the Left loses with this status

New Wagenknecht Party
What the left faces if it loses its parliamentary group status

If Sahra Wagenknecht and her colleagues leave the Left, the party will lose its status as a parliamentary group. This has far-reaching consequences. An overview.

A party currently needs at least 37 MPs to be able to form a parliamentary group in the Bundestag. The Left has 39 MPs so far – with the departure of Sahra Wagenknecht and her alliance of Sahra Wagenknecht colleagues on the Left, the party loses its parliamentary group status. The group of ten around Wagenknecht still wants to remain part of the left-wing faction until the party is founded in January. The parliamentary group will decide on this “sovereignly and calmly,” explained Bartsch in Berlin. Why leave the left but stay in the group? Wagenknecht also justified this with consideration for employees in the group and an “orderly transition”. Nevertheless, the withdrawal will have consequences:

Group instead of faction

If the parliamentary group shrinks to fewer than 37 MPs, it loses its status as a parliamentary group and can only continue as a so-called group. Parliamentary groups in the Bundestag have more rights and receive public funding, for example for organizing events and, above all, for employing employees. With the faction status of the Left, many employees are in danger of losing their jobs. According to the Bundestag, 162 people are working for the Left faction in the current legislative period. As soon as the Left loses its faction status, the faction employees become employees of the faction in liquidation. According to the Bundestag, employees must be terminated “immediately” with the exception of those who are needed to run the parliamentary group.

Co-determination

For certain things in the Bundestag, parliamentary group strength must be present: for example, introducing a bill, submitting motions, making small or large questions, requesting a roll-call vote or a current hour. A group can only do this if it has representatives from other factions behind it: a total of five percent of the representatives, in the current legislative period 37. If all Wagenknecht supporters leave the group, the left would have to convince ten members of other factions of their bill or proposal . Since the party already has a hard time finding coalition partners, it will probably be difficult for it to find fellow campaigners in the Bundestag – especially since the other factions can request a roll-call vote at any time in order to bring dissenters into line with the group or at least expose them. Unlike parliamentary groups, groups cannot summon absent MPs to the Bundestag.

Money

“According to Section 58 Paragraph 1 of the Parliamentary Act, parliamentary groups are entitled to financial and non-cash benefits from the federal budget. There is no corresponding legal regulation for groups; rather, the question of financing would have to be regulated and decided by the Bundestag in individual cases,” replies a press spokesman Bundestag star-Inquiry. “Immediately when the parliamentary group status expires, the right to funding from the federal budget also ends.” Left MPs would suddenly find themselves without federal funding and would have to terminate their employees’ employment contracts immediately.

Way out: Sahra Wagenknecht waives her mandate

The Left leadership had asked Wagenknecht and her supporters to give up their mandates so that MPs from the Left could move up and the group status would be retained. Wagenknecht refuses to waive his mandate.

Sources:“Legal questions of parliamentary group status”PDF on Bundestag.de, “Factions and Groups” on Bundestag.de, Glossary on bundestag.deBundestag press office.