As of: December 9th, 2021 12:05 p.m.
She did not become a minister – instead, the previous Green Group leader Göring-Eckardt has her old job back: She is again Bundestag Vice-President. The AfD again did not receive a majority for its candidate.
The first session of the Bundestag after the change of government began with an election, and the result has been clear since noon: The MPs appointed the Green politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt as Vice-President of Parliament. As one of the current five deputies of Bundestag President Bärbel Bas, she is now responsible, among other things, for chairing the plenary sessions.
Göring-Eckardt received the necessary majority in the first ballot, with 501 of 689 votes cast.
Familiar terrain
The work in the Bureau is nothing new for her, the 55-year-old was already Vice-President of Parliament from 2005 to 2013. Since then, Göring-Eckardt has sat together with Anton Hofreiter in front of the Green parliamentary group, but in the end did not stand for election. She was in talks for a ministerial post in the new Ampel government, but never got a move.
Uli Meerkamm, ARD Berlin, “As long as the AfD puts such members up for election, they will be rejected”
daily news 12:00 p.m., December 9th, 2021
AfD candidate rejected again
The AfD MP Michael Kaufmann suffered another defeat. He had already stood for election to the Presidium at the constituent session of the Bundestag in October, but received only 118 yes-votes at the time. Today, in the second ballot, there were even fewer: 94 MPs voted for Kaufmann and 572 against him.
According to the rules of procedure of the Bundestag, each parliamentary group has the right to propose a vice-position in the Presidium, but the MPs are not obliged to elect the respective candidate. In the previous legislative period, none of the AfD candidates had received the required majority. The party therefore moved to the Federal Constitutional Court. However, the court rejected the urgent application.
Kaufmann was Vice President of the Thuringian State Parliament until his election to the Bundestag.
Image: EPA
Thanks to Roth
The Green Göring-Eckardt succeeds her party colleague Claudia Roth, who is planned as the new Minister of State for Culture. Bundestag President Bas thanked Roth for more than eight years of work. She said of herself that she had always led the parliamentary sessions “with passion, heart and attitude” – one could only “fully agree”, said Bas.