Hamburg: Green MPs punished for lack of party discipline

Hamburg
Green MPs fined for lack of party discipline

Hamburg’s Green Party Member of Parliament, Miriam Block, was relieved of her parliamentary group posts. photo

© Moritz Frankenberg/dpa

SPD and Greens had agreed on a scientific review of the NSU complex instead of a committee of inquiry. One MP voted against. Now that has consequences.

Due to a lack of party discipline, the Hamburg Green Party MP Miriam Block has been relieved of her parliamentary group offices. The background was a dispute over the processing of a murder by the right-wing extremist terrorist cell National Socialist Underground (NSU).

On Monday evening, after hours of deliberation, 22 Green MPs agreed to a proposal by the party and parliamentary group executives as well as the Green Senate members to vote Block out as science and university policy spokeswoman. According to a spokesman, 7 MPs voted against it at a parliamentary group meeting. According to the information, a majority of the deputies also approved their dismissal from the interior and science committee of the state parliament.

Controversy over Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry

The background to this was the controversy surrounding the establishment of a parliamentary investigative committee into the NSU murder of the Hamburg greengrocer Süleyman Taşköprü in 2001. The left-wing faction had submitted a corresponding motion the week before last, which the block had approved, although the Greens and their coalition partner SPD had previously agreed on a scientific processing of the NSU complex instead of a committee of inquiry. The party leadership accused the 33-year-old of having harmed the Greens through their voting behavior and their communication on the subject.

Over the years, the NSU had, among other things, murdered nine tradespeople of Turkish and Greek origin and a policewoman.

The deselection and dismissal of blocks from the parliamentary group offices are “the consequence of the behavior of the MPs in recent weeks,” said the parliamentary group leader Dominik Lorenzen. “The deputy has repeatedly violated common agreements and shared rules of communication. From the point of view of the parliamentary group, the step that has now been taken is therefore necessary, but at the same time it was not easy for everyone involved.”

dpa

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