Status: 11/26/2022 3:23 p.m
There is sometimes a lot going on in the Bundestag, but insults have no place in Parliament. And yet: The number of calls to order is increasing massively. Why is that?
Insults have no place in the Bundestag. In recent months, however, the President of the Bundestag and her deputies have increasingly had to remind people of this: whether as an interjection or at the lectern – they have issued a total of 19 calls for order since the beginning of the legislative period in October 2021. That is almost three times as many as in the same period of the previous legislative period 2017-2021.
But it’s not just about the numbers, says Bundestag President Bärbel Bas in an interview with the ARD Capital Studio clear. Since the AfD entered the Bundestag in 2017, the tone in the plenum has generally become rougher. “We’ll notice that.” With the AfD, there is a faction that “deals and plays with language very consciously”. On the other hand, the other factions didn’t put up with a lot either, says Bas. “In this respect, since 2017, the factions have been whipping each other up a bit.”
“We don’t want hit lists”
Most of the calls for order have gone to the AfD since 2017: around two thirds – just as in the current as well as in the previous legislative period, as from Numbers of the Bundestag emerges.
Bas wants to prevent calls to order from being deliberately provoked: “We also don’t want there to be hit lists of who received the most calls to order.” Instead, she sees it as the task of her presidency to preserve the dignity of the house and to enable a political, professional discussion in the interests of the citizens: “People should know what the topic is about. That’s the crucial thing.”
“That’s kindergarten”
The President of the Bundestag also reports on letters of complaint that she has received. Tenor: “That’s a kindergarten. I don’t want to listen anymore.” Bas also sees the negative feedback as a warning signal. On the one hand, the Presidium wants to allow debate: “You should also like to be heated.” But where they turned to insults or used terms alluding to the National Socialist era, they would have to impose sanctions. “So that it doesn’t escalate in the end.”
The members of the Bundestag can be sanctioned not only for personal insults, but for anything that “violates the order or the dignity of the Bundestag”. It is in the Bundestag’s rules of procedure. A call to order works primarily at the moment and has hardly any official consequences – only in the case of three calls to order on the same topic is the relevant member of the Bundestag no longer allowed to speak.
There are also no fixed escalation levels in the Bundestag. It is therefore the task of the chair of the meeting to be attentive, to assess the situation and, if necessary, to sanction it with various means: with calls for order or reprimands. In more drastic cases, exclusion from the meeting is possible, and since last year there has also been a fine. So far, however, none have been imposed.