MEPs sleep in their offices

Et is a simple office that Member of Parliament Stephan Wefelscheid calls his second home. A few pictures, a lamp, shirts in plastic foil hang on hooks. From the small desk in one corner it’s two steps to the bed in the other corner. Nothing of that can be seen yet. To do this, Wefelscheid pulls a handle on the white wall unit, then the slatted frame and mattress fold out. 90 centimeters by two meters. In a drawer next to it are pillows and blankets, both with an imprint of his hometown club TuS Koblenz. You’re welcome to look around, he says. There is not much to see in the ten square meters.

In front of the office is a short hallway – a kitchenette, about one meter wide, the door to the bathroom with shower and toilet. “It’s not a luxury, it’s more like a student digs,” says Wefelscheid, who is the parliamentary director of the Free Voters in the state parliament. On weekdays, when late evening appointments follow early morning appointments, he usually sleeps in his office in the Mainz House of Representatives. Just like many others.

Each of the 101 members of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament has such a student shack for working and sleeping. The flat state of Rhineland-Palatinate has long distances, it takes up to two and a half hours per trip from Mainz to the remote corners. When the office building was erected in the 1990s, the intention was to offer parliamentarians practical accommodation – and save taxpayers expenses. Are there folding beds in other countries’ parliament houses? At least none is known to the Mainz state parliament administration.

“It was important to me that it was something personal”

At the end of July, the penultimate day of the plenary session ended around half past eight. After a short detour to an association’s parliamentary evening, many flock to the House of Representatives. Sabine Bätzing-Lichtenthäler is one of them. She opens the door to her office. On the kitchen counter is a lemon squeezer with Angela Merkel’s face on it – a gift, she says. She opens the fridge. Wine gum, cola, a few bottles of beer, Krombacher. Normally there is always cold Westerwald brew from their homeland here. She strokes the work surface. Bätzing-Lichtenthäler notes that she has no idea how this stove works. When she comes here, she’ll already have eaten. She only sleeps here.

One step and you are in the room, which looks a bit more homely than in Wefelscheid. She had the desk removed. In order to work, the leader of the SPD parliamentary group has another, larger room on another floor. However, there is no folding bed. It therefore remains unfolded here. “It was important to me that it was something personal,” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed. There is a small red carpet on the floor. On the walls are pictures and reminders of their political stations. This includes a large collage that the employees in the State Ministry of Health gave her when she exchanged the ministerial office for the parliamentary group chairmanship a good two years ago.