parties
Bartsch: End of the left faction turning point for leftists in Europe
Dietmar Bartsch sees the end of the Left as a bitter defeat. photo
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
They did politics together for years, but now the Left and the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” are parting ways in the Bundestag. The end makes politicians on both sides sad.
Due to the dissolution of the group, its 108 employees will be laid off. Some are likely to later find accommodation with the Left Group or the Wagenknecht Group. Bartsch told the Editorial Network Germany (RND) that the Left as a group would continue to employ some of the employees, “but in the end there will be significantly fewer because there will be no global subsidies for the group in the future.” Unfortunately for many it is the end.
The former parliamentary group members want to regroup in two different groups in the Bundestag: the remaining 28 MPs from the Left on the one hand and the ten MPs from the “Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance” on the other. The Left has already applied for this to the Bundestag, and Wagenknecht’s group wants to do it next week.
Such groups generally have fewer rights in the Bundestag than parliamentary groups and also receive less financial support from the state. The details will be regulated in a Bundestag resolution. It is unclear when the plenary session will decide on this.
Bartsch: “I don’t feel threatened by Sahra Wagenknecht”
Wagenknecht’s colleague Christian Leye told the German Press Agency that there was of course sadness when the faction was dissolved. “In the group, but also in the party, there are people who I respect very much and, above all, value. In the end, however, it was a political decision: the majority of the officials on the left no longer faced the crises of the time. ” Bartsch, on the other hand, emphasized at the digital media house Table.Media that Wagenknecht was addressing dissatisfied people who did not want to vote for the left or the AfD. “I don’t feel threatened by Sahra Wagenknecht.”
The left-wing faction was founded in 2005 from members of the Left Party.PDS and the WASG, two years before the two parties formally merged. Since the parliamentary group would miss the minimum size of 37 seats without the ten parliamentarians around Wagenknecht, it decided in November to liquidate itself from December 6th. The so-called liquidation process could take months or years because all contractual relationships have to be wound up. This includes the termination of around 100 employees.