SPD parliamentary group vice-president Bärbel Bas is to become the new president of the Bundestag. The top group wants to nominate the 53-year-old for the office. The executive board unanimously supported a corresponding proposal by SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich, said a spokesman. The group has yet to confirm the identity. Then Bas could be elected next Tuesday at the constituent session of parliament.
The SPD politician from North Rhine-Westphalia moved into the Bundestag in 2009 and represents the Duisburg II constituency as a direct candidate. She has been a member of the SPD parliamentary committee since 2019.
After the Federal President and before the Chancellor, the President of the Bundestag is unofficially the second highest office in the German state in terms of protocol. The President is elected by the MPs, the most important task being to lead the plenary sessions. The office is usually held by the largest parliamentary group.
Bas is to succeed the CDU politician Wolfgang Schäuble in office. He loses his office because the SPD replaces the Union as the largest parliamentary group in the Bundestag after the election in September. Up until now there have been mainly male Bundestag presidents in Germany. With Annemarie Renger (SPD, 1972 to 1976) and Rita Süssmuth (CDU, 1988 to 1998), only two women have held office so far.
The women put pressure on
The occupation was difficult for the Social Democrats, however: they wanted to prevent all the highest state offices from being held by men, namely the Federal President, the President of the Bundestag, the President of the Federal Constitutional Court and a possible Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Among the experienced women in the parliamentary group, however, initially no candidate for the prestigious office came to mind. Although the SPD parliamentary group has a comparatively high quota of women at 42 percent, many of them are still young or have just entered parliament.
In between, parliamentary group leader Mützenich was also in discussion. The women in the SPD recently put pressure on their parliamentary group to definitely fill the office with a woman. If the SPD does not appoint a President of the Bundestag, the intended second term of office of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is in danger, because then one would have to make a woman Federal President, it was said. The former integration commissioner of the federal government, Aydan Özoğuz, is to become vice-president for the SPD in the Bundestag.