Status: 10/20/2021 10:56 a.m.
SPD parliamentary group leader Mützenich wants to join the parliamentary group executive committee ARD-Information Recommend tonight to nominate the SPD MP Bärbel Bas as President of the Bundestag. Mützenich himself was also in discussion for the post.
In the debate about the successor to Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) in the office of President of the Bundestag, the previous SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich wants to inform his parliamentary group executive in the evening ARD capital studios recommend the SPD MPs Bärbel Bas for nomination. The former integration commissioner of the federal government, Aydan Özoguz, is to become the vice-president of the Bundestag.
After the Federal President and before the Chancellor, the President of the Bundestag is one of the highest-ranking offices in the German state. The President is elected by the Bundestag; the most important task is to lead the plenary sessions. The office is usually occupied by the largest parliamentary group, so it falls to the SPD after the federal election.
Moritz Rödle, ARD Berlin, on the presumably designated President of the Bundestag Bärbel Bas
Tagesschau 12:00 p.m., October 20, 2021
Occupation debate
At first it seemed to come down to Mützenich himself. Now there was apparently a rethinking in the party. Social headwinds may also have played a role. If Mützenich had become President of Parliament, the three highest state offices might in future have been filled with older SPD politicians – in addition to Mützenich with Frank-Walter-Steinmeier as Federal President and Olaf Scholz as Federal Chancellor.
The women in the SPD had 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 Steinmeier is in danger, because then a woman would have to be made Federal President, it said.
In the Bundestag since 2009
Bas has been a member of the Bundestag for the SPD since 2009. The 53-year-old represents her hometown Duisburg there. Since 2019, Bas has been one of seven deputy chairmen of the SPD parliamentary group. The trained personnel manager belongs to the parliamentary left in the parliamentary group. Her focus is on health, pension, social and labor market policy. On the website of the parliamentary group, Bas names equal opportunities for all children, “tackle good work”, the safeguarding of the welfare state through solidarity-based citizens’ insurance and secure pensions as the most important goals of her political work.
The possible future Bundestag Vice President Özoguz has also been a member of the Bundestag since 2009. From 2013 to 2018, the Hamburg resident was the Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Refugees and Integration.
So far, two women have been presidents of the Bundestag: the social democrat Annemarie Renger (1972-1976) and the CDU politician Rita Süssmuth (1988-1998).