Parties - Left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag at an end - liquidation underway
The left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag has been politically history since midnight. Its own decision to disband took effect at 00:00 on Wednesday night. This means that all 38 MPs concerned are now considered "non-attached" for the time being. The background to this is the resignation of Sahra Wagenknecht and nine other MPs from the Left Party. They want to found a rival project in January. This was preceded by years of disagreement.
Wagenknecht's fellow campaigner Christian Leye told the German Press Agency that the dissolution of the parliamentary group was naturally accompanied by melancholy. "There are people in the parliamentary group, but also in the party, who I greatly respect and above all value. In the end, however, it was a political decision: The majority of functionaries in the left no longer faced up to the crises of the time." What is needed are answers to social division, economic decline, war and the rise of right-wing anti-democrats. "We are facing up to this, and that is good and right," said Leye.
Liquidation proceedings could drag on for a long time
The former parliamentary group members want to regroup in two different groups in the Bundestag: the remaining 28 Left Party MPs on the one hand and the ten members of the " Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance" on the other. The Left Party has already applied to the Bundestag for this, and Wagenknecht's group intends to do so 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 remains to be seen when the plenary will decide on this.
The Left Party parliamentary group was founded in 2005 by members of the Linkspartei.PDS and the WASG, two years before the formal merger of the two parties. As the parliamentary group would fall short of the minimum size of 37 seats without the ten parliamentarians around Wagenknecht, it decided in November to liquidate as of December 6. The so-called liquidation process could take months or years because all contractual relationships have to be settled. This includes the dismissal of around 100 employees.
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Source: www.stern.de
