The left-wing parliamentary group no longer exists
Sahra Wagenknecht and nine other Left Party MPs have handed in their party books, but they want to keep their seats in the Bundestag. Now comes the inevitable end of the parliamentary group. Parliament now has an unusually large number of individual MPs at times.
The Left Party parliamentary group in the Bundestag has been politically history since midnight. Its own decision to disband took effect at 00:00. 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 said 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.
Group status applied for
The former parliamentary group members want to reorganize themselves into 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. For example, small and large questions or requests for a topical debate require parliamentary group status or a majority of five percent of MPs. Groups also receive less financial support from the state. The details are 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 Left Party.PDS and the WASG, two years before the formal merger of the two parties. On October 23, Wagenknecht and nine other MPs announced their resignation from the Left Party. However, they wanted to keep their seats. 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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Despite leaving the Left Party, Sahra Wagenknecht and nine other MPs aim to maintain their seats in the German federal parliament, leading to the dissolution of the Left Party parliamentary group. Subsequently, they plan to apply for group status in the Bundestag, splitting into two separate groups: one led by Wagenknecht and the remaining 28 Left Party MPs, and another group yet to be named.
Source: www.ntv.de
