Bundestag: secret service committee without a member of AfD and Linke

In the future, only one opposition MP will be represented in the Bundestag’s secret service committee. Both the left-wing parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek and the two AfD candidates Martin Hess and Gerold Otten missed the necessary majority of 316 votes in the election of the new members of the committee in the Bundestag. In addition to three Union MPs and two SPD representatives, only the Green Group Vice Konstantin von Notz is in the parliamentary control committee (PKGR).

Even the agendas are secret

The PKGR monitors the secret services, gains access to sensitive information and therefore meets under strict confidentiality in a canceled space. The members are nominated by their factions, but must also be elected in the Bundestag.

CSU state group leader Alexander Hoffmann had expressed reservations against Reich Innek before the election. Several SPD politicians, on the other hand, said the left-wing politician was a democrat that could be voted.

The left itself had linked the choice of her parliamentary group leader in advance with the approval of other votes. Sören Pellmann, who shares the chair of the left faction with Reichinnek, threatened after the announcement of the result: “How the Union wants to get two-thirds majorities in the future without the left is questionable.”

During the past parliamentary term, the left was represented by André Hahn in the PKGR, who had to leave, however, when the party lost the parliamentary status through the split off of the BSW.

Reichinnek received 260 yes votes with 258 no votes, 27 abstentions and 42 invalid voices. 127 MPs voted for the AfD candidate Gerold Otten. His group colleague Martin Hess received 121 votes.

The AfD has not been in the control committee in recent years. Only in the first parliamentary term after moving into the Bundestag was the party represented there by the former Berlin chief prosecutor Roman Reusch.

The control committee, in the sessions of which is about terrorist threats, anti -constitutional networks and espionage cases, is reduced from 13 to nine members compared to the past few years. Because Reichinnek, Hess and Otten were not elected, there are actually only six MPs. The North Rhine-Westphalian CDU MP Marc Henrichmann.

“It takes a democratic opposition that also controlled,” said left-wing politician Clara Bünger. A single member of the Greens is not sufficient.

The re-elected Greens representative Konstantin von Notz asked the left to quickly set up a personnel alternative: “In the sense of the ability of the body and the unconditional need for a proper parliamentary control of the important work of the intelligence services, I hope that the left succeeds very promptly to give the parliament and its members a suggestion that The majority find, “he said.

Politicians and politicians of the Greens had warned several times in the past few weeks to reduce the risk of the risk of incapacity to decline. They therefore abstained as the only parliamentary group in the vote on the establishment of the committee.

Because the required majority in the committee is not based on the number of factual members, but on its theoretical size. Unlike in the committees, there are no representatives. If a member fails longer, for example due to an illness or an accident – the seat remains empty.

Unlike the committees of the Bundestag, who do not have to come together after an election and first have to reorganize themselves, the PKGR meets regardless of elections. This also means that politicians who are no longer in the Bundestag – because they no longer run or have not been elected – continue to participate in the meetings. This was the case, for example, for FDP politicians Konstantin Kuhle and Alexander Müller, whose party had failed at the five percent hurdle in the new election in February.