Control of the secret services: Left puts pressure on the Union: Reichinnek in control committee

The left links the choice of its parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek to the parliamentary control committee with the consent of their parliamentary group in other votes. When asked by a journalist, if Reichinnek would fail if Reichinnek should fail to control the committee responsible for the control of the secret services, the party chairman, Jan van Aken: “Then I would think loudly about how the CDU would actually imagine that in the next four years there are resolutions with a two-thirds majority in parliament.”

CSU politician speaks of provocation

CSU state group leader Alexander Hoffmann had told the “Spiegel” with a view to the secret body: “This highly sensitive committee takes suitable staff instead of party-political provocation. Ms. Reichinnk’s nomination is the opposite.”

Van Aken pointed out that the left, when Friedrich Merz (CDU) was not elected as a Chancellor in the first ballot, had made it possible to choose again on the same day. He added: “If the CDU really wants to be chaos, that there is no reasonable control of the secret services because the left is not checked, then it has to think very carefully.” Such a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag could soon become necessary again-for example when replacing a judge’s office at the Federal Constitutional Court.

The choice of members of the parliamentary control committee is planned for this Thursday. It is planned to reduce the number of members of the committee from 13 to 9 so far – a consequence of the reduction in the Bundestag caused by the electoral reform. The following distribution of seats is planned: Union three seats, SPD and AfD two seats as well as one seat for green and left.

In 2018, the Bundestag voted the then AfD MP Roman Reusch to the committee. Later, no AfD candidate received the required majority. The left was represented in the committee until its faction was dissolved in December 2023. With the loss of the Left faction status, André Hahn was no longer invited to the meetings.