Left-wing faction in the German Bundestag decides on its own end Germany is once again expanding border controls with Switzerland

The left-wing faction in the German Bundestag decided to disband on December 6. Group members announced this in Berlin on Tuesday. The background is the departure of former faction leader Sahra Wagenknecht and nine other MPs from the Left party.

Without them, the left-wing faction will lose its minimum size of 37 MPs and will have to be liquidated. It is a deep turning point for the left and very unusual for parliament.

It is now expected that two new factions will emerge: the other 28 left-wing MPs on the one hand and Wagenknecht and her supporters on the other. We will work to implement this as quickly as possible, Left Party Leader Dietmar Bartsch said before the faction meeting.

Compared to a faction, a group has slightly fewer parliamentary rights and also receives less financial support from the state treasury. A resolution of the Bundestag is needed to approve a group and establish its rights.

Politically, this is a profound turning point for the left. The left-wing faction was formed in 2005 from a merger of parliamentarians from the former East German PDS (ex-SED) and the then new West German WASG. Both parties then merged into Left in 2007. Now it splits again. Wagenknecht would like to establish a rival party in early 2024. Your association “Alliantie Sahra Wagenknecht” is preparing this and is already collecting donations.

More than a hundred employees will be dismissed

The fact that a parliamentary group in the Bundestag is being dissolved during the current parliamentary term is new in Germany. Such ‘liquidations’ have so far only taken place after electoral defeats. In 2013, the FDP faction in the Bundestag was liquidated when it failed to reach the five percent threshold in the Bundestag elections. In 2002, the left-wing predecessor PDS went through such a procedure once. At that time, only two direct candidates reached the Bundestag.

Because employees, rooms and contracts have to be terminated, a liquidation can take years. Before then, the creation of the new parliamentary groups can begin. They need support from the other factions in the Council of Elders and in the plenary. For the time being, the current members of the left-wing faction will probably sit as individual members of the Bundestag.

According to the Bundestag, the left-wing faction received around 11.5 million euros in state funding in 2022 and had personnel costs of around 9.3 million euros. The group must now lay off all 108 employees. Some of them were able to find jobs with the two new groups.

(yam/sda/dpa)