German Bundesrat · Lablypedia

In Germany's bicameral system, the Bundesrat legislates alongside the Bundestag. The Bundesrat members are appointed by state governments; the Bundestag representatives are elected by the German people. While all constitutional changes need the consent of both houses, only certain laws require bicameral consent. Thus Bundesrat is not an equal second house like United States Senate, Swiss Ständerat, or Australian Senate. Its power is closer to the Canadian Senate and the British House of Lords.

The name "Bundesrat" was used by similar bodies in the North German Confederation (1867) and the German Empire (1871). The predecessor of the Bundesrat in the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was the Reichsrat.

The political makeup of the Bundesrat is affected by changes in power in the states of Germany, and thus by elections in each state. Each state delegation in the Bundesrat is appointed by the state government. In contrast to most parliaments, the members of the Bundesrat do not have a free mandate and all members of a state delegation have to vote the same way in each vote. The Bundesrat is a continuous body and has no legislative periods. For organizational reasons, the Bundesrat structures its legislative calendar in years of business (Geschäftsjahre), beginning each year on 1 November. Each year of business is congruous with the one-year-term of the Presidium of the Bundesrat. The sessions have been counted continuously since the first session on 7 September 1949. The Bundesrat's 1,000th plenary meeting took place on 12 February 2021 and was opened with a speech by President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

History

German Confederation

The historical predecessor of the Bundesrat was the Federal Convention (Confederate Diet) of the German Confederation (1815–1848, 1850/1851–1866). That Federal Convention consisted of the representatives of the member states. The first basic law (Bundesakte) of the German Confederation listed how many votes a member state had, for two different formations of the diet. The diet was the only organ – there was no division of powers. The diet was chaired by the Austrian representative.

In the revolution of 1848 the Bundestag transferred its powers to the Imperial Regent and was reactivated only in 1850/1851. Several other attempts to reform the Confederation involved retaining the Bundestag and adding a parliament and a court. One of these attempts, the proposed Reform Act of 1863, had introduced the term Bundesrath. With the dissolution of the Confederation in August 1866, the diet and the federal law ended.

North German Confederation and German Empire (1867–1918)

On 1 July 1867 the North German Confederation was established as a confederal state. The Reichstag, elected by the North German men, was one legislative body. The other one was the Bundesrath (old spelling). This organ was expressly modelled after the old diet. When the Confederation was transformed and renamed Deutsches Reich (German Empire) in 1871, the Bundesrat kept its name.

Whilst appointed by state governments just as today, the delegates of the original Bundesrat—as those of the Reichsrat—were usually high-ranking civil servants, not cabinet members. The original Bundesrat was very powerful; it had the right of legislative initiative and every bill (including the budget) needed its consent, equaling it to the popularly elected Reichstag. It could also, with the Emperor's agreement, dissolve the Reichstag.

Weimar Republic (1918/19–1933)

In the revolution of 1918, the revolutionary organ Rat der Volksbeauftragten ("Council of People's Representatives") limited the power of the Bundesrat to its administrative functions. A Staatenausschuss (committee of states) accompanied the reform of Germany but had no official role in installing the new constitution. Under that Weimar Constitution, ratified on 11 August 1919, it was replaced by the Reichsrat (1919–1934).

The Reichsrat of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) had considerably less influence, since it could only veto bills—and even then be overruled by the Reichstag. However, overruling the Reichsrat needed a majority of two-thirds in the Reichstag, which consisted of many parties differing in opinion. So, in most cases, bills vetoed by the Reichsrat failed due to the lack of unity among the Reichstag's constituent parties. The Reichsrat was abolished by the "Law on the Abolition of the Reichsrat" on 14 February 1934, roughly a year after Hitler had come to power.

Federal Republic (since 1949)

With the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War and the adoption of the Basic Law as the new constitution, the chamber of states was re-established, again under the name 'Bundesrat'. The new Bundesrat, in terms of its power, occupies an intermediate position between the very powerful Bundesrat of the empire and the relatively weak Reichsrat of the Weimar Republic. The Bundesrat now once again has the right of legislative initiative, but its absolute right of veto applies only to certain laws that directly affect the federal states; otherwise its vetos can be overruled by the Bundestag with an absolute majority. The latter also applies to the federal budget.

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Tasks

Legislative process

The Bundesrat is one of three constitutional bodies (along with the Bundestag and the federal government) that have the right of initiative for the legislative process. Legislative initiatives by the federal government must be formally brought to the attention of the Bundesrat, which may respond to them with a statement within six weeks or within three weeks if the government considers the bill to be urgent. The bill can only be discussed in the Bundestag once this statement has been made or the deadline runs out. The Bundesrat can demand an extension of the deadline to nine weeks or, in the case of an urgent bill, to six weeks. If instead the Bundesrat proposes a bill, it must first be submitted to the Federal Government for a statement before the Bundestag can deal with it.

If the Bundestag adopts the bill, it must be forwarded to the Bundesrat. There are two possibilities here:

If a proposed law directly affects the states or if they would have to participate in its enforcement, it is called an "approval bill": The Bundesrat must approve such a bill by a majority vote in order for it to become a law.
If the stated condition is not met, one speaks of an "objection bill": Such a bill becomes a law if the Bundesrat does not object to it within 14 days. However, the Bundestag can overrule the objection with a majority of its members (Chancellor majority). If the Bundesrat lodges an objection with a two-thirds majority, the Bundestag can only overrule it with a two-thirds majority.

The two variants differ significantly because, due to the special voting procedures in the Bundesrat, a positive vote is always more difficult to achieve than a negative one. This is because a majority of all possible votes (currently 35 out of 69) is always required for a positive vote. A delegation can only vote yes on a motion if there is a consensus in the respective state government. If such a consensus does not exist (which is often the case, as most state governments are multi-party coalitions), the delegation must abstain, which in effect has the same result as a no vote. In short, for approval bills, a majority must be present in the Bundesrat, while for objection laws, it is sufficient if no majority is formed against them.

Under no circumstances can the Bundesrat amend a bill. However, in the case of "approval laws" in particular, if the Bundesrat rejects a bill, the matter is often referred to the so-called mediation committee, a body made up of an equal number of members of the Bundestag and Bundesrat, which attempts to negotiate whether the bill can find the approval of both chambers with certain amendments. A version amended in this way must then be passed again by a majority in both chambers in order to become law (in this case the rules of procedure of both chambers provide for an abbreviated legislative procedure).

One important difference between the Bundesrat and an upper house in a true bicameral legislature is that the Bundesrat always decides on a bill only after the Bundestag and can adopt it only in the form adopted by the Bundestag – even if the bill originated in the Bundesrat itself. It is even possible for the Bundesrat to first propose a bill and then reject it after the law has been passed in the Bundestag because the majority in the chamber has changed in the meantime.

Election of judges to the federal constitutional court

The Bundesrat shares responsibility with the Bundestag for electing the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court. Both chambers elect four judges to each of the court's two senates. They also elect the president and vice-president of the Federal Constitutional Court in alternating order. This requires a two-thirds majority, which currently stands at 46 of 69 votes.

Emergency powers

The Bundesrat also has certain powers that can be brought to use in special states of emergency.

Article 81 of the Basic Law provides for a state of legislative emergency. This state may be triggered only if a motion of confidence proposed by the Chancellor fails, the President declines to subsequently dissolve the Bundestag, and the Bundestag rejects a bill designated by the federal government as urgent. At the request of the Chancellor and with the consent of the Bundesrat, the President may declare a legislative emergency with regard to the bill. If the Bundestag then rejects the bill again, adopts it in a version deemed by the federal government to be unacceptable, or refuses to act within four weeks, the bill is deemed to have been passed if the Bundesrat approves it. The Basic Law cannot be amended, repealed or suspended, either in whole or in part, by means of this procedure. The state of legislative emergency lasts six months, and any other bill meeting the conditions in that time may be passed in the same manner. Only one legislative emergency can be declared during a Chancellor's term of office.
Article 91 of the Basic Law provides that in the event of an "an imminent danger to the existence or free democratic basic order of the Federation", the federal government may place the police forces of one or more states under its command and deploy units of the Federal Police to combat the danger. Any order given under this provision may be countermanded by a majority vote of the Bundesrat.

Seat

From 1894 to 1933, the Bundesrat/Reichsrat met in the same building as the Reichstag, today known as Reichstagsgebäude. After 1949, the Bundesrat gathered in the Bundeshaus in Bonn, along with the Bundestag, at least most of the time. A wing of the Bundeshaus was specially built for the Bundesrat.

In 2000, the Bundesrat moved to Berlin, as the Bundestag had done the year before. The Berlin seat of the Bundesrat is the former Prussian House of Lords building. The Bundesrat wing in Bonn is still used as a second seat.

Composition

Historically

For the Federal Diet of 1815, the basic law (Bundesakte) established two different formations. In the Plenary, for the most important decisions, every state had at least one vote. The larger states Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hannover and Württemberg had four votes each; eight lesser states two or three, and the remaining 25 had only one vote.

The North German Confederation was a different entity from the German Confederation, but it can also be regarded as the brainchild of a long lasting reform debate within the German Confederation. The new Bundesrat even referred to the old diet in Article 6, when it redistributed the votes for each states. Prussia, originally with four votes, gained the votes of the states it had annexed in 1866, i.e. Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Holstein, Nassau, and Frankfurt, totaling 17 votes. The total number of votes in 1867 was 43 votes.

When the South German states joined in 1870/71, the revised federal constitutions allocated new votes for them. Bavaria had six votes, Württemberg four, Baden three, and (the whole of) Hesse-Darmstadt three. The total number went up to 58 votes, and in 1911, with three new votes for Alsace-Lorraine, to 61 votes. The Prussian votes remained 17.

To put the Prussian votes in context: 80% of North Germans lived in Prussia, and after 1871, Prussia made up two thirds of the German population and territory. Prussia was always underrepresented in the Bundesrat.

Weimar Republic

The Reichsrat, as a first, had no fixed numbers of votes for the member states. Instead, it introduced the principle that the number depended on the actual number of inhabitants. Originally, states had one vote for every 1 million inhabitants. In 1921, this was reduced to 700,000 inhabitants per vote.

No state was allowed to have more than 40 percent of the votes. This was regarded as a clausula antiborussica, counterbalancing the dominant position of Prussia, which still contained roughly two-thirds of the German population. Also, since 1921, half of the Prussian votes were not cast by the Prussian state government but by the administrations of the Prussian provinces.

For example, of the 63 votes in 1919, Prussia had 25 votes, Bavaria seven, and Saxony five. 12 states had only one vote each.

Today

The composition of the Bundesrat is different from other similar legislative bodies representing states (such as the Russian Federation Council or the U.S. Senate). Bundesrat members are not elected—either by popular vote or by the state parliaments—but are delegated by the respective state government. They do not enjoy a free mandate (for example, most parliamentary privileges in the Bundesrat can be exercised only by a Land, not an individual member) and serve only as long as they are representing their state, not for a fixed period of time. Members of the Bundesrat (suffix "MdBR") do however enjoy the same immunity from prosecution that Members of the German Bundestag have. In addition, Members of the Bundesrat have unlimited access to sessions of the Bundestag (where they have their own benches to the left of the President of the Bundestag) and its committees and can address it at any time. The latter right was most famously used in 2002 by then-Hamburg Senator Ronald Schill, who gave an inflammatory speech that was widely denounced.

Normally, a state delegation consists of the Minister-President (called Governing Mayor in Berlin, President of the Senate in Bremen and First Mayor in Hamburg) and other cabinet ministers (called senators in Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg). State cabinets may appoint as many delegates as the state has votes, and usually do, but may also send a single delegate to exercise all of the state's votes. All other ministers/senators are usually appointed as deputy delegates. In any case, the state has to cast its votes en bloc, i.e., without vote splitting. If Members of the Bundesrat from the same state vote differently, the entire votes of the state are counted as abstention. A famous example of this was a very close vote in 2002 on a new immigration law by the Schröder government, when Deputy Minister-President of Brandenburg Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) cast a no vote and State Minister Alwin Ziel (SPD) cast a yes vote. As state elections are not coordinated across Germany and can occur at any time, the majority distributions in the Bundesrat can change after any such election. Even without a new state election, it is possible that the state parliament installs a new state government because a new state coalition has formed.

The number of votes a state is allocated is based on a form of degressive proportionality according to its population. This way, smaller states have more votes than a distribution proportional to the population would grant. The presence of the small city-states of Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin prevents the Bundesrat from having the rural and conservative bias of other similar legislative bodies biased in favor of small states. The allocation of votes is regulated by the German constitution (Grundgesetz). All of a state's votes are cast en bloc—either for, against, in abstention of a proposal. Each state is allocated at least three votes, and a maximum of six. States with more than

2 million inhabitants have 4 votes,
6 million inhabitants have 5 votes,
7 million inhabitants have 6 votes.

By convention, SPD-led Länder are summarized as A-Länder, while those with governments led by CDU or CSU are called B-Länder.

While legislative terms of the Bundestag are numbered, with the 21st Bundestag taking office in 2025, the Bundesrat has none, being a permanent institution with membership changes staggered state by state. Meetings have been numbered in a single sequence since 1949: it had its 1,000th plenary meeting on 12 February 2021.

Voting

In contrast to many other legislative bodies, the delegates to the Bundesrat from any one state are required to cast the votes of the state as a single bloc (since the votes are not those of the respective delegate). The delegates are not independent members of the Bundesrat but instructed representatives of the federated states' governments. If the members of a delegation cast different votes then the entire vote of the respective state is invalid. This tradition stems from the 1867 Bundesrat. It is a constitutional requirement.

The delegates of a state are equal to each other in the Bundesrat, hence the minister president has no special rights compared to his ministers. But it is possible (and even customary) that one of the delegates (the Stimmführer, "leader of the votes"—normally the minister president) casts all votes of the respective state, even if the other members of the delegation are present. In practice if the different parties that form a state government disagree in whether to vote for a proposal, the whole state delegation will abstain.

Between 1949 and 1990, West Berlin was represented by four members, elected by its Senate, but owing to the city's ambiguous legal status, they did not have voting rights.

Because coalition governments are common in the states, states frequently choose to abstain if their coalition cannot agree on a position. Abstaining has the same effect as voting against a proposal, as every Bundesrat decision requires a majority of seats (i.e., 35) in favour, not just a majority of votes cast or a majority of delegates present.

For laws which require explicit Bundesrat consent (Zustimmungsgesetze, consent laws) these abstentions mean that several political parties represented in the Bundesrat possess a de facto veto on legislation, as they can block the votes of 35 or more seats.

During the 2021–2024 traffic light coalition, two of the three government parties held such a veto (SPD and Greens, not the FDP), as well as the opposition CDU/CSU, leading to a de facto four-way coalition. For the 16 years prior under chancellor Angela Merkel, the Greens held such a veto, and used it to prop up the price of emissions certificates. Following the 2024 elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, only SPD and CDU/CSU retain veto power. The federal grand coalition of these parties (Merz cabinet 2025-2029) is thus unobstructed by vetoes based on party lines, unless the Greens (or another party) gain participation in the governments of states worth three more seats.

During times in which an opposition party holds a veto, the government seeks its prior approval for legislative initiatives. If an agreement fails, the government tends to shelve laws to avoid appearing incapable of acting. This legislative self-restraint of the federal government shows up in empirical analysis of federal legislation.

Consent laws constitute the majority of politically important laws, and one third overall.

Presidency

Originally from 1867 to 1918, the Bundesrat was chaired by the chancellor, although he was not a member and had no vote. This tradition was kept to a degree when since 1919 the Reichsrat still had to be chaired by a member of the imperial government (often the minister of the interior).

Since 1949, the presidency rotates annually among the Minister-Presidents of each of the states. This is fixed by the Königsteiner Abkommen, starting with the federated state with the largest population going down. The President of the Bundesrat convenes and chairs plenary sessions of the body and is formally responsible for representing Germany in matters of the Bundesrat. The president is aided by two Vice Presidents who play an advisory role and deputise in the president's absence; the predecessor of the current President is first, his presumptive successor second Vice President. The three together make up the Bundesrat's executive committee.

The President of the Bundesrat ("Bundesratspräsident"), is fourth in the order of precedence after the Federal President, the President of the Bundestag, the Chancellor and before the President of the Federal Constitutional Court. The President of the Bundesrat becomes acting Federal President of Germany, in case that the office of the Federal President should be vacant.

Organizational structure

Because the Bundesrat is so much smaller than the Bundestag, it does not require the extensive organizational structure of the Bundestag. The Bundesrat typically schedules plenary sessions once a month for the purpose of voting on legislation prepared in committee. In comparison, the Bundestag conducts about fifty plenary sessions a year.

The voting Bundesrat delegates themselves rarely attend committee sessions; instead, they delegate that responsibility to civil servants from their ministries, as allowed for in the Basic Law (art. 52,2). The delegates themselves tend to spend most of their time in their state capitals, rather than in Berlin. The delegations are supported by the Landesvertretungen, which function basically as embassies of the states in the federal capital Berlin.

Ausschüsse

The Bundesrat has 16 standing committees (ständige Ausschüsse):

Committee on Agricultural Policy and Consumer Protection (Ausschuss für Agrarpolitik und Verbraucherschutz (AV))
Committee on Labour, Integration and Social Policy (Ausschuss für Arbeit, Integration und Sozialpolitik (AIS))
Committee on Foreign Affairs (Ausschuss für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (AA))
Committee on European Union Questions (Ausschuss für Fragen der Europäischen Union (EU))
Committee on Family and Senior Citizens (Ausschuss für Familie und Senioren (FS))
Committee on Finance (Finanzausschuss (Fz))
Committee on Women and Youth (Ausschuss für Frauen und Jugend (FJ))
Committee on Health (Gesundheitsausschuss (G))
Committee on Internal Affairs (Ausschuss für Innere Angelegenheiten (In))
Committee on Culture Affairs (Ausschuss für Kulturfragen (K))
Committee on Legal Affairs (Rechtsausschuss (R))
Committee on the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Ausschuss für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit (U))
Committee on Transport (Verkehrsausschuss (Vk))
Committee on Defense (Ausschuss für Verteidigung (V))
Committee on Economy (Wirtschaftsausschuss (Wi))
Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Regional Planning (Ausschuss für Städtebau, Wohnungswesen und Raumordnung (Wo))

Criticism

Some observers claim that the opposing majorities lead to an increase in backroom politics, where small groups of high-tier leaders make all the important decisions and the Bundestag representatives have a choice only between agreeing with them or not getting anything done at all. The German "Federalism Commission" was looking into this issue, among others. There have been frequent suggestions of replacing the Bundesrat with a US-style elected Senate, which would be elected at the same date as the Bundestag. This is hoped to increase the institution's popularity, reduce Land bureaucracy influence on legislation, make opposing majorities less likely, make the legislative process more transparent, and generally set a new standard of democratic, rather than bureaucratic leadership.

Other observers emphasize that different majorities in the two legislative bodies ensure that all legislation, when approved, has the support of a broad political spectrum, a particularly valuable attribute in the aftermath of unification, when consensus on critical policy decisions is vital. The formal representation of the states in the federal government, through the Bundesrat, provides an obvious forum for the coordination of policy between the states and the federal government. The need for such coordination, particularly given the specific, crucial needs of the eastern states, has become only more important.

Supporters of the Bundesrat claim that the Bundesrat serves as a control mechanism on the Bundestag in the sense of a system of checks and balances. Since the executive and legislative functions are closely intertwined in any parliamentary system, the Bundesrat's ability to revisit and slow down legislative processes is often seen as making up for that loss of separation.