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Tag: German Bundestag

  • German Bundestag holds record session

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    Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, has broken its own sitting-length record for the current legislative period.

    The plenary session that began at 9 am (0800 GMT) on Thursday did not end until 1:42 am on Friday, when the vice president of the Bundestag, Omid Nouripour, finally brought it to a close.

    The previous record, set in June, had seen the session wrap up at 12:29 am.

    Thursday’s sitting was prolonged when the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) questioned around midnight whether parliament still had a quorum. For the Bundestag to be considered quorate, more than half of its 630 members must be present.

    In the roll-call vote on the Veterinary Medicinal Products Act that followed, the required minimum was reached. But the interruption during the vote pushed lawmakers’ end of day even further into the night.

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  • Suspected Hamas member arrests spark German dual citizenship debate

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    German conservative lawmaker Alexander Throm raised the question whether dual citizens convicted of terrorist acts on German soil should face easier revocation of their citizenship, following the arrest of three suspected Hamas operatives.

    Currently, German law allows citizenship to be stripped if someone joins a foreign terrorist organization, Throm told the Handelsblatt business newspaper. “There is no reason why this should not also apply to terror acts committed in Germany,” he said.

    The three suspects, including a naturalized Lebanese-born man and a naturalized Syrian-born man, were arrested in Berlin on Wednesday and are scheduled to appear before a judge on Thursday.

    Authorities say they acted as foreign operatives for Hamas, procuring an assault rifle, pistols and ammunition from Germany. The weapons were allegedly intended for attacks on Israeli or Jewish sites in Germany. They are said to have been procuring firearms and ammunition since at least the summer of 2025.

    Hamas denied any connection, calling the claims baseless and an attempt to “harm the movement’s reputation and distort the German people’s sympathy with our Palestinian people.”

    Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said a terrorist suspect known to security authorities with links to Hamas had entered the country several months ago. It had been unclear who, or which event or facility, the planned attacks were targeting.

    German authorities may revoke the citizenship of dual nationals involved in terrorist activities abroad to prevent their return and reduce potential security risks, as they fall outside the reach of the domestic justice system.

    Individuals engaged in such activities within Germany, however, remain subject to prosecution and punishment under the country’s criminal laws.

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  • German opposition slams government’s budget plans

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    Members of Germany’s opposition on Tuesday ripped into the government’s plans for the 2025 budget, which are set to be at the heart of parliamentary debate this week.

    Lawmakers are to vote on this year’s budget in the coming days, after failure to agree on how to plug a multibillion-euro hole brought down the previous administration of chancellor Olaf Scholz in November last year.

    Subsequent early elections in February meant this year’s budget had to wait until a new government was in place, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative-led alliance taking the helm in May.

    Thanks to the delay, the 2025 budget is only set to be in effect for three months if lawmakers approve the plans at the end of the week – which has made it comparatively easy for Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil to come up with a draft.

    Regardless, opposition lawmakers accused the government of relying too heavily on borrowing after the coalition moved to exempt spending on defence and infrastructure from the country’s strict debt rules.

    According to Michael Espendiller, chief budgetary officer for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the government is “unabashedly pursuing the most extreme level of debt this country has ever seen.”

    His party, the biggest opposition force, advocates complying with Germany’s debt rules known as the debt brake, and has proposed cutting funding for climate measures, EU contributions and arms deliveries to Ukraine instead.

    Ines Schwerdtner from The Left party, meanwhile, said the money was not reaching those needing it the most.

    “Never before has a government spent so much money, and never before has so little reached the people,” the far-left party leader said.

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  • Human rights commissioner: Afghans urgently need visas for Germany

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    The human rights commissioner of the German government, Lars Castellucci, has called on the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Office to expedite the admission of vulnerable Afghan men and women from Pakistan.

    He wrote on the platform X on Friday that the government coalition had agreed on an orderly and humanitarian migration policy. The lengthy examinations in the case of the Afghanistan admission programme fulfil neither, he added. Castellucci argued that those who want to curb illegal migration must simultaneously open legal pathways.

    Time is pressing due to deportations

    Castellucci demanded that those who have received a legally binding promise of entry to Germany through the Federal Admission Programme for Afghanistan must also receive their visa “promptly.” He said that time is pressing in light of deportations from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

    German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt stated that each case would be examined to determine whether there is a legally binding obligation to admit. He also said that a security check would be conducted.

    This concerns Afghans who are considered at risk because they have advocated for democratic rights or once worked as local staff for the German Armed Forces or German organizations. These people, along with their family members, have an admission promise from the previous coalition government.

    Since the German embassy in Kabul has been closed since Afghanistan was retaken by the Islamist Taliban in 2021, they are undergoing the examination process in Pakistan.

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