On Tuesday (25/03) the first meeting of the New Bundestag is held, as it emerged after last February – a first meeting with fewer MPs compared to the past.

The last Bundestag had 733 seats. In the new House, on the other hand, the number of Members will only reach 630.

Thus, Bundestag is no longer the world’s largest parliament – a distinction now enjoys the European Parliament with 720 seats. In the list is even above Bundestag, in second place, the British House of Commons with 650 MPs. The smallest parliament is that of the Pitcard Islands, where only ten Members meet.

Size counts

But why is the size of the House important? Because the number of parliamentary seats clearly reflects how the electorate is represented. In India, for example, the House has only 543 MPs, representing 1,438 billion citizens – in other words each MP represents an average of 2.6 million people! In Germany, on the other hand, the ratio is about one to 134,000.

In the US, one of the oldest democracies in the world, each of the 425 politicians in the House of Representatives represents around 733,000 people. The point, however, is that the number of Members was guaranteed in 1911 – but since then the country’s population has tripled.

The case of India, where since 1989 has been set at 550 seats, although the population has increased rapidly in recent decades. That is why, in proportion to the number of citizens, the Indian Parliament is the smallest of the planet.

Only 50 people live in the Pitcard Islands, with the ratio of MPs-Politics being 1: 5-which looks like a real luxury for countries such as India, the US and Germany. Let us think about what would happen if Germany sought a similar proportion: Bundestag would have almost… 17 million MPs!

Budstag has changed many times

Since the first elections of 1949, the number of Bundestag seats has changed many times – either because of some revision of electoral law or again due to the accession of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1990.

Prior to 1990, Bundestag had 497 seats, and after Germany’s reunification they increased to 662, as in the new states, those of the former GDG lived about 17 million people. In 2002 an attempt was made to limit the seats to 602 through the reduction of the constituencies.

Since then, Bundestag has had a different number of Members each time due to the provision for the “überhangmandate” and the “Ausgleichsmandate” commands. Overworked orders allowed additional members to elect a party directly from the constituencies, followed by compensatory orders to the parties that had not received overwhelming orders.

If this system seems complicated, then … you are absolutely right. That is why the latest Bundestag reviewed the electoral law, with seats now set at 630 – the supernatural and equation orders were abolished.

Another revision of the electoral law?

Awaiting Chancellor and leader of the CDU, Friedrich Mertz, has already announced that he will make another revision of the electoral regulation. Because the new legislation leads to the paradox to be elected directly candidates from the regions and nevertheless not given a seat in the House – because in some cases the number of directly elected candidates is higher than the number of Members who may have proportionally in Bundestag.

The CDU is lost in particular, with Mertz arguing that the new legal framework only damages its own party. “This is something to be corrected,” Merz said shortly after the election. Therefore, one should not be surprised if in the next Budstag the number of Members is once again much higher.

Curated by: George Passas