London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

The XXL Bundestag Germany’s parliament is bursting at the seams. It may get bigger

The XXL Bundestag Germany’s parliament is bursting at the seams. It may get bigger

Mathematicians have been asked to help devise a better voting system, but MPs can’t agree on change
No voting system is flawless, as any political-science student can tell you. Britain’s first-past-the-post method can give a thumping majority to a party that wins far less than half the vote. Ultra-proportional systems, as in the Netherlands, lead to fragmented chambers full of fringe parties, with no local links, devoted to animal rights or the elderly. Germany’s “mixed-member proportional” system is supposed to offer the best of both worlds. Unfortunately its size has begun to matter.

Of the 598 seats Germany’s electoral law reserves to the Bundestag (the upper-house Bundesrat comprises state politicians), half are for directly elected constituency mps, and the rest are for candidates taken from party lists along proportional lines. At general elections Germans therefore cast two votes: one for a local mp, and one for a party. The second vote determines the relative strength of parties in parliament. If some win more constituency seats than their share of that vote would entitle them to, to preserve proportionality others are compensated with party-list seats. This means the size of the Bundestag can go only one way: up.

The problem has grown acute as Germany’s party system has fragmented. For big parties, the gap between their number of constituency seats and their shrinking overall vote share has grown, meaning more compensatory seats are needed. The result is what Germans call an “XXL Bundestag”. The 709 MPs yielded at the last election, in 2017, make the Bundestag the world’s largest elected chamber (outnumbered only by China’s rubber-stamp congress and Britain’s appointed House of Lords). Some fear next year’s vote could produce close to 800. Adjusted for population, the number looks less dramatic. But in a federal country like Germany MPs have less to do; the 16 state parliaments have a further 1,868 members between them.

All this squeezes office space, as well as the Bundestag’s budget, which may exceed €1bn ($1.2bn) this year. Parliamentary committees have grown unwieldy. Citizens struggle to understand the link between their vote and their outsize parliament. The problems will grow “severe” if the chamber has to accommodate more than 750 members next year, warns Stephan Thomae, an MP for the liberal Free Democrats who has pushed for a change to Germany’s electoral law in response.

Many have tried. Constitutional lawyers, non-profits and even mathematicians have been drafted to provide solutions. Yet every attempt to shrink the Bundestag has gone nowhere, for every party fears it stands to lose from one or other possible remedy. The most recent plan, pushed by opposition parties, flopped before the summer recess. Attempts to revise the law before next year’s election now look doomed. An XXXL Bundestag looms.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×