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Open debate

October 24, 2011

As the EU heads for more crisis talks on expanding its bailout fund, the political opposition in Germany is making its voice heard by opening up the debate in Berlin.

https://p.dw.com/p/12y28
The inside of the German Reichstag
The debate coincides with a crucial eurozone crunch summitImage: dapd

Germany's political opposition has succeeded in ensuring plans to enhance Europe's bailout fund be brought to a vote in parliament on Wednesday.

The decision came after the Bundestag's plenary session rejected the opposition's demands for an open debate just Friday.

Proposed expansions to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) were initially to be voted on just by the 42-member parliamentary budgetary committee.

However the Green Party demanded last week that all 620 parliamentary deputies vote on the EFSF expansion plan in light of a ruling last month by Germany's constitutional court that parliament must have a bigger say in rescue funds for eurozone partner states.

Opposition welcomes the vote

Social Democrat leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier said it was high time "that the debate and ensuing decision take place not in secret somewhere, but in the chamber of the German Bundestag."

But neither Steinmeier nor the Greens' parliamentary party leader Jürgen Trittin would say where their parties stand on the proposal until parliamentarians had received copies of the draft.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert could not say on Monday when all Bundestag MPs would get these copies.

Also on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to return to a crunch EU summit on the eurozone debt crisis in Brussels, where she and other eurozone leaders have said they will finalize crucial decisions on how to expand the EFSF to make it a viable instrument for propping up Europe's ailing banks.

Author: David Levitz (AFP, AP)

Editor: Ben Knight

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