The Bundestag Scientific Service has issued an expert opinion expressing considerable doubts about the legality of introducing a salary cap for members of the Left Party’s parliamentary group. The party leaders, Jan van Aken and Ines Schwerdtner, have proposed that their deputies’ salaries be limited to the German average wage of €2,850 net per month. This plan is scheduled for a vote at the party’s upcoming congress in June, but the move has met with massive internal resistance within the Left parliamentary faction.
The legal opinion was commissioned by Left MP Michael Arndt and concludes that while a mandatory capping model may be permissible in principle, it should not be implemented at such a low level. The report cited the Parliamentary Deputies Act (Abgeordnetengesetz), emphasizing that the fundamental existence and thus the independence of MPs cannot be guaranteed if their compensation falls below a certain threshold.
Specifically, the expert report cautions that if the limit is set at €2,850, it would be less than half of the compensation legally due to them, which stands at €11,833.47. According to the document, therefore, such a structure would likely be illegal.
Arndt interpreted the findings as conclusive. Although the Scientific Service did not define a minimum legal compensation level, it did state that the pay must reflect the importance of the office, implying that it must be significantly above mere subsistence living costs. Arndt informed the news magazine that the party leadership’s proposal violates constitutional law because it effectively bases the cap on the seizure limit (a legal minimum for survival funds).
In addition to the legal concerns, Arndt warned that the protracted debate over the salary cap has been paralyzing the work of the Left Party for months, unnecessarily sowing division between the party and its parliamentary faction, and threatening to overshadow crucial policy debates scheduled for the upcoming party congress.