German Federal Council Deutscher Bundesrat | |
|---|---|
| 76th year of business | |
| History | |
| Founded | 23 May 1949 |
| Leadership | |
First Vice President | |
Second Vice President | |
| Structure | |
| Seats | 69 seats |
Political groups |
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| Elections | |
| Appointment by State Governments | |
| Meeting place | |
| Former chamber of the Prussian House of Lords, Berlin | |
| Website | |
| bundesrat | |
| This article is part of a series on the |
| Politics of Germany |
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The German Bundesrat (German: [ˈbʊndəsˌʁaːt] ⓘ, lit. 'Federal Council') is a legislative body that represents the sixteen states of Germany (German: Länder) at the federal level (German: Bundesebene). The Bundesrat meets at the former Prussian House of Lords in Berlin at Leipziger Straße. Its second seat is located in the former West German capital of Bonn.
In Germany's bicameral system, the Bundesrat legislates alongside the Bundestag. The Bundesrat members are appointed by state governments; the Bundestag representatives are elected by the German people. While all constitutional changes need the consent of both houses, only certain laws require bicameral consent. Thus Bundesrat is not an equal second house like United States Senate, Swiss Ständerat, or Australian Senate. Its power is closer to the Canadian Senate and the British House of Lords.
The name "Bundesrat" was used by similar bodies in the North German Confederation (1867) and the German Empire (1871). The predecessor of the Bundesrat in the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) was the Reichsrat.
The political makeup of the Bundesrat is affected by changes in power in the states of Germany, and thus by elections in each state. Each state delegation in the Bundesrat is appointed by the state government. In contrast to most parliaments, the members of the Bundesrat do not have a free mandate and all members of a state delegation have to vote the same way in each vote. The Bundesrat is a continuous body and has no legislative periods. For organizational reasons, the Bundesrat structures its legislative calendar in years of business (Geschäftsjahre), beginning each year on 1 November. Each year of business is congruous with the one-year-term of the Presidium of the Bundesrat. The sessions have been counted continuously since the first session on 7 September 1949. The Bundesrat's 1,000th plenary meeting took place on 12 February 2021 and was opened with a speech by President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The historical predecessor of the Bundesrat was the Federal Convention (Confederate Diet) of the German Confederation (1815–1848, 1850/1851–1866). That Federal Convention consisted of the representatives of the member states. The first basic law (Bundesakte) of the German Confederation listed how many votes a member state had, for two different formations of the diet. The diet was the only organ – there was no division of powers. The diet was chaired by the Austrian representative.
In the revolution of 1848 the Bundestag transferred its powers to the Imperial Regent and was reactivated only in 1850/1851. Several other attempts to reform the Confederation involved retaining the Bundestag and adding a parliament and a court. One of these attempts, the proposed Reform Act of 1863, had introduced the term Bundesrath. With the dissolution of the Confederation in August 1866, the diet and the federal law ended.
On 1 July 1867 the North German Confederation was established as a confederal state. The Reichstag, elected by the North German men, was one legislative body. The other one was the Bundesrath (old spelling). This organ was expressly modelled after the old diet. When the Confederation was transformed and renamed Deutsches Reich (German Empire) in 1871, the Bundesrat kept its name.
The imperial Bundesrat had the right of legislative initiative and every bill adopted by the Reichstag (including the budget) needed its consent. It could also, with the Emperor's agreement, dissolve the Reichstag, making it – at least in theory – the more powerful of the two legislative bodies.
Whilst appointed by state governments just as today, the delegates of the original Bundesrat—as those of the Reichsrat—were usually high-ranking civil servants, not cabinet members.
In the revolution of 1918, the revolutionary organ Rat der Volksbeauftragten ("Council of People's Representatives") limited the power of the Bundesrat to its administrative functions. A Staatenausschuss (committee of states) accompanied the reform of Germany but had no official role in installing the new constitution. Under that Weimar Constitution, ratified on 11 August 1919, it was replaced by the Reichsrat (1919–1934).
The Reichsrat of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) had considerably less influence: It could no longer initiate legislation and could only veto bills adopted by the Reichstag. Such vetoes could be overruled by the Reichstag. However, overruling the Reichsrat needed a majority of two-thirds in the Reichstag, which consisted of many parties differing in opinion. So, in most cases, bills vetoed by the Reichsrat failed due to the lack of unity among the Reichstag's constituent parties. The Reichsrat was abolished by the "Law on the Abolition of the Reichsrat" on 14 February 1934, roughly a year after Hitler had come to power.
With the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany after the Second World War and the adoption of the Basic Law as the new constitution, the chamber of states was re-established, again under the name 'Bundesrat'. The new Bundesrat, in terms of its power, occupies an intermediate position between the very powerful Bundesrat of the empire and the relatively weak Reichsrat of the Weimar Republic. The Bundesrat now once again has the right of legislative initiative, but its absolute right of veto applies only to certain laws that directly affect the federal states; otherwise its vetos can be overruled by the Bundestag with an absolute majority. The latter also applies to the federal budget.
This section relies on a single source. (December 2015) |

The Bundesrat is one of three constitutional bodies (along with the Bundestag and the federal government) that have the right of initiative for the legislative process. Legislative initiatives by the federal government must be formally brought to the attention of the Bundesrat, which may respond to them with a statement within six weeks or within three weeks if the government considers the bill to be urgent. The bill can only be discussed in the Bundestag once this statement has been made or the deadline runs out. The Bundesrat can demand an extension of the deadline to nine weeks or, in the case of an urgent bill, to six weeks. If instead the Bundesrat proposes a bill, it must first be submitted to the Federal Government for a statement before the Bundestag can deal with it.
If the Bundestag adopts the bill, it must be forwarded to the Bundesrat. There are two possibilities here:
The two variants differ significantly because, due to the special voting procedures in the Bundesrat, a positive vote is always more difficult to achieve than a negative one. This is because a majority of all possible votes (currently 35 out of 69) is always required for a positive vote. A delegation can only vote yes on a motion if there is a consensus in the respective state government. If such a consensus does not exist (which is often the case, as most state governments are multi-party coalitions), the delegation must abstain, which in effect has the same result as a no vote. In short, for approval bills, a majority must be present in the Bundesrat, while for objection laws, it is sufficient if no majority is formed against them.
Under no circumstances can the Bundesrat amend a bill. However, in the case of "approval laws" in particular, if the Bundesrat rejects a bill, the matter is often referred to the so-called mediation committee, a body made up of an equal number of members of the Bundestag and Bundesrat, which attempts to negotiate whether the bill can find the approval of both chambers with certain amendments. A version amended in this way must then be passed again by a majority in both chambers in order to become law (in this case the rules of procedure of both chambers provide for an abbreviated legislative procedure).
One important difference between the Bundesrat and an upper house in a true bicameral legislature is that the Bundesrat always decides on a bill only after the Bundestag and can adopt it only in the form adopted by the Bundestag – even if the bill originated in the Bundesrat itself. It is even possible for the Bundesrat to first propose a bill and then reject it after the law has been passed in the Bundestag because the majority in the chamber has changed in the meantime.
The Bundesrat shares responsibility with the Bundestag for electing the judges of the Federal Constitutional Court. Both chambers elect four judges to each of the court's two senates. They also elect the president and vice-president of the Federal Constitutional Court in alternating order. This requires a two-thirds majority, which currently stands at 46 of 69 votes.
The Bundesrat also has certain powers that can be brought to use in special states of emergency.

From 1894 to 1933, the Bundesrat/Reichsrat met in the same building as the Reichstag, today known as Reichstagsgebäude. After 1949, the Bundesrat gathered in the Bundeshaus in Bonn, along with the Bundestag, at least most of the time. A wing of the Bundeshaus was specially built for the Bundesrat.[citation needed]
In 2000, the Bundesrat moved to Berlin, as the Bundestag had done the year before. The Berlin seat of the Bundesrat is the former Prussian House of Lords building. The Bundesrat wing in Bonn is still used as a second seat.[citation needed]
For the Federal Diet of 1815, the basic law (Bundesakte) established two different formations. In the Plenary, for the most important decisions, every state had at least one vote. The larger states Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hannover and Württemberg had four votes each; eight lesser states two or three, and the remaining 25 had only one vote.
The North German Confederation was a different entity from the German Confederation, but it can also be regarded as the brainchild of a long lasting reform debate within the German Confederation. The new Bundesrat even referred to the old diet in Article 6, when it redistributed the votes for each states. Prussia, originally with four votes, gained the votes of the states it had annexed in 1866, i.e. Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Holstein, Nassau, and Frankfurt, totaling 17 votes. The total number of votes in 1867 was 43 votes.
When the South German states joined in 1870/71, the revised federal constitutions allocated new votes for them. Bavaria had six votes, Württemberg four, Baden three, and (the whole of) Hesse-Darmstadt three. The total number went up to 58 votes, and in 1911, with three new votes for Alsace-Lorraine, to 61 votes. The Prussian votes remained 17.
To put the Prussian votes in context: 80% of North Germans lived in Prussia, and after 1871, Prussia made up two thirds of the German population and territory. Prussia was always underrepresented in the Bundesrat.
| State | Notes | Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Prussia | (including states annexed in 1866) | 17 |
| Bavaria | 6 | |
| Saxony | 4 | |
| Württemberg | 4 | |
| Baden | 3 | |
| Hesse | 3 | |
| Mecklenburg-Schwerin | 2 | |
| Brunswick | 2 | |
| 17 other small states | each with 1 vote | 17 |
| Alsace-Lorraine | after 1911 | 3 |
| Total | 61 |
The Reichsrat, as a first, had no fixed numbers of votes for the member states. Instead, it introduced the principle that the number depended on the actual number of inhabitants. Originally, states had one vote for every 1 million inhabitants. In 1921, this was reduced to 700,000 inhabitants per vote.
No state was allowed to have more than 40 percent of the votes. This was regarded as a clausula antiborussica, counterbalancing the dominant position of Prussia, which still contained roughly two-thirds of the German population. Also, since 1921, half of the Prussian votes were not cast by the Prussian state government but by the administrations of the Prussian provinces.
For example, of the 63 votes in 1919, Prussia had 25 votes, Bavaria seven, and Saxony five. 12 states had only one vote each.

The composition of the Bundesrat is different from other similar legislative bodies representing states (such as the Russian Federation Council or the U.S. Senate). Bundesrat members are not elected—either by popular vote or by the state parliaments—but are delegated by the respective state government. They do not enjoy a free mandate (for example, most parliamentary privileges in the Bundesrat can be exercised only by a Land, not an individual member) and serve only as long as they are representing their state, not for a fixed period of time. Members of the Bundesrat (suffix "MdBR") do however enjoy the same immunity from prosecution that Members of the German Bundestag have. In addition, Members of the Bundesrat have unlimited access to sessions of the Bundestag (where they have their own benches to the left of the President of the Bundestag) and its committees and can address it at any time. The latter right was most famously used in 2002 by then-Hamburg Senator Ronald Schill, who gave an inflammatory speech that was widely denounced.
Normally, a state delegation consists of the Minister-President (called Governing Mayor in Berlin, President of the Senate in Bremen and First Mayor in Hamburg) and other cabinet ministers (called senators in Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg). State cabinets may appoint as many delegates as the state has votes, and usually do, but may also send a single delegate to exercise all of the state's votes. All other ministers/senators are usually appointed as deputy delegates. In any case, the state has to cast its votes en bloc, i.e., without vote splitting. If Members of the Bundesrat from the same state vote differently, the entire votes of the state are counted as abstention. A famous example of this was a very close vote in 2002 on a new immigration law by the Schröder government, when Deputy Minister-President of Brandenburg Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) cast a no vote and State Minister Alwin Ziel (SPD) cast a yes vote. As state elections are not coordinated across Germany and can occur at any time, the majority distributions in the Bundesrat can change after any such election. Even without a new state election, it is possible that the state parliament installs a new state government because a new state coalition has formed.
The number of votes a state is allocated is based on a form of degressive proportionality according to its population. This way, smaller states have more votes than a distribution proportional to the population would grant. The presence of the small city-states of Bremen, Hamburg, and Berlin prevents the Bundesrat from having the rural and conservative bias of other similar legislative bodies biased in favor of small states. The allocation of votes is regulated by the German constitution (Grundgesetz). All of a state's votes are cast en bloc—either for, against, in abstention of a proposal. Each state is allocated at least three votes, and a maximum of six. States with more than
By convention, SPD-led Länder are summarized as A-Länder, while those with governments led by CDU or CSU are called B-Länder.
| State | Population | Votes | Population per vote | Governing parties | Last election | Presidency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baden-Württemberg | 10,879,618 | 6 | 1,813,270 | Greens, CDU | 2026 | 2028/29 |
| Bavaria | 12,843,514 | 6 | 2,140,586 | CSU, FW | 2023 | 2027/28 |
| Berlin | 3,520,031 | 4 | 880,008 | CDU, SPD | 2023 | 2033/34 |
| Brandenburg | 2,484,826 | 4 | 621,207 | SPD, CDU | 2024 | 2035/36 |
| Bremen | 671,489 | 3 | 223,830 | SPD, Greens, The Left | 2023 | Current |
| Hamburg | 1,787,408 | 3 | 595,803 | SPD, Greens | 2025 | 2038/39 |
| Hesse | 6,176,172 | 5 | 1,235,234 | CDU, SPD | 2023 | 2030/31 |
| Lower Saxony | 7,926,599 | 6 | 1,321,100 | SPD, Greens | 2022 | 2029/30 |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 1,612,362 | 3 | 537,454 | SPD, The Left | 2021 | 2039/40 |
| North Rhine-Westphalia | 17,865,516 | 6 | 2,977,586 | CDU, Greens | 2022 | 2026/27 |
| Rhineland-Palatinate | 4,052,803 | 4 | 1,013,201 | CDU, SPD | 2026 | 2032/33 |
| Saarland | 995,597 | 3 | 331,866 | SPD | 2022 | 2040/41 |
| Saxony | 4,084,851 | 4 | 1,021,213 | CDU, SPD | 2024 | 2031/32 |
| Saxony-Anhalt | 2,245,470 | 4 | 561,368 | CDU, SPD, FDP | 2021 | 2036/37 |
| Schleswig-Holstein | 2,858,714 | 4 | 714,679 | CDU, Greens | 2022 | 2034/35 |
| Thuringia | 2,170,714 | 4 | 542,679 | CDU, Thüringen.Gerecht, SPD | 2024 | 2037/38 |
| Total | 82,175,684 | 69 | 1,190,952 | |||
While legislative terms of the Bundestag are numbered, with the 21st Bundestag taking office in 2025, the Bundesrat has none, being a permanent institution with membership changes staggered state by state. Meetings have been numbered in a single sequence since 1949: it had its 1,000th plenary meeting on 12 February 2021.
The following is the list of current members of the Bundesrat:
| State | Portrait | Member | Party | Born | State position | Took office | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baden-Württemberg | Cem Özdemir | Greens | 21 December 1965 | Minister-President | 13 May 2026 | ||
| Manuel Hagel | CDU | 1 May 1988 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for the Interior, Digitalization and Europe |
13 May 2026 | |||
| Petra Olschowski | Greens | 28 March 1967 | Minister for Science, Research and Arts | 13 May 2026 | |||
| Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut | CDU | 9 October 1972 | Minister for Economics, Labour and Tourism (since 2021) Minister for Economics, Labour and Housing Construction (until 2021) |
12 May 2016 | |||
| Nicole Razavi | CDU | 20 May 1965 | Minister for Transport | 13 May 2026 | |||
| Rudolf Hoogvliet | Greens | 18 August 1958 | Representative to the Federal Government State Secretary for Media Policy |
12 May 2021 | |||
| Bavaria | Markus Söder | CSU | 5 January 1967 | Minister-President (since 2018) Minister for Finance, Regional Development and Home Affairs (2013–2018) Minister for Finance (until 2013) |
15 November 2011 | ||
| Hubert Aiwanger | FW | 26 January 1971 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Economics, State Development and Energy |
27 November 2018 | |||
| Ulrike Scharf | CSU | 16 December 1967 | Additional Deputy Minister-President Minister for Family, Labour and Social Affairs |
21 November 2023 | |||
| Florian Herrmann | CSU | 7 December 1971 | Head of the State Chancellery Minister of State for Federal Affairs and Media (since 2018) Minister of State for Federal Affairs (until 2018) |
17 April 2018 | |||
| Thorsten Glauber | FW | 21 November 1970 | Minister for Environment and Consumer Protection | 27 November 2018 | |||
| Josef Schmid | CSU | 27 September 1969 | Minister for Justice | 6 October 2026 | |||
| Berlin | Kai Wegner | CDU | 15 September 1972 | Governing Mayor | 2 May 2023 | ||
| Franziska Giffey | SPD | 3 May 1978 | Mayor (since 2023) Senator for Economy, Energy and Enterprise (since 2023) Governing Mayor (until 2023) |
4 January 2022 | |||
| Stefan Evers | CDU | 10 October 1979 | Mayor Senator for Finance Senator for Culture and Social Cohesion (from 2026) |
2 May 2023 | |||
| Cansel Kiziltepe | SPD | 8 October 1975 | Senator for Labour, Social Affairs, Equality, Integration, Diversity and Anti-Discrimination | 2 May 2023 | |||
| Brandenburg | Dietmar Woidke | SPD | 22 October 1961 | Minister-President (since 2013) Minister for the Interior (until 2013) |
12 October 2010 | ||
| Jan Redmann | CDU | 16 December 1979 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for the Interior and Municipal Affairs |
18 March 2026 | |||
| Hanka Mittelstädt | SPD | 28 April 1987 | Minister for Agriculture, Food, Environment and Consumer Protection | 18 March 2026 | |||
| Gordon Hoffmann | CDU | 21 December 1978 | Minister for Education, Youth and Sport | 18 March 2026 | |||
| Bremen | Andreas Bovenschulte | SPD | 11 August 1965 | President of the Senate Mayor Senator for Religious Affairs Senator for Culture |
27 August 2019 | ||
| Björn Fecker | Greens | 13 December 1977 | Mayor Senator for Finance |
5 July 2023 | |||
| Nancy Böhning | SPD | 25 March 1979 | Representative to the Federal Government and for Europe State Councillor for International Affairs and Development Cooperation |
19 June 2025 | |||
| Hamburg | Peter Tschentscher | SPD | 20 January 1966 | President of the Senate First Mayor |
28 April 2015 | ||
| Katharina Fegebank | Greens | 27 February 1977 | Second Mayor Senator for the Environment, Climate, Energy, and Agriculture (since 2025) Senator for the Environment, Climate, Energy, and Agriculture (2020–2025) Senator for Science, Research, and Equality (until 2020) |
28 April 2015 | |||
| Andreas Dressel | SPD | 6 January 1975 | Senator for Finance and Districts (since 2025) Senator for Finance (until 2025) |
28 March 2018 | |||
| Hesse | Boris Rhein | CDU | 2 January 1972 | Minister-President | 31 May 2022 | ||
| Kaweh Mansoori | SPD | 12 August 1988 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Economics, Energy, Transport, Housing and Rural Area |
18 January 2024 | |||
| Manfred Pentz | CDU | 10 March 1980 | Minister for Federal, European and International Affairs and Deregulation | 18 January 2024 | |||
| R. Alexander Lorz | CDU | 30 November 1965 | Minister for Finance | 18 January 2023 | |||
| Timon Gremmels | SPD | 4 January 1976 | Minister for Science, Research, Art and Culture | 18 January 2024 | |||
| Lower Saxony | Olaf Lies | SPD | 8 May 1967 | Minister-President | 20 May 2025 | ||
| Julia Hamburg | Greens | 26 June 1986 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Education |
8 November 2022 | |||
| Daniela Behrens | SPD | 12 May 1968 | Minister for the Interior, Sports and Digitalization (from 2025) Minister for the Interior and Sports (2023–2025) Minister for Social Affairs, Labour, Health and Equality (until 2023) |
8 November 2022 | |||
| Kathrin Wahlmann | SPD | 4 August 1977 | Minister for Justice | 20 May 2025 | |||
| Christian Meyer | Greens | 23 July 1975 | Minister for the Environment, Energy and Climate Protection | 8 November 2022 | |||
| Andreas Philippi | SPD | 4 July 1965 | Minister for Social Affairs, Labour, Health and Equality | 31 January 2023 | |||
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | Manuela Schwesig | SPD | 23 May 1974 | Minister-President | 4 July 2017 | ||
| Simone Oldenburg | Linke | 22 March 1969 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Education and Daycare Facilities |
15 November 2021 | |||
| Bettina Martin | SPD | 19 March 1966 | Minister for Science, Culture, Federal and European Affairs (from 2021) Minister for Education, Science, and Culture (until 2021) |
28 May 2019 | |||
| North Rhine-Westphalia | Hendrik Wüst | CDU | 19 July 1975 | Minister-President | 27 October 2021 | ||
| Mona Neubaur | Greens | 1 July 1977 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Economics, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy |
30 June 2022 | |||
| Marcus Optendrenk | CDU | 21 July 1969 | Minister for Finance | 30 June 2022 | |||
| Ina Scharrenbach | CDU | 30 September 1976 | Minister of Home Affairs, Local Government, Construction and Digitalization | 30 June 2022 | |||
| Nathanael Liminski | CDU | 19 September 1985 | Minister for Federal, European and International Affairs Head of the State Chancellery |
30 June 2022 | |||
| Oliver Krischer | Greens | 26 July 1969 | Minister for the Environment, Nature Protection, and Transport | 3 February 2026 | |||
| Rhineland-Palatinate | Gordon Schnieder | CDU | 8 July 1975 | Minister-President | 18 May 2026 | ||
| Sabine Bätzing-Lichtenthäler | SPD | 13 February 1975 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Labour, Social Affairs, Women, Family and Youth |
18 May 2026 | |||
| Marcus Klein | CDU | 12 November 1976 | Minister for Federal and European Affairs, Sport, Voluntary Work and Media Head of the State Chancellery |
18 May 2026 | |||
| Doris Ahnen | SPD | 29 August 1964 | Minister for Finance | 12 November 2014 | |||
| Saarland | Anke Rehlinger | SPD | 6 April 1976 | Minister-President (from 2022) Deputy Minister-President (until 2022) Minister for the Economy, Labour, Energy and Transport (until 2022) |
15 January 2014 | ||
| Jürgen Barke | SPD | 26 December 1962 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for the Economy, Innovation, Digital Affairs and Energy |
26 April 2022 | |||
| Thorsten Bischoff | SPD | 4 February 1975 | Representative to the Federal Government State Secretary for Media Policy |
19 May 2022 | |||
| Saxony | Michael Kretschmer | CDU | 7 May 1975 | Minister-President | 9 January 2018 | ||
| Petra Köpping | SPD | 12 June 1958 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Social Affairs, Health and Social Cohesion |
19 December 2024 | |||
| Dirk Panter | SPD | 7 February 1974 | Minister for the Economy, Labor, Energy and Climate Protection | 19 December 2024 | |||
| Andreas Handschuh | Independent | 1 May 1973 | Head of the State Chancellery State Secretary for Federal and European Affairs |
19 December 2024 | |||
| Saxony-Anhalt | Sven Schulze | CDU | 31 July 1979 | Minister-President | 28 January 2026 | ||
| Armin Willingmann | SPD | 13 January 1963 | First Deputy Minister-President (from 2021) Minister for Science, Energy, Climate Protection and the Environment (from 2021) Minister for the Economy, Science and Digitalization (until 2021) |
29 November 2016 | |||
| Lydia Hüskens | FDP | 26 March 1964 | Second Deputy Minister-President Minister for Infrastructure and Digital Affairs |
16 September 2021 | |||
| Rainer Robra | CDU | 15 October 1951 | State Minister Head of the State Chancellery Minister for Culture (from 2016) |
21 May 2002 | |||
| Schleswig-Holstein | Daniel Günther | CDU | 24 July 1973 | Minister-President | 28 June 2017 | ||
| Aminata Touré | Greens | 15 November 1992 | Deputy Minister-President Minister for Social Affairs, Youth, Family, Seniors, Integration and Equality |
1 August 2024 | |||
| Magdalena Finke | CDU | 13 November 1986 | Minister for the Interior, Municipal Affairs, Housing and Sports | 12 November 2025 | |||
| Tobias Goldschmidt | Greens | 16 September 1981 | Minister for Energy Transition, Climate Protection, the Environment and Nature | 29 June 2022 | |||
| Thuringia | Mario Voigt | CDU | 8 February 1977 | Minister-President | 13 December 2024 | ||
| Katja Wolf | TG | 7 March 1976 | First Deputy Minister-President Minister for Finance |
13 December 2024 | |||
| Georg Maier | SPD | 25 April 1967 | Second Deputy Minister-President (from 2024) Minister for the Interior, Local Government and Regional Development (from 2024) First Deputy Minister-President (until 2024) Minister for the Interior and Communities (until 2024) |
14 December 2021 | |||
| Stefan Gruhner | CDU | 23 October 1984 | Head of the State Chancellery Minister for Federal and European Affairs, Sports and Voluntary Work |
13 December 2024 | |||
In contrast to many other legislative bodies, the delegates to the Bundesrat from any one state are required to cast the votes of the state as a single bloc (since the votes are not those of the respective delegate). The delegates are not independent members of the Bundesrat but instructed representatives of the federated states' governments. If the members of a delegation cast different votes then the entire vote of the respective state is invalid. This tradition stems from the 1867 Bundesrat. It is a constitutional requirement.
The delegates of a state are equal to each other in the Bundesrat, hence the minister president has no special rights compared to his ministers. But it is possible (and even customary) that one of the delegates (the Stimmführer, "leader of the votes"—normally the minister president) casts all votes of the respective state, even if the other members of the delegation are present.[citation needed] In practice if the different parties that form a state government disagree in whether to vote for a proposal, the whole state delegation will abstain.
Between 1949 and 1990, West Berlin was represented by four members, elected by its Senate, but owing to the city's ambiguous legal status, they did not have voting rights.
| Party | Participation in Bundesrat seats |
|---|---|
| CDU/CSU | 51 (veto) |
| SPD | 47 (veto) |
| Greens | 28 |
| The Left | 6 |
| FW | 6 |
| Thüringen.Gerecht | 4 |
| FDP | 4 |
Because coalition governments are common in the states, states frequently choose to abstain if their coalition cannot agree on a position. Abstaining has the same effect as voting against a proposal, as every Bundesrat decision requires a majority of seats (i.e., 35) in favour, not just a majority of votes cast or a majority of delegates present.
For laws which require explicit Bundesrat consent (Zustimmungsgesetze, consent laws) these abstentions mean that several political parties represented in the Bundesrat possess a de facto veto on legislation, as they can block the votes of 35 or more seats.
During the 2021–2024 traffic light coalition, two of the three government parties held such a veto (SPD and Greens, not the FDP), as well as the opposition CDU/CSU, leading to a de facto four-way coalition. For the 16 years prior under chancellor Angela Merkel, the Greens held such a veto, and used it to prop up the price of emissions certificates. Following the 2024 elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, only SPD and CDU/CSU retain veto power. The federal grand coalition of these parties (Merz cabinet 2025-2029) is thus unobstructed by vetoes based on party lines, unless the Greens (or another party) gain participation in the governments of states worth three more seats.
During times in which an opposition party holds a veto, the government seeks its prior approval for legislative initiatives. If an agreement fails, the government tends to shelve laws to avoid appearing incapable of acting. This legislative self-restraint of the federal government shows up in empirical analysis of federal legislation.
Consent laws constitute the majority of politically important laws, and one third overall.
Originally from 1867 to 1918, the Bundesrat was chaired by the chancellor, although he was not a member and had no vote. This tradition was kept to a degree when since 1919 the Reichsrat still had to be chaired by a member of the imperial government (often the minister of the interior).
Since 1949, the presidency rotates annually among the Minister-Presidents of each of the states. This is fixed by the Königsteiner Abkommen, starting with the federated state with the largest population going down. The President of the Bundesrat convenes and chairs plenary sessions of the body and is formally responsible for representing Germany in matters of the Bundesrat. The president is aided by two Vice Presidents who play an advisory role and deputise in the president's absence; the predecessor of the current President is first, his presumptive successor second Vice President. The three together make up the Bundesrat's executive committee.
The President of the Bundesrat ("Bundesratspräsident"), is fourth in the order of precedence after the Federal President, the President of the Bundestag, the Chancellor and before the President of the Federal Constitutional Court. The President of the Bundesrat becomes acting Federal President of Germany, in case that the office of the Federal President should be vacant.

Because the Bundesrat is so much smaller than the Bundestag, it does not require the extensive organizational structure of the Bundestag.[citation needed] The Bundesrat typically schedules plenary sessions once a month for the purpose of voting on legislation prepared in committee. In comparison, the Bundestag conducts about fifty plenary sessions a year.
The voting Bundesrat delegates themselves rarely attend committee sessions; instead, they delegate that responsibility to civil servants from their ministries, as allowed for in the Basic Law (art. 52,2). The delegates themselves tend to spend most of their time in their state capitals, rather than in Berlin. The delegations are supported by the Landesvertretungen, which function basically as embassies of the states in the federal capital Berlin.
The Bundesrat has 16 standing committees (ständige Ausschüsse):
Some observers claim that the opposing majorities lead to an increase in backroom politics, where small groups of high-tier leaders make all the important decisions and the Bundestag representatives have a choice only between agreeing with them or not getting anything done at all. The German "Federalism Commission" was looking into this issue, among others. There have been frequent suggestions of replacing the Bundesrat with a US-style elected Senate, which would be elected at the same date as the Bundestag. This is hoped to increase the institution's popularity, reduce Land bureaucracy influence on legislation,[clarification needed] make opposing majorities less likely, make the legislative process more transparent, and generally set a new standard of democratic, rather than bureaucratic leadership.
Other observers emphasize that different majorities in the two legislative bodies ensure that all legislation, when approved, has the support of a broad political spectrum, a particularly valuable attribute in the aftermath of unification, when consensus on critical policy decisions is vital. The formal representation of the states in the federal government, through the Bundesrat, provides an obvious forum for the coordination of policy between the states and the federal government. The need for such coordination, particularly given the specific, crucial needs of the eastern states, has become only more important.
Supporters of the Bundesrat claim that the Bundesrat serves as a control mechanism on the Bundestag in the sense of a system of checks and balances. Since the executive and legislative functions are closely intertwined in any parliamentary system, the Bundesrat's ability to revisit and slow down legislative processes is often seen as making up for that loss of separation.
{{cite book}}: |chapter-url= missing title (help)Im Ausland wird ein solches parlamentarisches System im Allgemeinen als Zweikammer- System bezeichnet. Für Bundestag und Bundesrat ist dagegen eine gemeinsame Bezeichnung nicht allgemein üblich, und es ist sogar umstritten, ob der Bundesrat eine Zweite Kammer ist. (English: Abroad, such a parliamentary system is in general called a bicameral one. For Bundestag and Bundesrat such a common designation is not usual and it is even contentious whether the Bundesrat is a second chamber at all.)
If the Federal Government or the Bundestag (lower house of the German parliament) divides a subject-matter between a number of statutes in order to prevent the Bundesrat (upper house of the German parliament) from preventing provisions that in themselves are not subject to its consent, this is constitutionally unobjectionable.
The Unification Treaty was signed by the federal government and the government of the German Democratic Republic on 31 August 1990. The Bundestag (lower house of the German parliament) and the Bundesrat (upper house of the German parliament) approved this Treaty, the Protocol, the Annexes I to III and the agreement of 18 September 1990 by the Act of 23 September 1990 – the Unification Treaty Act (Federal Law Gazette II p. 885).
In federal states, such marked imbalances are, as a general rule, only tolerated for the second chamber existing beside the parliament; in Germany and Austria, the second chamber is the Bundesrat, in Australia, Belgium and the United States, it is the Senate.