For three years and five months Bärbel Bas presided over the German Bundestag — the fourteenth President of the house and the third woman in the office. Since 25 March 2025 the presidency is held by Julia Klöckner.
§ 01Election
Constituent sitting of the 20th German Bundestag, Berlin.
By convention the largest parliamentary group proposes the President. After the September 2021 election the SPD was the largest group for the first time since 2002, and it nominated Bas, then deputy group chair. She succeeded Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), who had presided since 2017.1
Her election with almost 80 per cent of the votes cast showed support well beyond the coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP that was then being negotiated. The 20th Bundestag, with 736 members, was the largest in its history.
§ 02The office
In the German order of protocol the President of the Bundestag ranks immediately after the Federal President. The office’s powers derive from Article 40 of the Basic Law and the Bundestag’s Rules of Procedure.
The President opens, chairs and closes plenary sittings, sharing the chair in rotation with the Vice-Presidents. She grants the floor, enforces speaking times and maintains order — up to calls to order and exclusion of members from sittings.
The President interprets and applies the Rules of Procedure, chairs the Presidium and the Council of Elders, and decides many procedural questions that shape debate.
The President leads an administration of several thousand staff, exercises domestic authority and police power within the Bundestag buildings, and oversees party financing reports submitted to Parliament.
At home and abroad the President represents the Bundestag as an institution — at commemorations, in relations with other parliaments and on state occasions.
Though elected from a party, the President is expected to act impartially towards all groups. Holders of the office typically step back from party-political debate during their term.
Visitor services, public information and civic education programmes fall within the administration the President heads — the practical tools for the “closeness to citizens” that Bas made her theme.
§ 03Bürgernähe
„Ich verspreche, meine Stadt nicht aus dem Blick zu verlieren. Dafür stehe ich: dass wir in dieser Legislaturperiode eine neue Bürgernähe entwickeln.“
“I promise not to lose sight of my city. That is what I stand for: that in this legislative term we develop a new closeness to citizens.”
The Bundestag’s own retrospective identifies Bürgernähe as a central theme of her tenure.3
Bürgernähe — literally “nearness to citizens” — is an old word in German public administration. Bas used it to describe a Parliament that people can see, visit, understand and address. The same speech paired it with an expectation of mutual respect: “Ich erwarte Respekt für die Bürgerinnen und Bürger – und Respekt von ihnen” — “I expect respect for citizens – and respect from them.”2
The theme sat in a period of falling trust in institutions, of protests and threats against elected representatives, and of debate about disinformation. A President cannot legislate trust; the office can, however, set priorities for how Parliament presents itself and how it receives the public.
§ 04The crisis years
The Bundestag has described her term as a particularly challenging period. The events below are listed for the institutional context they created — not as a record of her personal decisions.
In a parliamentary crisis the President’s tools are procedural: convening special sittings, setting the order of business with the Council of Elders, maintaining order in heated debates and representing the house in statements of solidarity or remembrance. During her term, plenary debates were frequently marked by sharp polarisation; disciplinary measures such as calls to order became a visible part of the office’s work.
§ 05 · End of term
A Bundestag President’s term ends with the electoral term. After the early election of 23 February 2025 the 21st Bundestag met for its constituent sitting on 25 March 2025 and elected Julia Klöckner (CDU) as President, the CDU/CSU having become the largest group. Bas had been re-elected in Duisburg I and remained a member of Parliament.
Six weeks later, on 6 May 2025, she joined the federal government as Minister for Labour and Social Affairs — a move from the office that stands above party politics to one at its centre.