Facts - The Bundestag at a glance - Deutscher Bundestag

The fixed timetable for a sitting week
is the framework for parliamentary
activity. A Member’s involvement in
meetings of parliamentary groups and
committees and in plenary sittings is
supplemented by many other appointments,
such as specialised conferences,
lectures and talks with the press or with
representative associations. In addition,
many groups of visitors or parties of
schoolchildren come up from the constituency
and would like to meet their
own Member of the Bundestag.
Terms of employment – offices,
remuneration and allowances
The temporary nature of membership
of Parliament dictates that a person’s
career must not be impaired if he or
she is elected to Parliament and performs
his or her wide-ranging tasks in a
responsible manner. For this reason, all
Members of the Bundestag are entitled
to monetary allowances and benefits in
kind, including furnished and equipped
office in the Bundestag and the right to
use domestic transport services in the
performance of their official duties.
Members of Parliament – envoys of the people
These benefits are supplemented by a
flat-rate expenses allowance, currently
amounting to €3,984, from which a
Member of the Bundestag meets the cost
of maintaining a constituency office and
a second residence in Berlin, for example.
A staffing allowance enables Members
to pay their employees – research
assistants and office staff – in Berlin and
in their constituency office. Their own
pay – known as Members’ remuneration
– is taxable. The level of Members’
remuneration is prescribed by law; since
1 January 2009 it has amounted to
€7,668 per month, and it will be increased
by €292 with effect from
1 January 2012.