Dear Reader,
Today’s newsletter is on the final Bundestag debate of this legislature and the parties’ defence spending plans.
Final mud fight
The last “general debate” of the legislature was held in the Bundestag on Tuesday and it was a lively affair. Speeches were constantly interrupted by heckling from the opposing benches.
On several occasions lawmakers stopped speaking and waited for the speaker to intervene to calm the rowdy chamber.
When AfD leader Alice Weidel appealed to speaker Bärbel Bas to stop the heckling, Bas replied, “That’s something you could also tell your faction, who are permanently interrupting.” That retort received resounding applause from all factions other than the AfD.
At one point, Weidel got so wound up by the heckling that she pointed at the SPD faction and jeered that: “You’ve never worked in your lives. What are you doing here?”