Word: bundestag
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...were those two men quaffing a friendly beer together in the Bundestag cafeteria? They were, as it happened, none other than West Germany's two foremost political rivals. Only the week before, Opposition Leader Rainer Barzel had tried and failed by a bare margin of two votes to overthrow Chancellor Willy Brandt. But over beer and in countless hurried conferences, the two men were seeking to find a mutual way out of a severe parliamentary crisis that threatened to have grave repercussions far beyond the borders of the Federal Republic...
Soviet Word. Brandt had originally intended to submit the treaties to the Bundestag for ratification last week. But in the wake of the narrowly won no-confidence test and a subsequent tie vote in the Bundestag on a budget appropriation, he feared that the coalition of his Social Democratic Party and the Free Democrats would no longer command the necessary majority to pass the treaties. Rather than risk a defeat, Brandt postponed balloting for one week so that he and Christian Democrat Leader Barzel could have an opportunity to work out a solution...
With that goal in mind, the Soviets have been deeply concerned about West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's problems in persuading Bonn's Bundestag to ratify the 1970 treaties of Moscow and Warsaw (see following story). Brezhnev has personally committed his prestige to the normalization of relations with West Germany, and his entire diplomacy toward Western Europe, including the convocation of the security conference, hinges on Bonn's ratification of the treaties...
...Bundestag began its debate on Brandt's request for a record $35 billion budget for 1973, the C.D.U. introduced a "constructive vote" of no confidence, a parliamentary procedure that is unique to West Germany. Mindful of the governmental instability during the Weimar Republic, the framers of West Germany's postwar constitution had provided constructively that a Chancellor could only be ousted by a secret vote that installs...
Walter Scheel, the leader of the allied Free Democrats, allowed his remaining 25 Deputies to participate in the voting. Eight vote counters, seated at a green baize table in the Bundestag and surrounded by scores of anxious Deputies, tallied the white ballots...