Facing the Chancellery is the Bundestag, the German Parliament, housed in the renovated Reichstag building since the government moved back to Berlin in 1998.

The Bundestag ( Federal Diet ; ) is a legislative body in Germany.

In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house.

Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag.

Together with the Bundesrat, the Bundestag is the legislative branch of the German political system.

Although most legislation is initiated by the executive branch, the Bundestag considers the legislative function its most important responsibility, concentrating much of its energy on assessing and amending the government's legislative program.

One striking difference when comparing the Bundestag with the British Parliament is the lack of time spent on serving constituents in Germany.

A practical constraint on the expansion of constituent service is the limited personal staff of Bundestag deputies.

Members serve four-year terms ; elections are held every four years, or earlier in the relatively rare case that the Bundestag is dissolved prematurely by the president.

The second vote is cast for a party list ; it determines the relative strengths of the parties represented in the Bundestag.

If a party has gained more direct mandates in a Land than it is entitled to according to the results of the second vote, it does not forfeit these mandates because all directly elected candidates are guaranteed a seat in the Bundestag.

At the federal level, it forms a common ' CDU / CSU ' faction in the Bundestag with the CDU, which is frequently referred to as the Union Faction ( die Unionsfraktion ).

The FDP's parliamentary group has 93 members and is currently the third largest in the Bundestag.

Executive power is vested in the Federal Cabinet ( Bundesregierung ), and federal legislative power is vested in the Bundestag ( the parliament of Germany ) and the Bundesrat ( the representative body of the Länder, Germany's regional states ).

The President is elected every five years by the Federal Assembly ( Bundesversammlung ), a special body convened only for this purpose, comprising the entire Bundestag and an equal number of state delegates selected especially for this purpose in proportion to election results for the state diets.

Most Presidents have been members of the CDU as this party is usually the strongest in the Bundestag and also often in the states.

He or she is elected by and responsible to the Bundestag, Germany's parliament.

Federal legislative power is divided between the Bundestag and the Bundesrat.

The Bundestag is more powerful than the Bundesrat and only needs the latter's consent for proposed legislation related to revenue shared by the federal and state governments, and the imposition of responsibilities on the states.

In the event of disagreement between the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, a conciliation committee is formed to find a compromise.

The Bundestag ( Federal Diet ) is elected for a four year term and consists of 598 or more members elected by a means of mixed member proportional representation, which Germans call " personalised proportional representation.

has thus not been used in official terminology since 1945, though it is still found in the name of the Reichstag building, which since 1999 has housed the German federal parliament, the Bundestag.

The decision not to rename the Reichstag building was taken only after long debate in the Bundestag ; even then, it is described officially as ( Reichstag, seat of the Bundestag ).

The Bundestag members are the only federal officials directly elected by the public ; the Bundestag in turn elects the Chancellor and, in addition, exercises oversight of the executive branch on issues of both substantive policy and routine administration.

In addition, the Bundestag has a minimum threshold of either 5 % of the national party vote or three ( directly elected ) constituency representatives for a party to gain additional representation through the system of proportional representation.

Half of the Members of the Bundestag are elected directly from 299 constituencies ( first-past-the-post system ), the other half are elected from the parties ’ Land lists in such a way as to achieve proportional representation for the total Bundestag ( if possible ).

A party must receive either five percent of the national vote or win at least three directly elected seats to be eligible for non-constituency seats in the Bundestag.

The number of Bundestag Deputies was reduced from 656 to 598 beginning in 2002, although under the additional member system, more deputies may be admitted if a party wins more directly elected seats than it would be entitled to under proportional representation.

This was partly due to the perception that the internal debate over the war in Afghanistan had been more honest and open than in other parties, and one of the MPs who had voted against the Afghanistan deployment, Hans-Christian Ströbele, was directly elected to the Bundestag as a district representative for the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer Berg East constituency in Berlin, becoming the first Green to ever gain a first-past-the-post seat in Germany.

In Poland's Sejm and Germany's Bundestag ( elected through the Additional member system ), this threshold is 5 % ( or 3 constituency seats in the Bundestag, but directly won constituencies are kept, regardless ).

The legislative branch is represented by the Bundestag, elected directly through a mixture of proportional representation and direct mandates, with the German Länder participating in legislation through the Bundesrat, reflecting Germany's federal structure.

The Bundesrat participates in legislation, alongside of the Bundestag, the directly elected representation of the people of Germany, with laws affecting state competences and all constitutional changes requiring the consent of the body.

The local MP Hans-Christian Ströbele is the only Green politician directly elected to the federal Bundestag parliament.

The local MP Hans-Christian Ströbele is the only Green politician directly elected to the federal Bundestag.

The national bicameral Parliament comprises the directly elected Bundestag and Bundesrat which represents the constitutive states but which has limited competence.

In 2002, he became the first Green politician ever to be directly elected to the Bundestag when he received a plurality of the votes in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Prenzlauer Berg East constituency.

In the years 1998, 2002 and 2005 Peter Struck ( SPD ), former defence minister and chairman of the SPD party in the German Bundestag, was directly elected.

In addition, owing to the city's legal status, citizens of West Berlin were unable to vote in elections to the Bundestag, and were instead represented by 20 non-voting delegates, indirectly elected by the city's House of Representatives.

At least 598 Members of the Bundestag are elected in this way.

In the current parliament ( elected in 2009 ) there are 24 overhang seats, giving the Bundestag a total of 622 members.

As a result, former party chairpersons Fritz Kuhn and Claudia Roth ( who had been elected to parliament that year ) were no longer able to continue in their executive function and were replaced by former party secretary general Reinhard Bütikofer and former Bundestag member Angelika Beer.

* 7 February 1969-Heinrich Windelen ( CDU ) succeeds von Hassel as Minister of Displaced Persons, Refugees, and War Victims after the latter was elected to President of the Bundestag.

He was elected to the Bundestag in 1953, and in 1957 he became member of the SPD parliamentary party executive.

After the resignation of Adenauer in 1963, Erhard was elected Chancellor with 279 against 180 votes in the Bundestag on 16 October.