The German Bundestag has requested MPs remove Pride flags from their offices, citing parliamentary rules. The display of flags is “generally prohibited, regardless of their specific symbolism,” a Bundestag spokesperson told Welt.
Bundestag President Julia Klöckner ordered the rainbow flag to fly over the parliamentary building only on the International Day Against Homophobia (May 17), not on Berlin’s Christopher Street Day, one of the largest LGBT events in Europe, named after the street in New York City where the Stonewall Riots occurred in June 1969. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) added fuel, saying on ARD: “The Bundestag is not a circus tent where any flag could be hoisted.”
One of the MPs asked to remove the LGBT symbol from her office was Stella Merendino (Die Linke), who said she had chosen to display it in her office “to send a signal of opposition to President Klöckner’s decision not to allow the rainbow flag to be hoisted over the Bundestag this year, as well as to Chancellor Merz’s statement that the Bundestag is not a circus tent.” She claimed that police had been called to verify that she had abided by the request. “The Bundestag police were called because of the rainbow flag on my office in the Bundestag,” she wrote on Instagram.
“This is not specifically about controlling rainbow flags,” Mathias Paul, spokesman for Bundestag President Julia Klöckner (CDU), told Tagesspiegel. The relevant paragraph of the Bundestag House Rules says,
The posting of notices, in particular posters, signs, and stickers, on doors, walls, or windows in the publicly accessible buildings of the German Bundestag, as well as on windows and facades of these buildings that are visible from the outside, is strictly prohibited.
The Bundestag administration came under fire earlier this summer for banning the parliament’s ‘Rainbow Network’ from participating in Berlin Pride, with reference to parliament’s “duty of neutrality.”
