President of the German Bundesrat

The President of the German Bundesrat (German: Präsident des Deutschen Bundesrates or Bundesratspräsident) is the speaker or chair of the German Bundesrat, which is the upper house of the German parliament.

Each of the ministers president of the federal Länder (states) acts as the president of the Bundesrat for one year.

The President of the Bundesrat can also act as deputy to the Federal President if the Federal President is out of Germany or not able to act because of illness etc. If the Federal President dies or is removed from office the President of the Bundestag will act as President until a new president is elected, which must be within thirty days.

Election

The President of the Bundesrat is usually elected on the 1 November in one year, and serves until the 31 October of the next year. The Basic Law says, in Article 52.1, that "the Bundesrat elects its President for one year". However, in practice the presidency rotates among all Länder equally, in accordance with a predetermined order. The order changes sometimes, because it depends on each state's population.

If the head of government of a Land changes during the term of the President of the Bundesrat then the presidency passes to the new minister-president for the remainder of its one year duration. This happened in April 1999 when Roland Koch replaced Hans Eichel as minister-president of Hesse. The current order of rotation of the presidency of the Bundesrat is as follows: