Functions

The Defence Committee is the parliamentary body which corresponds to the Federal Ministry of Defence and its subordinate agencies, i.e. the armed forces and the Federal Defence Administration. However, the work of the Defence Committee is not solely restricted to the armed forces and the administration attached to them, but also includes aspects of international security policy. As a result, there is a certain amount of overlap between its terms of reference and those of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which makes it necessary for both committees to engage in close cooperation. This is reflected, inter alia, in the fact that joint meetings of the Defence Committee and the Committee on Foreign Affairs are held in special cases.

The classic tasks of the Defence Committee include deliberating on bills and motions for resolutions referred to it by the plenary. If such an item concerns several committees, the Defence Committee either participates in the deliberations in an advisory capacity, informing the committee responsible appointed by the plenary of its opinion, or it is itself the committee responsible, which includes in its decision the opinions of the committees participating in an advisory capacity, and submits its recommendation for a resolution to the plenary.

However, in addition to its work as a parliamentary body which prepares the decisions of the German Bundestag, the Defence Committee can also consider and make recommendations on issues falling within its terms of reference on its own initiative, without an item having been referred to it by the plenary. The basis for such deliberations is mostly a report of the Federal Ministry of Defence, which the Committee has requested and which sets forth a specific matter or comments on the reports or representations of third parties. The assessments of the Defence Committee which emerge from the subsequent discussion are not legally binding on the Federal Government but are of considerable political importance.

In practice, this procedure is the instrument which the Committee most frequently uses in the exercise of parliamentary control of the Federal Government. It corresponds to the right of the committees, laid down in the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag, to summon a member of the Federal Government to a committee meeting at any time (Rule 68 of the Rules of Procedure).