Tasks and procedures

The committees of the German Bundestag are cross-party bodies which are intended to prepare the decisions subsequently taken in the plenary in the course of the legislative process and support Parliament in its function of controlling the government. As a rule, there is a Bundestag committee which corresponds to the area of competence of each ministry. The number of committees and the number of committee members is fixed by the Bundestag every electoral term. Parliament is free to take decisions about most other committees; however, the setting up of the Defence Committee is laid down in the Basic Law or constitution (Article 45a). Apart from the Defence Committee, this is true of only the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union and the Petitions Committee.