Berlin House of Representatives | Left postpones conflict over Vanessa Emde

Will she soon be fighting alone in the state parliament? Vanessa Emde is still a member of the Left parliamentary group. Photo: dpa/Soeren Stache In English this is called “anticlimatic”: The controversial left-wing MP Vanessa Emde can remain in the left-wing faction in the House of Representatives – at least for this week. A planned discussion in the parliamentary group's executive committee was canceled because Emde had called in sick. “The parliamentary group executive board has now repeated the invitation to Vanessa Emde for the next meeting next Tuesday,” said a spokesman for the parliamentary group.

There had previously been speculation that the parliamentary group's executive committee would submit an application for exclusion against Emde. The parliamentary group leadership recently declared that there was “no longer any common working basis” with Emde. Consequences should be discussed at the meeting on Tuesday. In the afternoon, the rest of the group met – only for an “informal meeting” because of the autumn break.

Emde was directly elected to the state parliament in the Neukölln 1 constituency in the House of Representatives election on September 20th with 46 percent of the first votes. In the past she had made anti-Israel statements. During the election campaign, she indirectly questioned Israel's right to exist. According to media reports, she said at a demonstration: "There is no right for states to exist - people have a right to exist."

She is also accused of having contacts with Ibrahim Ibrahim, a self-declared supporter of the Palestinian terrorist group PFLP. The group is responsible for dozens of attacks with hundreds of civilian deaths in Israel. Emde posed for a photo with Ibrahim at the Left Neukölln election party. In the past, Emde defended Ibrahim's appearance at the summer festival of the Neukölln district association of the Left Party in 2025. Most recently, she promoted a demonstration on October 10th, which also featured speakers who paid homage to Hamas and its slain leader Yahya Sinwar in Arabic.

The parliamentary group and state leadership had already clearly distanced themselves from Emde on Friday last week. "We have to realize that we have constituted ourselves with a representative who does not cooperate with the party," it said in a joint statement. Emde does not speak for the group.

The trigger was a video that Emde published on Instagram on Thursday evening. In it she complains about a “smear theater” surrounding her person. “The fact that I was ultimately accepted into the faction is a small gain in ground against the reasons of state,” says Emde. "I stand by my statements and I don't take back a single one of them." She won't let "bureaucratic tricks" and threats of exclusion stop her from doing so.

It would have been enough for Emde not to be included if a simple majority of MPs had voted against her. A two-thirds majority is now required for successful exclusion.

Just two days earlier, however, Emde and all other Left MPs present had signed a paper reaffirming party conference resolutions that included a two-state solution in the Middle East and explicitly mentioned Israel's right to exist. The parliamentary group leader Tobias Schulze said "nd": "If you are a representative of the Left, then it is clear that you do not represent a private opinion in public, but the position of our party."

The timing for publishing the video was apparently chosen tactically. It would have been enough for Emde not to be included if a simple majority of MPs had voted against her. A two-thirds majority is now required for successful exclusion.

Emde's video is said not to have been particularly well received by Left Party officials who are close to her position. In addition, it is said to be difficult or even impossible to reach even for political allies. However, Hermann Nehls, chairman of her Neukölln district association, still supported her compared to the “Tagesspiegel”. "'Vedi' Emde has been working cooperatively and constructively in the Neukölln district association for many years and is firmly anchored there," says Nehls. In fact, it is unclear whether the required two-thirds majority for exclusion could be achieved in the group. Although the majority of the group represents more or less clearly pro-Palestinian positions, only a group of five to eight MPs is said to have a uncompromising stance.

The fact that the parliamentary group executive committee - in which the state chairmen Kerstin Wolter and Maximilian Schirmer are co-opted as advisory members - is hesitant to take tougher measures, there may also be reasons within the party. A state party conference still has to approve the coalition negotiations on October 31st. It is currently considered likely that this will happen. During a discussion in the state executive board, only one member voted against coalition negotiations. State executive committee members who had expressed skepticism about government participation in the past also voted for the state chairmen's draft resolution. According to participants, only individual voices expressed fundamental criticism of the exploratory results during an online switch for Left Party activists on Sunday evening.

“The successes in housing policy negotiations are outshining everything,” says a person close to the Left leadership. You don't want to jeopardize this mood. The party leadership is happy that the anti-Semitism debate has recently faded into the background - both in external perception and within the party. Excluding the controversial MPs could put the eternally contentious issue back on the agenda.

There could hardly be a worse start for the Left Party to the coalition negotiations in November than when it appears divided at the party conference. After all, both future coalition partners have doubts about the reliability of the Socialists and would have an alternative coalition option in the CDU. Your state chairman Stefan Evers seems to have even increased his advances since the explorations were completed.

The reactions of the possible coalition parties to Emde's calculated provocation have recently remained mild. The SPD and the Greens said behind closed doors that the formation of a government should not be made dependent on a single person.

The dispute over Emde had already almost blown up the explorations between the Left, the Greens and the SPD. In the discussions preceding the exploratory discussions, the SPD and the Greens are said to have demanded that Emde not be included in the left-wing faction. It is unclear whether representatives of the Left Party have promised this.

The inclusion of Emde in the left-wing faction ensured that the SPD and the Greens interrupted the explorations for a day. These have now been successfully completed. The SPD and the Greens have already voted for coalition negotiations. This is unlikely to increase the pressure on the Left Party to put an end to the Emde case.

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