Managing government
A caretaker government is in office in representative, democratically constituted states in the period between the constitution of a newly elected parliament and the election of a new government by the new parliament.
Situation in Germany
The transition period after the new election of the German Bundestag is regulated in Article 69 of the Basic Law.
According to paragraph 2 of the article, the term of office of the Federal Chancellor in office up to that point ends with the constitution of a newly elected Bundestag , and thus immediately the term of office of the other members of the Federal Government .
Since the Bundestag cannot usually elect a new Federal Chancellor in its constituent session, Article 69 (3) obliges the members of an "old" Federal Government to continue their official business at the request of the Federal President until the election and appointment of a new Federal Government. With this transitional administration, the members of the government (the chancellor and the ministers) formally retain all the powers they had before. However, it is part of the political culture in Germany that the executive government does not make any decisions in its actions that would unnecessarily bind the subsequent regular government or restrict its scope for action. This primarily concerns financial and personnel issues, but also the passing of draft laws and diplomatic and contractual relations with other states.