National group
A regional group is the association of members of a parliamentary group in the German Bundestag who all come from the same country. The term delegation is also used in the European Parliament .
Bundestag
Every major political group in the Bundestag has its own regional groups. They unite the members of the Bundestag from the respective federal state of the parliamentary group.
The Bavarian regional group of the Union parliamentary group can be seen as a special feature. This parliamentary group consists of the two independent parties CSU and CDU . Since the CSU only competes in Bavaria and the CDU in the other federal states, the CSU regional group is to be equated with the CSU sub -parliamentary group within the Union parliamentary group . This status gives it greater influence on the parliamentary group as a whole than other similarly large regional groups in the Bundestag have. The SPD members of the Bundestag from the two federal states of Lower Saxony and Bremen have been working together since October 2009 . In the legislative period from 2017 onwards, the CDU MPs from Bremen also belong to the Lower Saxony state group in their parliamentary group.
European Parliament
The political groups in the European Parliament are basically composed of members from various national parties, each of which is organized in a national delegation. The head of the national delegation is usually the top candidate of the respective party in the previous European elections . The largest individual delegation in the 2019–24 legislative period is the non-attached British Brexit Party with 29 MEPs . Many delegations from parties from smaller Member States or from small parties also consist of a single parliamentarian.