Merz supports not flying rainbow flag on German parliament during Pride

Germany Chancellor Friedrich Merz has supported a move not to fly the rainbow flag — a symbol of the LGBTQI+ community — on the Reichstag building in Berlin during Pride celebrations.

Days ago, Bundestag President Julia Klöckner of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) announced that the rainbow Pride flag would not fly from the parliament building, the Reichstag, on Christopher Street Day on July 26, as it has done for the past couple of years.

Klöckner also decided that LGBTQ+ members of the Bundestag administration were not to attend the CSD parade in an official capacity.

The decision not to raise the flag at parliament was criticized by opposition parties the environmentalist Greens and the socialist Left Party, among others.

When asked about that decision, Merz told German public broadcaster ARD on Tuesday that “the Bundestag is not a circus tent” on which flags can be hoisted at will.

“On all other days, the German flag and the European flag are flown on the German Bundestag, and no others. And this decision is the right one,” Merz said.

Everyone can fly whatever flags they want on their own doorstep, said the chancellor. “But we’re talking about the German parliament here, and in the German parliament, we don’t fly any flags every day, but the German national flag and the European flag,” he said.

Read more via Deutsche Welle