The right of permitting or vetoing an interpellation rests with the chamber.
An interpellation can be brought on without the consent of the minister to be attacked; it is usually made the subject of a general debate, and generally ends with a vote of confidence or want of confidence in the ministry.
In the session of 1901 Admiral von Tirpitz, the minister of marine, admitted in answer to a Socialist interpellation that the naval programme of 1900 would have to be enlarged.
The impulsive character of the emperor, which led him, with the best intentions and often with excellent effect, to interfere everywhere and in everything and to utter opinions often highly inconvenient to his ministers, was the subject of an interpellation in the Reichstag on the 20th of January 1903 by the Socialist Herr von Vollmar, himself a Bavarian.
In France a tendency has been growing among deputies to use the interpellation as a method of attack on or accusation against individual colleagues.