Tino Chrupalla, December 16, 2024, Confidence in Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/205, pp. 26525-26526. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen. 

Following the elections for the 20^th German Bundestag, was very quickly clear that a government of SPD, FDP, Bundnis 90/Greens will yield no policy in the interest of Germany, and we were more than confirmed in that. 

In regards the decision of conscience of the now to follow vote on the Chancellor’s confidence question, numerous origins of the Ampel government’s failure need to be considered. 

Herr Chancellor, to express confidence in you would be counter to the interests of the economy and the citizens. This coalition wanted to combine programs which are simply incompatible. Thus were entirely obvious compromises in statutory form carried through which only served the Ampel’s stability. In that regard, the future of German industry was never at the central point. As a result are over 20,000 business insolvencies in the year 2024. Germany declines economically, and international investors, due to the enormous tax burden, still come only when robust state promotion means are promised. 

Along with the one-sided and aggressive climate policy, there remains from this Ampel only a state becoming ever larger, more interventionist and more restrictive of innovation, which devours the citizens’ taxes. Consent for restrictions was expensively purchased with promises and gifts of money, as the heating law only too well demonstrated. 

In that regard, the Free Democrats have committed the truly greatest betrayal of their voters. Who, for a securing of power, so far distances himself from his program, needs also show no tenacity in regards resignation. That is not only too late, Herr Lindner, but simply unbelievable, just as you are as a person. That, Herr Mützenich has today wonderfully summarized. 

Yet now we also need be so honest and say that politics is a long-term business. Every Federal government knowingly takes up the inheritance of its preceding or penultimate government. Accordingly, it’s simply just ridiculous when the CDU/CSU again shows no humility and not once develops its own ideas. You copy AfD demands: Solve the migration question by border controls and deportations, re-name Bürgergeld in a new basic security, abolish the supply chain due diligence law, reduce the business taxes. Herr Merz, the question is: With whom do you want to actually implement all that? With whom do you want to actually do all that? 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): With you, certainly not. Certainly not with you! 

That, you did not say today in your unsympathetic speech, Herr Merz.

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): With you not! 

So as to make our country competitive again, of course need be developed the infrastructures which were neglected for decades: Structural, personal, and of course also financial. In that regard, it’s also about efficiency. Finally look at what you expended for particular posts. For years already, I call [anmahne] for an audit and it would have been your duty as Finance Minister, Herr Lindner, to finally realize that. We of course may no longer fleece those who create value in Germany. And we need not do it if the Federal government finally had come or would come to decisions with a future. 

A successful state provides an infrastructure – streets, railways, schools, hospitals, etc. – in which firms gladly settle and create workplaces and also can expand. If however these firms are alienated by ever more bureaucratic demands and expensive energy, they will go to another country, as we, ja, presently see. 

Herr Chancellor, I nevertheless hold one thing of yours to be good: Your Nein to a delivery of Taurus cruise missiles. For the war-lovers of the FDP, the CDU, the Greens, you were hesitant; for me in this case prudent. It is really not to be imagined if a Friedrich Merz had decided in your place. 

            Hermann Gröhe (CDU/CSU): Radio Moscow!

We would have been drawn much deeper into war. For there is, ja, peace in every cemetery. There we can, with a CDU/CSU-led government under Friedrich Merz, then visit our children. 

            Alexander Dobrindt (CDU/CSU): That is unbelievable!

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, we finally need a politics in German and European interest. And that is only with a Chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and with the Alternative für Deutschland. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Marc Jongen, December 17, 2024, Roumania, TikTok, Democracy

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE(2024)12-17(2-259-0000). 

Herr President. 

It cannot be conceived: Yesterday this parliament applauded the nullification of the democratic presidential election in Roumania. When the wrong candidate is in the lead, who does not suit the EU elites, then he obviously must go. We are on the way to a totalitarian system, ladies and gentlemen. And what is the reasoning? Manipulation of citizens on TikTok by foreign agents. 

You credit the citizens with so little discernment. You see the citizens as a manipulated mass. That is a declaration of bankruptcy. Following this logic, all elections in Germany need be nullified, since there the state media manipulates without end – but then nothing will be done. Yet when a 14-year-old posts something patriotic on TikTok, then in the morning the police are at the door. Where are we coming to? And following this logic, all elections could be nullified at will. Since how can the foreign influence ever be proved? 

Democracy enjoins accepting the will of the people, and even if it does not suit you. Respect that, if you want to be called democrats. 

 

[trans: tem]

Stephan Brandner, December 6, 2024, Lèse-majesté

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/204, pp. 26472-26473. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

I find that we are quite well set. When I look at the ranks of the other delegations, it appears quite good in regards to us. 

Let me begin with a pre-Christmas fairy tale. There was once a kingdom, let us call it Collapsistan, with all that pertains thereto. There was a king, let us call him Olaf the Forgetful, a prince, let us call him Robert Feeble-minded [Schwachkopf] the First, his beautiful but rather dumb consort princess Anna the Clueless, a wicked, gruesome, cunning stepmother, Marie-Agnes, and a court jester by the name of Karl the Confused. There were also dark, corrupt powers: The BlackRockers, led by Fritz the Babbler and Jens “Allow us a villa” Spahn. 

This Collapsistan sank into chaos for want of qualified leaders. It was not at all on this account chased from the castle, because the secret service, the police and the media protected it. The social and economic chaos was so great that the people were continually impoverished and enraged; whereas the rulers lived in unimaginable, lavish luxury, riotously, made horrendous debts due to deficient income, and, despite that, tossed off hundreds of thousands for castle photos in which they should appear in shining lights, for hairdressing, which in one day cost as much as what many poor people in Collapsistan did not have available in a month. They flew with luxury jets which the people needed to finance – who else? – to and fro through world history, made flights of a distance walked by other people. The state religion paid homage to the climate pharaohs for which insane gifts and sacrifices were prepared. 

The result is clear: The world laughed over this incompetent barn of corruption. And the citizens in Collapsistan were offended, insulted and mocked. Yet the rulers made no better policy, but demanded draconian penalties for critical statements. 

Ladies and gentlemen, thus far a fairy tale; nevertheless with a present reference. 

In Germany also chaos governs. The citizens are disquieted; by rustic, pointed expressions make themselves noticeable and vent their feelings. Yet those who govern here govern no better, but have critical citizens persecuted by the police by means of warnings and legal intimidations. Through the years, a denunciation and spying network has been laid over Germany like a mildew, and those who govern have created for themselves protective, special laws, like section 188 of the criminal code which is here on the table and which only particularly punishes the insulting of politicians, and indeed with two to three years custody. Three years! If a simple citizen is insulted, a penalty of merely one year threatens the perpetrator. 

In addition, the normal citizen needs to trouble himself and file a criminal complaint. For a politician, in practice, that follows automatically, as per section 194 of the criminal code. And so it can well be that, in the morning in the residence of a supposed critic of the government, as for example in mid-November of a former soldier with a handicapped child, officially stand the police who almost kicked down the door just because he shared a funny photo of Robert Habeck. 

This special law was created in 2021 as a measure against hate and agitation and rightist extremism by politicians who now profit therefrom. It reminds me personally, I need quite honestly say, of the anti-state agitation in the DDR penal code, or the statute against malicious attacks on the state and party from the year 1934. 

And precisely the politicians who created this statute now profit therefrom, and thus earn for themselves a cornucopia. Comically, start-up businesses were founded which do nothing other than warn blameless citizens, demand warning fees and then make fifty-fifty with the politicians. Something is thus just so transparent, ladies and gentlemen. Robert Habeck alone has filed 800 criminal complaints [Strafanzeigen erstattet] during his time in office, a total of a thousand criminal complaints by Baerbock, Strack-Zimmermann and as they all are called. They do not defend themselves by means of good politics, they defend themselves by means of harassing measures. Especially is the FDP at the fore, have I read. The FDP manages such warning unions, such warning start-ups, and is proud of it. 

Katharina Willkomm (FDP): No, no no! We have nothing to do with that. Those are private people.

Ladies and gentlemen, we politicians are not especially worthy of protection. Publicity is part of our jobs. We seek publicity. We wallow in publicity. We go with joy into publicity. And why should we be better protected by the criminal code than normal people? 

We politicians are not weaklings who require the special protection of the criminal law. We are no majesties, no kings, no princes. We are employees of the citizens who elect us and pay us. There thus needs be an end to that you of the cartel parties lift yourselves above the citizens, an end to the special law for politicians, an end to section 188 of the criminal code, the lèse-majesté of modern times which is nothing other than an expression of a repressive, authoritarian understanding of the state. 

Likewise, go our way! Section 188 out of the penal code! This here is only a current hour, yet the corresponding draft law is done and will be brought in next. 

            Axel Müller (CDU/CSU): Where is it, then?

Many thanks and Merry Christmas if we should no more see one another. 

 

[trans: tem]

Marc Bernhard, December 6, 2024, Heating Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/204, pp. 26450-26451. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Last year, the Ampel, against every sense and reason, come hell or high water, flogged the heating law through the Bundestag, without regard to loss, and thereby practically banned the new installation of oil and gas heating. 

Konrad Stockmeier (FDP): Wrong!

30 million households, thus around 64 million people, heat with oil and gas. That means that 75 percent of the people in Germany are directly affected by your heating hammer, and regardless whether owner or renter. Yet it was already clear prior to the passage that for many it will be unaffordable, that it destroys the old age provision of many millions of people, and is nothing other than a cold expropriation. Your heating hammer makes the costs of dwellings and heating unaffordable for many people. 

It was previously also fully clear that your heating hammer is absolutely ineffective; since even the most optimistic estimates of Habeck’s ministry proceed on a yearly savings of just one, single percent of the total German CO₂ emissions – thus, the CO₂ quantity which China blows into the air in just five hours. And for that, you destroy the savings, the old age provision and the prosperity of the people in our country? How crazy are you, actually? 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): That is a rhetorical question!

Had you simply done nothing, but simply just let the last three nuclear power plants continue to run, 

            Bernhard Herrmann (Greens): Ach, you heat with atomic power, or what?                            Nonsense!

we would each year – just listen for once – save 15 million tons of CO₂, thus double as much as by your entire heating hammer. 

Even Construction Minister Geywitz has practically confirmed here in a questioning in the Bundestag that, with the heating hammer, what demonstrably works was forbidden, without really knowing, without having any functioning plan, as to how the people instead should heat in the future. 

Almost every second municipal utility considers an affordable heating supply no longer secure on account of your heating hammer. The city of Leipzig ascertained that the implementation of the heating hammer for Leipzig alone costs 30 billion euros. 

            Karsten Hilse (AfD): It’s only money!

That is 45,000 euros from infants to old men. No one can pay for this madness. 

Mannheim in 2035 as the first city in Germany completely disconnects people from the gas network. And thus happens exactly what I had said many times last year in the Bundestag: On account of your heating law, people now need to tear out new heating in the most brief time because it does not suit their city’s heating plan. 

Yet the crowning is that you of the FDP, then still in the government, yourselves had reckoned, before passage of the heating law, that the heating hammer will cost the people the unimaginable sum of 2,500 billion euros, and despite that, you in common with red-green, against better judgment, against every reason, simply forced through this law. 

And now? After the Chancellor showed you the door, you suddenly want to know nothing more at all of this. You, like the Chancellor, can remember nothing more, simply assert the opposite, and apparently want to rescind the law which you yourselves introduced. Thus, how credible your turnaround actually is, you can here and now give evidence by you voting for our motion [Drucksache 14031]. 

The same applies to you of the CDU. In all media, you announce that you want to rescind the heating law – exactly as Jens Spahn a couple of minutes ago here in the Bundestag confirmed – thus exactly what we today propose. 

If you of the CDU and the FDP thus really meant it seriously, then we would have for this today a majority. Yet you know quite precisely that with the reds and greens with whom you want to form a coalition in the future, there will never be a revocation. Thus show whether you mean it seriously, 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Many thanks.

or whether you are only once again lying to the people out there.

[trans: tem]

 

 

Christine Anderson, November 27, 2024, Ursula von der Leyen

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2024)11-27(3-0025-0000.). 

Frau President. 

Donald Trump presents his new cabinet: Highly competent patriots determined to Make America Great Again, determined to again make policy for the people. And what do we get? You, Frau von der Leyen –hearty thanks. The wrecking ball which mercilessly demolishes all that made the European peoples strong. I want a Europe which is strong, sovereign and successful; a Europe of success, a Europe of freedom, of democracy and of the state of law. With you, we receive nothing of all that. 

Frau von der Leyen, you alone would be bad enough. Yet the prospective commissioners which you have gathered, they are the purest wrecking crew as far as freedom and democracy and the state of law are concerned. For once make an accounting, Frau von der Leyen, of your unspeakable mRNA vaccine delivery contract. Otherwise, your commissioners proposal can take its hat. My delegation will not support it. Now, regrettably, I am not allowed to call you corrupt, else my microphone again be turned off – but even so: Frau von der Leyen, you are corrupt to the last fiber of your existence! 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Götz Frömming, November 13, 2024, CDU and Democracy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/199, pp. 25915-25916. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

“…parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good...” [*] 

            Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): Amen! 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Claims for which you have never been fit!

So far Edmund Burke in his famous speech to the voters of Bristol in 1774. Ladies and gentlemen, let us compare the present situation of this parliament with the ideal of then. 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You might need to get out!

This, what you have made of our parliament, is the exact opposite in comparison to what Burke described, ladies and gentlemen. 

Real deliberations, the struggle over the best solution for the good of the people, no longer take place. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): No self-evidently! 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You’ve never done it!

SPD, CDU, Greens and FDP have come to an understanding for a trimmed daily order of the German Bundestag. Only urgently necessary points of the daily order shall spoken on. Initiatives of the opposition – the actual opposition – shall be set aside with or without debate. Ladies and gentlemen, that is unparliamentary, that is undemocratic, that is an assault on the heart of our democracy. 

It is evident, ladies and gentlemen, for you, the general good does not come first, but your party interests. We presently in fact have a minority government. That has been seldom acceded to in German parliamentary history, but is commonplace in other countries. There, one has no fear of the free struggle for the best solution. Minority governments, ladies and gentlemen, need not necessarily go along with a parliamentary standstill. They could be stellar moments of democracy. Yet for that is required authentic and courageous democrats. 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Then you need to get out!

Of those, ladies and gentlemen, we have too few in this parliament. It also does not help that you yourselves always mutually dilute being democratic. Now, where it would come to that, you deny democracy, ladies and gentlemen. 

What then would be so bad if members for once really follow their consciences when a good motion achieves a majority only with votes of the opposition? Yet as I hear, you want no votes from the wrong side. Honored colleagues of the CDU, when it is about the good of our country, then there is no such wrong side. 

Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): The level was already low, but now it becomes subterranean.

You then stand with your firewall on the wrong side. 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You are always on the wrong side!

Following the frightful terror attack at Solingen on the 23^rd of August of this year, the CDU/CSU  delegation chairman wrote an urgent letter to the Chancellor. I may cite therefrom: 

“Release…the vote in the Bundestag on the the required laws…We want no participation in your government and no offices; we want that you fulfill your oath of office and avert harm from the German people. For that, with us you have a majority in the German Bundestag…” 

            Jürgen Braun (AfD): Aha! Hear, hear!

Thus far the Chancellor. In what concerns forgetfulness, Friedrich Merz in fact has a Chancellor quality, ladies and gentlemen. 

In fact in September the CSU/CSU brought in such a motion. Its content: To limit the migrant flow and begin with a return. Not by far enough, but a step in the right direction. And what have we experienced? Last week, precisely this draft law was on the daily order for a second and third reading. It would have been able to receive perhaps a majority with the votes from the ranks of the FDP and AfD. Yet precisely on this account it was withdrawn by the CDU/CSU. 

            Jürgen Braun (AfD): Ach, here, someone is afraid!

You were afraid that your own motion could pass, ladies and gentlemen. That allows a deep look and says much of your understanding of democracy. 

Who should at all still believe that your motion was seriously meant by you, which you previously presented and in which was written a bit in the AfD sound? Did you perhaps only present all of these motions because you know that they will be rejected, and now where you could receive a vote in favor, 

Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): No, we want to pass them, only not with you! That is the only reason! 

you present no more such motions. 

The long since running secret negotiations on a new government with the Greens or the SPD should not be encumbered. Ladies and gentlemen, you have the entire time only simulated opposition. That is shabby. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the problem nevertheless is: Who votes for Merz, receives Habeck. How often have the two actually met for secret negotiations? 

            Till Steffen (Greens): What does secret mean? 

            Erhard Grundl (Greens): If you knew it, it’s not secret. 

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): What did you plan in Potsdam?

The citizens can vote for that they want, they receive always the same politics. Here, one need not be surprised by a political dissatisfaction. 

            Vice-president Aydan Özogŭz: Come please to a conclusion. 

Following the next elections, ladies and gentlemen, we will, in Edmund Burke’s sense, again make the parliament of our nation a deliberating and deciding assembly. 

Many thanks. 

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): There, you contribute definitely nothing! 

 

[*] The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke. 6 vols. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854-1856.

[trans: tem]