Christine Anderson, March 9, 2026, Political Speech Regulation

EU Parliament, March 9, 2026 

Written questions to EU Commission E-001160/2026 

Documents disclosed in a report from the US House Judiciary Committee show that, as part of the EU Internet Forum, the Commission promoted a handbook of borderline content in relation to violent extremism that explicitly classifies ‘populist rhetoric’, ‘anti-EU content’, ‘anti-elite content’, ‘political satire’, ‘meme subculture’ and ‘anti-LGBTIQ content’ as problematic categories to be monitored or limited by platforms, even though these are in themselves lawful forms of political or social expression. 

1. How does the Commission justify equating lawful Eurosceptic or anti-establishment speech and political satire with ‘violent extremism’ in an official handbook, and on what precise legal basis did it urge platforms to use these categories for content moderation beyond what is strictly illegal under EU or national law? 

2. What safeguards did the Commission put in place to ensure that such guidance would not result in systematic discrimination against peaceful opposition movements, conservative viewpoints on migration and gender, or satirical criticism of EU institutions and policies?

Tino Chrupalla, March 18, 2026, War, Migration, Budget

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/64, pp. 7667-7668. 

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

Our position on the new war in the Near East has proved to be right. Ever more politicians at home and abroad share our concern, among others the Chancellor. The aim is to protect the population and civil institutions, as well as to end the war as quickly as possible. 

Herr Merz, from this place I have thanked your predecessor in office, Herr Scholz, for that he delivered no Taurus cruise missiles to the Ukraine. I see hope in that you follow him in this regard and avert harm from the German people. Since on one thing all here in the German Bundestag need to unconditionally agree: Only one commitment [Bekenntnis] is required which we as parliamentarians and politicians give to everyone: That is the commitment to our country and to our citizens. 

            Till Steffen (SPD): For you, that turns out to be, ja, difficult!

By these were we elected, and in the interest of these we need to make Politik. Germany was not defended in the Hindukush, nor is it defended in the Strait of Hormuz. 

            Helge Limburg (Green): And should not be governed from Russia!

Those who begin wars need to submit themselves to questions as to their goals and exit strategies. Just so should those who begin continuing wars be able to put forward evidence even for these. The same standards and rules apply for all. Herr Merz, you have said it: Only so can the trust of the world’s people be maintained. These, to a large extent, in this case have been shocked. 

Ladies and gentlemen, for us it must now first of all be about guaranteeing the security within the German borders. To that belongs consistently meeting the Islamism ever again flaming up here in Germany. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Yet that is a contradiction which you’ve noted,                                nicht wahr?

The demands of my party in that regard are to apply the pertinent law to full extent and, before all, to implement it. Stop the proactive migration of potential criminals, and finally deport the foreign citizens become criminals to their own countries! Asylum is residency for a time, and needs to be thus managed. These measures do not contradict human dignity, and do not condemn wholesale one or another of the groups. They are much more covered by applicable law in Germany. 

You see that the discussion at the European level has long since proceeded. The demand for asylum centers outside the European borders is meanwhile one common to the Union and to the Alternative für Deutschland. And, Herr Merz, who is needed – and at the European level – that, you do not decide. That, the people decide. 

Herr Chancellor, in this regard, exert pressure on our neighbors, particularly in eastern Europe. The Dublin agreement is not just understandings, but finally needs to be followed. We require reliable partners in all questions, and in the migration debate. 

Ladies and gentlemen, if we as Germans have learned something, then it is that for no war in the world should we let ourselves be yoked to the cart of others, by no one and for no interests which are not ours. We know better how a country destroyed by war is to be reconstructed. It was our forefathers and we ourselves who will forever bear that scar. That, we will and cannot expect of no other country. For that, German Politik in the year 2026 should stand. To that, quite clearly does not belong prolonging conflicts and wars by money and material benefits at the cost of the German taxpayers. 

            Metin Hakverdi (SPD): „Deutsche“! „National“!

The Ukraine war is just so little our war as the one in the Near East. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): You need a couple of history courses!

Therefore needs finally be an end to financial packages and military support! For certainly in this new, dangerous world situation, we need the well-being and the problems here in Germany to be back at the center of our Politik. 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Yes, then you do that on a lonely island!

I have enlarged on domestic security. Certainly in regards this and all proposals which are in Germany’s interest, you can count on the support of the Alternative für Deutschland. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Which we can well do without!

Where you need to figure with opposition is in regards your special debts or, as you call them, special funds. Not only do these massively burden the future of our children and grandchildren, no, it has happened exactly as what we here in many debates for a year have prophesied: This Federal government flogs ever more special funds through the German Bundestag because the basic expenditures need to be secured. You, Herr Merz, and your social democratic Finance Minister Klingbeil, have not managed to keep house with billions in tax intake. On that account, you need the expensive special debts so as to secure the core budget. That is neither sozial nor just. Not a cent can thereby flow into the decaying infrastructure of streets, railways, education or health. Not one euro do you invest long-term in the well-being of the German citizens. 

For you, time is running out. Instead of constantly building walls and losing yourself in partisan politics, you need now to finally be ready to make an audit, to prioritize your expenditures, and so far relieve the German economy, the Mittelstand, and the local trades that these do not run away from us, as we are seeing every day. Finally apply the red pencil and strike out superfluous taxes and guidelines which burden everything! I demand of you no world miracle, but a speedy action in regards the high energy and fuel prices. 

And, yes, we need to make it a theme, since these more strongly increase in Germany than in neighboring foreign countries. Yet the citizens and business now require, here and today, a relief. Therefore, away with the CO₂ duty! This decision can be implemented relatively quickly. 

Thus, Herr Chancellor, show that you are open to proposals. You have already in your position on the Near East drawn near to us. Now take care for peace in Europe and go to Russia. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Those are delusions!

In the purchase of Russian oil and gas can also again lie our competitive advantage. 

I thank you for the attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

Mary Khan, March 11, 2026, Leftist Violence

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)03-11(3-0425-0000). 

Herr President. 

Leftist extremism today belongs to the greatest dangers for our democracy, and we have to do with structures which organize and act militantly. Here your friend Ilaria Solis may certainly sing a song – with hammers and so forth. In Lyon, 23-years old Quentin died after a brutal attack. In Berlin, an electrical power line was attacked – affected were working people, pensioners, families. 

As my colleague Froelich said: 70 percent of violent acts against politicians in Germany are alone directed against the AfD. A shame that Frau Geese lately could take no position against that. Extreme leftist violence is long since no more directed only against the right, but against any who do not pass its ideological muster. Even an Alice Schwarzer, an icon of feminism, is no  longer spared from leftist violence. Her book presentation was stormed. That shows how intolerant and radical this milieu has become. At the same time, millions flow further into leftist NGO structures – and from EU programs – in a so-called fight against the right. There will be no such thing with the AFD in the future. There is ultimately not a cent… 

 

[trans: tem]

Anna Rathert, January 29, 2026, Strength – German and American

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/56, pp. 6715-6716. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The Greens lay before us today an interesting motion – not interesting because it offers solutions, but because it reveals their worldview. The text reads like a cry for help. You note that with President Trump, an administration has entered Washington which openly says: “America First”, and no longer manages an international Politik supposedly based on rules, but is again lead by interests. 

Behind that stands a democratic reality; the majority of the Americans have voted for this course. Who finds that unbearable, he needs to learn to deal with it, not to moralize. In your motion, you fear crises and conflicts are intensified when protection and support structures erode. The entire German Politik is fixated on an international protection and support system because it is not dared to stand up for our German fatherland which itself, from itself, can bring forth strength. It is still plainly here, and it is everywhere, even in this house: The old fear of a strong Germany. That is a fallacy [Denkfehler] in which Germany sickens. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): With you, there can be no talk of thought [Denken]!

Departure is taken from material substance in the form of nuclear power, strong industry and economic performance, and one is lost in a system of international organizations like, for example, the EU. Of course, one needs also to affirm protective, rules-based orders without which one fears not to be able to assert oneself against a stronger partner. These orders should guarantee against crises. Yet crises and conflicts do not escalate because somewhere an assistance fund is lacking, or one international resolution too few was issued. Crises escalate because strength is lacking, which is needed for a natural balance of power between states: Economic strength, technological and energy policy strength, a functioning infrastructure: Deutsche Bahn, electricity supply, deterrence and defense capability, and a resilient inner order which is supported socially and culturally. 

You say the Federal government may not continue to belittle itself and needs to self-consciously formulate and represent our interests and values. Ja, nothing would be better than that. We need finally to begin to formulate national German interests, and indeed such which makes us strong and independent; yet that does not go with the self-overestimate put forward here by you. You do not seriously want to explain to the Americans how democracy and economy work 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): It would be sufficient if you would grasp it!

when you here in this country observe the opposition, and are just about de-industrializing Germany. 

            Deborah Düring (Greens): We are, besides, no longer in the government!                                                 A little side note.

Your approach for negotiations as equals is completely wrong. For you are evident the motion’s achievements which, as it happens, are what just forced Germany to its knees: Verbote, de-industrialization by energy policy, supply chain law, over-regulation, the forest protection decree – all of which weaken performance and international commerce. 

Who wants to understand America needs to grasp a historic fact: The United States generally first originated and later became a world power because it has economically and militarily asserted itself. And precisely this ability to succeed [Durchsetzungsfähigkeit] they also expect from their counterparts. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): That is just an intellectual solar eclipse!

There is respect in Washington not for appeals, but for strength and self-responsibility. 

Germany on the other hand acts like a late-stage teenager: Making claims and preaching morality, yet little readiness to take up the responsibility for its own sovereignty. As equals  plainly means first build up one’s own strength, and then talk. 

            Vincenz Glaser (Linke): What is your strength? Contact with Russia?

Who only makes demands, and at the same time makes prescriptions, will not be taken seriously. 

And still one thing: If you really find so unbearable a relationship as that of Trump, as you here argue, then you would especially need to make Germany strong and independent, as you were in government responsibility. Yet that you did not do. That, the present Federal government also  does not do – and now you live stuck with the consequences. 

We as the Alternative für Deutschland stand for the antithesis: To again make Germany capable by use of nuclear power, to be reliable, and then negotiate, sovereign, as equals – not to lecture, but to achieve. That goes only with us, and thus our time is just beginning. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Hans Neuhoff, March 10, 2026, EU Defense Policy

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)03-10(2-0350-0000). 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The European Union loves crises. For crises are a wonderful means of carrying through extraordinary political measures. The typical hallmarks of the crisis rhetoric are, first, the existential threat: Climate death, Corona death, Russian death. Second, the time pressure: We must immediately act! Third, the asserted lack of alternative. And, fourth, the character of the measure itself: Strong state intervention, new laws, a common debts program and, before all, the centralization of political power. 

The EU has thus used all crises since 2008 so as to drive forward the statehood of the Union: The finance and banking crisis, the climate crisis, the refugee crisis, and the Corona crisis. The Russian invasion of the Ukraine in February 2022 was a propitious opportunity to summon up the next crisis: The security crisis and defense emergency. Under the banner of the European security, the next great integration step will be prepared: An internal market for armaments, a common procurement, ever closer military integration. This is sold to us as pragmatic efficiency measure, as a technological necessity, as a rational step. 

In truth, it is a matter of something quite other: A political project. Since as soon as defense industries and military planning are interwoven with one another, dependencies arise which are scarcely to be rescinded. Then integration will no more be decided politically, it will be structurally compelled. With other words: An ostensible threatening situation is used so as to more closely and irreversibly interlock the member states one with another. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the Alternative für Deutschland expressly supports the goal of Europe’s strategic autonomy. The acquisition of the required military capabilities is however a fundamental decision, not a crisis project. The planned measures for the erection of an internal defense market will therefore not be supported by the ESN delegation. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Gauland, January 30, 2026, Konrad Adenauer

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/57, pp. 6871-6872. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Herr Spahn, I believe it is not right to make use of Adenauer so as to place a party, which represents the conservative ideas which Adenauer represented, so to say, right away offsides. 

            Pascal Reddig (CDU/CSU): That is really just not so!

I grant you are, yes, right in many things – not in regards us, but in regards Adenauer. 

Germany has brought forth only a few important statesmen. In the Kaiserreich, it was undoubtedly Bismarck. In the Weimar Republic Stresemann, and in the early Federal Republic of course Konrad Adenauer. There, you are right. For the late Federal Republic, Brandt and Kohl still deserve the epithet. Helmut Schmidt lacked the circumstances. 

Yet what now makes an important statesman? The historian would say that he wisely analyzed the situation of his country and on the basis of this analysis successfully recognized and carried out the interests of the country. And that applies to Konrad Adenauer in especial measure. He managed, Herr Spahn, a Politik of national interests as Germany’s situation of that time made necessary. 

            Boris Mijatovic (Greens): Aha!

Hitler ruined to a maximum Germany’s power and reputation in the world and Adenauer stood before the duty to reconstruct both for the free part of Germany. He did that, in that he consistently united western Germany with the leading powers of one camp, and even against resistance offered much military assistance. That was, ten years after Germany’s unconditional surrender, daring and full of risk and for the eastern Germans, at least in the short and middle view, without profit. For that reason, to this day the way between the blocs is preferred by many as an alternative, as it so emerged in outline in the 1952 Stalin note. 

            Paula Piechotta (Greens): That is historisch!

I think those who so argue, misunderstand the deep fall of our country – in terms of power politics and morality – in distinction to the Weimar Republic which could still achieve the Politik of balance and also act correspondingly. 

Hitler completely destroyed the moral capital which is necessary for a successful foreign policy. And Adenauer first needed to rebuild it. Here, we will also likely be agreed. He did that with skill and perseverance to which also belong the settlement with and the aid for Israel. Certainly in Israel’s case, moral attentiveness and a wise German Politik of interests contributed much to rebuilding Germany’s reputation in the world; besides being one of the prerequisites of Willy Brandt’s later Ostpolitik which, without Adenauer, of course would not have worked. That Adenauer, in regards every rejection of Soviet Russia, as he Kölnisch called it, could act pragmatically, quite without ideology, the German prisoners of war were brought back in 1955. A high point of his career and also a high point for many people in this country. 

Ever again has been made a theme, primarily by leftists, that it was the reactionary Adenauer era in which old Nazis were allowed to again make careers. That remains, so far as something of it is right and is not merely due to a leftist antibürgerlichen reflex, 

            Paula Piechotta (Greens): Those are facts, Herr Gauland!

an impermissible involvement of his name with social conditions on which he once casually commented: If no clean water is at hand, the dirty needs be taken. – Or, you’ve already cited it: People need be taken as they are, there is of course nothing other. In this question he was even agreed with his great competitor, Kurt Schumacher. In fact, the people needed to once again become accustomed to democracy and a market economy. 

Yes, he was a bourgeois through and through as he showed in his passionate rejection of Hitlerism. Yet like most fathers and mothers of the Basic Law, he depended on an ethnic-cultural term for the people, and from his historical experience he mistrusted the Germans’ ability for political judgment. And, ladies and gentlemen, if I myself look at many of the debates in this country or in this parliament, he was in that thoroughly right. 

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]