Uwe Schulz, December 20, 2019, 5G Internet Security

Uwe Schulz

5G Internet Security

German Bundestag, December 20, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/138, pp. 17302-17303

[Uwe Schulz is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. He is a businessman.]

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Already ten months ago, the AfD demanded of the Federal Government finally to concern itself with measures for the security of our communications network. In contrast to most in this house, it was quite clear to us then that there was a need to act in regards 5G security.  

The bill’s author, on one page, must examine and adapt the legal grounds.

Primarily, it must be politically guaranteed that the 5G network be constructed only with trustworthy firms. For the AfD, it is clear: Firms which are substantially under the influence of undemocratic states, and which can be pressed into espionage, are not partners for us.

            Michael Fulda (CDU/CSU): Then what is it with you and Russia and China?

All of you rejected our motion of February 13, and there was not alternative motion, nothing.

            Christoph Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): Since 2018!

Yet you now come with similar demands that give up the ghost. To you, dear colleagues of the FDP and Greens, is Germany’s security obviously only important when it fits your partisan political concept.

            Ursula Groden-Kranich (CDU/CSU): The righteous speak!

            Falko Mohrs (SPD): Already a bit confused.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a tragedy that even though 5G is long since at the starting gate, the government coalition indicates no clear position. In your oh-so-aggressive 2017 5G strategy, there is nothing on the theme of “Internet Equipment Security”, and in regards frequency auctions, for you, the Federal Government, the proceeds are more important than the security aspects.

            Falko Mohrs (SPD): That is still rubbish! The criteria were already announced! 

A bit of acquaintance with the facts helps!

Yet in that regard, even the Federal Government must have understood what it meant: The 5G network in the future will be the central, critical infrastructure for essential social and economic functions. For you, completely responsible officials have written into the risk assessment that the key components of the 5G networks must be subject to control and that dubious network suppliers are to be excluded. Thus far is theory: Since the Chancellor’s arrogance appears again to have won the upper hand. Frau Merkel is quite well aware that the German intelligence service urgently warned of that in referring back to Chinese network supplier Huawei for the German 5G network. While Frau Merkel believes in her own infallibility, the Economics Minister lapses into angst, fearing Chinese sanctions should Huawei not get underway. The Federal Republic of Germany, ladies and gentlemen, allows itself to be extorted by a country to which we yearly pay more than half a billion euros in development assistance.

What do you notice?

Yet you also know – the Federal Government which is not on hand – that China, in strengthening its own economy, is driving an extremely hard bargain: The banning by Chinese officials of foreign computer technology is only one example. Does that look like trust, ladies and gentlemen? Does that look like partnership?  I think not.

It is a question here of whether we as the Federal Republic of Germany will hand over our digital sovereignty to the Chinese Communist Party or whether we want to make a self-determined foreign and economic policy which defends our sovereignty or even restores it. We demand of the Federal Government an end to your embarrassing game of hide-and-seek and finally take a definite position.

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): When will you again be going to Putin?

Yet perhaps, ladies and gentlemen of the government parties, your vision will become somewhat clearer should you finally take leave of your dependence on Huawei as a sponsor of your party day –

            Ursula Groden-Kranich (CDU/CSU): Not us!

– since that is long since overdue.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Beatrix von Storch, December 19, 2019, Hezbollah Ban

Beatrix von Storch

Hezbollah Ban

German Bundestag, December 19, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/137, pp. 17074-17075

[Beatrix von Storch is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Berlin. She is a lawyer and here responds to proposals by some of the other parties in the Bundestag concerning Hezbollah in Germany. Horst Seehofer (CSU) is the German Interior Minister.]

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

As a matter of fact, the Alternative für Deutschland six months ago presented a motion to ban Hezbollah. All of you here then loudly rejected this motion and since then block it in committee.

            Stefan Liebich (Linke): We have rejected you!

Now, six months later, you turn about and go through the door which we have politically opened.

Benjamin Steiner (FDP): Herr Gedeon and others still have leadership positions among    you. That is hypocisy.

If you openly presented this procedure with many AfD demands, things in Germany would then again be getting along.

            Michael Grosse-Bömer (CDU/CSU): Traveling to Syria, or what?

If only. Consider yourself kindly encouraged by us.

You finally and expressly renounce the hitherto absurdly sensed distinction between a legal, political arm and an illegal, military arm of a terrorist organization and thus now demand a ban on the activities of both arms. That is headed in the right direction.

Yet in June, during the last debate on this theme, colleague Grötsch of the SPD stated here in this place: Hezbollah in Lebanon is “a relevant social factor.” Therefore, it could not be banned in Germany. By the same logic, the Mafia or the Taliban must be allowed to act politically here. That is completely absurd. We rejoice that you now recognize this absurdity and are marching in the right direction.

Yet your motion exhibits two central weaknesses. You want only an activities ban. We want an association or organization ban. According to the 1994 anti-crime bill, the activities ban is the milder means compared to our organization ban. There is not a reason in the world to proceed against a terrorist organization with the milder and not the harder means. You are doing a Seehofer: Your bark is louder than your bight.

The second, serious deficit is the reasoning of your motion. You write, I cite:

The association structures attributable to Hezbollah on which an associations law organization ban could be based are…not ascertainable.

That is objectively false. There is in the Constitution Defense report, word for word in 2017 and 2018, I cite:

In Germany, the adherents of “Hizb-allah” attend to the organizational and ideological cohesion of, among others, local associations of mosques…

Have you actually read your Constitution Defense report? In case it is too long for you: It is in the 2018 report on page 214. Simply refer yourself to there for once.

Vice-president Thomas Oppermann: Frau von Storch, do you consent to an interim question from the FDP?

Nein, I consent to nothing now. If you do not want to touch the Hezbollah mosque associations then you are conducting a purely symbolic policy. It plainly ought not to remain a symbolic policy. It is about a substantial transformation. Hezbollah’s propaganda in Germany and terrorism financing in Germany must be stopped. The mosque associations which provide it must be abolished and – this is especially important – Hezbollah adherents must be expelled.

That, besides, corresponds with the demand of the Bundestag’s anti-semitism resolution. It expressly demands residence termination measures against anti-semitism. If that is not appropriate for Hezbollah adherents, who want to put Jews in the gas and destroy Israel, then what?

We here in Berlin for every year since 1996 must put up with the hideous, Hezbollah spectacle on the so-called Al-quds day. We expect you to have solved the Hezbollah problem by the next Al-quds day which will occur in half a year. The citizens are pained by your lip service and sermons. You must finally stop with making proclamations only. Please get busy.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Alexander Gauland, December 12, 2019, Nord Stream 2

Alexander Gauland

Nord Stream 2

AfD Kompakt, December 12, 2019

[Alexander Gauland is a chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland delegation in the German Bundestag.]

The House of Representatives’s resolution is a mistake since sanctions have never yet been of any use and in the end hurt both sides. The reasoning that Germany by means of the gas pipeline will become dependent in energy policy upon Russia is only making excuses. The opposite is correct. Nord Stream 2, in regards the over hasty withdrawal from coal and nuclear, is decisive for the securing of Germany’s energy supply. Without gas imports from Russia, the risks to energy security in Germany would further increase. Behind the sanctions resolution of the House of Representatives stand many, large economic interests of the United States which, in place of the Russian natural gas, would sell to Germany the quite expensive, American liquefied gas. Washington should accept that we ourselves choose from whom we obtain our energy providers, instead of threatening with sanctions by which all can only lose.

[Translated by Todd Martin]