Alexander
Gauland
EU, France
German
Bundestag, January 17, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/74, pp. 8629-8630
[Alexander Gauland is a national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland as well as a chairman of the AfD delegation in the German Bundestag.]
Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
On January 22, the Chancellor and French head
of state Macron will in Aachen – under the gaze of Charlemagne, so to speak –
conclude a new German-French friendship treaty. Actually, two treaties are
negotiated. A German-French parliamentary agreement was already signed in
November. The second and present treaty between the Federal Republic and the
French Republic is confidential. Its contents were until now withheld from the
public. It was yesterday that the Bundestag members first received a
transmitted confidential memorandum. On what grounds, I can only put forward
conjecture. Either the matter is so unsubstantial that one does not want to
treat with the citizens or it is simply in the style of the government to watch
over the people with discretion.
Florian
Hahn (CDU/CSU): Dragged in by the hair willy-nilly!
Let us look at France, ladies and gentlemen.
The protest of the Gilets Jaunes against the government has not stopped. For
weeks rages the streetfighting – and this word is to be taken literally –
between the demonstrators and the police. The protesters are average Frenchmen,
no enemies of the Republic. The police violence against them as shown in
numerous videos is immoderate. Up to now, there has been at least ten deaths,
the number of wounded lies in the four-figure range, as well as the number
arrested. A situation similar to civil war prevails in the neighboring country.
Dear colleagues, we would like for once a
depiction of what would happen here, politically and in the media, should
President Orban in this way proceed against demonstrators, should he permit
shooting them with hard rubber bullets and issue bans on demonstrations.
Frau Merkel has expressed herself in
noteworthy ways concerning the streetfighting: the possibility of protest is
part of democracy, but the monopoly of violence belongs to the state.
Florian
Hahn (CDU/CSU): Is that not so?
The solidarity of the Linke party with the
Gilets Jaunes the chancellor calls a scandal, because the Linke does not
clearly and meaningfully distance itself from the violence. In so far as
nothing was said about the trespasses of state violence, are we to understand
that the chancellor minimizes this violence because it is Macron? I hope not.
It has always been the policy of our party
that we do not want to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries,
but we are dealing here with a partner with whom the government wants not
simply to deepen cooperation but with whom it practically wants to form a unity.
Germany and France with this treaty shall introduce a two-speed EU, forming a
kind of super-EU within the EU. A German-French special relationship will of
course alienate us from other Europeans and torpedo precisely those European
ideas which Frau Merkel and Herr Macron, as well as the Union, always so
sincerely affirm.
Melanie Schieder (SPD): Are you now
for or against Europe?
Should the enthusiasts for this German-French
brotherhood get their way, there will soon be nothing more separating our two
countries. But how does one deepen relations with a country which itself is to
such extent so disunited and split, with a country which must render powerless
the rules of democracy in order to combat the opposition? According to surveys,
more that half the French support the Gilets Jaunes. With which part of France
are we actually negotiating?
Christian
Petry (SPD): What a joke of a question!
Herr Macron reminds me a little of Mikhail
Gorbachev at the beginning of 1991: Beloved abroad; at home, his power breaking
up beneath his feet. His high-minded visions of European policy already
crumbling before the doors of the Élysée Palace.
I said that we would not interfere in the
internal affairs of others but that pertains also to the reverse case. We do
not want to permit Herr Macron, who obviously cannot bring order to his own
country, to impose upon us visions of the future of our country which in his
view simply amount to financial support.
Volker
Ulrich (CDU/CSU): You really have not read it!
As populists, we stand for each concerning
himself with his own country first, but we do not want Macron to renovate his
with German money.
Franziska
Brantner (Bündnis90/Grünen): It doesn’t get any more rude!
Ladies and gentlemen, in Aachen are negotiating
two heads of government who suspect that this EU in this form will collapse. It
may be that the one signing for the French side is he whose political career
will soon become a thing of the past.
Franziska
Brantner (Bündnis90/Grünen): Yet you do not want to interfere!
The French were always quicker than us. I am
grateful.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
