Jörg Meuthen
60th Anniversary Treaty of
Rome
Baden-Württemberg Landtag, March 22,
2017, 16/29, pp. 1551-1554
[Jörg
Meuthen is national co-chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland and the lone
AfD member in the European Parliament. The Treaty of Rome, signed on March 25,
1957, has evolved into the present. Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It authorized
the establishment of the European Economic Community, a predecessor of today’s
European Union (EU). The German-British statesman Ralf Dahrendorf was in
the 1970s initially a proponent of a European monetary union. Ludwig Erhard was
a German chancellor and finance minister.]
Right
honorable Frau President, esteemed member colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
Saturday, as
we have heard, will be 60 years since the signing of the Treaty of Rome. For a
long time, it represented the basis of the economic integration and peace of
the European project, the European project which as originally devoted, and for
a long time in practical form was, a project which we of the Alternative für Deutschland
had supported and expressly approved.
Yet in the
60 years since the signing of the Treaty of Rome much has happened. The title
of today’s debate, “60 Years Treaty of Rome – Europe Newly Revived” – thus
introduced by the CDU – a bit correctly suggests that Europe is a terminal
patient who must be helped to stand again…even though I most deeply reject this
underwhelming…already almost notorious equation of Europe with the European
Union…
To always be
speaking of Europe. Yet does not also Norway belong, belongs not also
Switzerland, belongs not also Serbia, belongs not also Belarus to Europe?
Surely it is self-evident.
Wolfgang Reinhardt
(CDU): It’s about the Treaty of Rome!
We are
speaking of the European Union. The equation of Europe with the European Union
is really not permissible. I am thoroughly familiar with what today’s debate
alludes to: the desolate situation of the European Union. Yes, I expressly
agree with you. The EU is a sick patient doing poorly. Yes, one can
symbolically say, “The EU belongs on the couch”. Yes, the EU should quickly as
possible be revived. Even there I agree with you. But, please, not with your
inherently false prescription.
To revive
Patient EU, he must first be cured of his illnesses. The diagnosis of the EU’s
present state is unfortunately depressing. The EU suffers from Excessive
Centralization Syndrome. One may greatly affirm, in Sunday’s sermons and often
here in plenary session during the week, the subsidiarity principle. The
re-definition in fact remains an etiquette swindle, a counter-factual exchange,
a dangerous diversion. What I have heard from my preceding speakers reminds me
– with your permission – a little of a phrase festival, from which I positively
dissociate good will.
The EU also
suffers from Brussels Paragraph Frenzy which is manifested not only by the
cucumber curve, light bulb and dust suction regulations, known to all, but
which also extend into more decisive political fields, into the realm of
economic, health, education, environment and migration policy and that with, in
part, fatal consequences. The subsidiarity principle is thereby completely
stood on its head by the Brussels Eurocrats and regrettably perverted into its
opposite. Thusly, ladies and gentlemen, the EU is not strengthened but thusly
step by step it goes kaputt.
Ludwig
Erhard, the well-known CDU member, already in 1963 in Stockholm warned, I
permit myself with your permission to quote:
Woe to those who believe that Europe could be gathered into
some kind of centralised state or could be placed under a more or less
distinctly central power.
And further:
No – for the rest of the world, this Europe has its
value specifically in its variety, in
the multiplicity and difference of its life. Those are the elements that
color our
design and makes life worth living.
Wolfgang
Reinhart (CDU): A good quote!
Good quote. Yes, for me as well. I also
esteem Erhard. Your Adenauer quote was also schön.
It perhaps will scarcely surprise those
who have long governed here, even those in the CDU ranks, when I say to you
that in regards variety, multiplicity and difference [Buntheit, Mannigfaltigkeit und
Differenziertheit], Ludwig Erhard had
expostulated in a way entirely other than you have done. In that regard, Erhard
was not thinking of a multicultural utopia condemned to failure, in which
complexity overstresses the society to such an extent that the social peace has
been long endangered. He was not thinking of high risk integration experiments
with streaming masses of culturally foreign people who trample on European
values hard won through the centuries.
And Erhard was not thinking
of euro-money socialism, the failure of
which was foreseen and would also be foreseen by many; among others, by the
genial sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, a great soul and no penny-ante person. The
remaining liberals of the Magenta-FDP/DVP perhaps yet remember. Dahrendorf
already in the year 1995 saw the euro debacle approaching. A quite brief quote
of his:
The monetary union is a great error, an adventurous,
reckless, flawed goal that does not unify Europe but divides it.
It was foreseeable that he would be
proven right. Over 20 years after his prognosis and almost 20 years after the
introduction of the euro, the division within Europe has already progressed
far. The introduction of the euro was plainly not a far-sighted policy but the
expression of a political-economic illiteracy. Had the FDP/DVP listened to
their Dahrendorf or later to a Frank Schäffer, they would have been able to
position themselves as an authentic force of freedom. But what after all do
isolated Dahrendorfs and Schäffers bring to the FDP/DVP when these have
hundreds of Rülkes or Lindners?
When
Erhard spoke of variety, multiplicity and difference, he was not thinking of
centralised control, nor, in the French sense, of “planification” and not in a
paternalism which in a vulgar kind of Keynesianism agrees to cyclical
injections [Konjunkturpakete] for
bankrupt banks and bankrupt states, which in reality are not cyclical but
corruption injections, fertile soil for a fattening irresponsibility – nothing
other than that – and all that a burden on the European taxpayer.
Erhard
was not thinking of a harmonization and unification of Europe at all levels
which undermines the social, political and cultural characteristics [Eigenheiten] of European nations instead
of extending them. No, ladies and gentlemen, the architect of Europe and your
immediate predecessor was thinking primarily of a Europe of freedom, in the
nations’ right to self-determination, which is not continually called into
question by ever stronger, more rampant EU paternalism. He was thinking of a
Europe of diversity in which the European peoples retain their national,
cultural and social characteristics and identity and are not required to
abandon them along the way to Brussels…
Ladies
and gentlemen, the European Union finds itself in a great identity crisis. It
develops evermore into a thoroughly bureaucratic “Eurosupernationalstate” with
traces of the imperial bridle.
So
far has the EU strayed from it originally granted competences that it is
inclined not to renounce political power over the citizens but to shift it to a
higher level. Thereby inheres an enormous democracy deficit that endangers the
competition of nations and the characteristics and freedoms of the European
peoples. That is the problem.
Ever
more people acknowledge that. A EU adherent who is still truly objective must
now agree that for the first time in the history of the European community it
is no longer a question of which potential member candidate could be pounding
on the door of the EU but we now occupy ourselves with the question of who goes
out through this door, just as the British are doing this week…
What
is European in Europe is not the centralization through concentration of power
in the EU Commission and uniformity but de-centralization, a true federalism
and diversity. Even when many here in the hall may not gladly hear it: It is
not the Dutch and their Wilders, not the Austrians and their Hofer, not the
French and their Le Pen, not the British and their Farage, not the Hungarians
and their Orban, not the Poles and their Kaczynski and not even us, the AfD,
who are driving Europe to the wall.
The
patriotic forces – all those are patriots, however one stands –
Hans-Ulrich Rülke
(FDP/DVP): Yet you have forgotten Erdogan and
Putin.
Putin.
I indeed
know that I summon up no joy for you.
(Disturbance. The
President’s bell.)
President Muhterem Aras:
One moment, Herr Member Dr. Meuthen.
The
patriotic forces of Europe are the reaction to, not the causes of, the crisis
of Europe. The
patriotic forces simply want to lead Europe to where it belongs. The EU is in
crisis because it has become evermore un-European. It is the Draghis, the
Schulz’s, the Junckers who for years have driven it to the wall - for years! It is the black-red-green-gold-rainbow
reality deniers by whom it has been escorted. They sit for decades at the
levers of power. They are guilty, not their critics.
The
order of the day reads: Return to European founding precepts – which is
obviously reasonable – return to the spirit of the Treaty of Rome – which is
quite reasonable – return to the social market economy, return to the rule of
law, return to real subsidiarity – not only with lip service – return to the
diversity and freedom of the people, in brief: Return to Europe!
Correct,
an intelligent return, since much is crooked. This implies a return from the
way driven in previous years. Only then can Patient EU recover. Many thanks.
