Alice Weidel
Europe
German Bundestag, April 12, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/96, pp.
11559-11560
[Alice Weidel is a chairman
of the Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag delegation.]
Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and
gentlemen. Worthy colleagues.
First of all, I must be truly astonished by the attendance on the
government bench for this so important theme, we wishing today to discuss the
future of Europe.
Florian Hahn
(CDU/CSU): Almost all are there! But the AfD is drawn up right
proper!
Europe stands before great challenges. In a multipolar world, a
unified continent is, from the geopolitical as well as economic viewpoint, of
great significance. Yet let us look at where Europe and the EU are today. Which
place do we really occupy in the world? There, the numbers speak clear speech.
In the year 1970, the portion of the world’s real gross domestic product
attributed to today’s EU-28 was 35 percent. By last year, the portion had sunk
to 23 percent. That corresponds to a decline of 33 percent, a third.
René Rösel (SPD):
The total portion has increased.
I really do not understand why you are already so excited about
the numbers.
René Rösel (SPD):
Yes, and China?
For once please wean yourselves from rumpus here in parliament during
discussion! [Gewöhnen Sie
sich das Rumbrüllen bei Diskussionen hier im Parlament bitte einmal ab!]. The voters at
the ballot box will appraise how you here behave yourselves, right honorable ladies
and gentlemen.
Britta Haßelmann
(Bündnis90/Grünen): You certainly don’t have a good track
record!
The EU’s portion of world gross domestic product has receded by
about a third. And for that is your politics guilty. It is bitter for our once
so proud continent, in which some of the EU and euro projects are out of
control.
Sylvia
Kotting-Uhl (Bündnis90/Grünen): You are so ignorant! Unbelievable!
Katrin
Göring-Eckardt (Bündnis90/Grünen): And from where comes the money
now?
now?
Britta Haßelmann
(Bündnis90/Grünen): Was it now actually from Switzerland?
The devaluation of the national parliaments by the Brussels
bureaucracy is in fact no childhood illness of which it is to be cured.
Herr Hofreiter, do not get yourself so excited. I indeed do not
understand why you yet again almost fall out of the chair! That is just unbelievable!
Anton Hofreiter (Bündnis90/Grünen): We
amuse ourselves over you! Tell us some more about the Franks!
The devaluation of the national parliaments is no childhood
illness but an intentional, fundamental decision. And he who wants to overcome
the nation and its democrats strives for another form of government –
Katrin
Göring-Eckardt (Bündnis90/Grünen): And now the donors.
- namely, the empire, directed by decision makers without
democratic legitimacy.
Britta Haßelmann (Bündnis90/Grünen): Now
for once, courage for the truth [Mut zur
Wahrheit].
In this unholy presentation of Europe, which we do not share, the
little politicians will ever more divest
the national states and demote them to the rank of provinces. Such a unitary
state is undemocratic because it is necessarily confronted with consensus
problems which are to be discharged in small-scale ways, in smaller units. The
national state is small enough to induce the citizens’ process of
identification without which there can be no commonwealth, and it is large
enough to enforce domestically and externally the sovereignty of the
commonwealth. The national state therefore cannot be renounced, right honorable
ladies and gentlemen. Without it, the state of law, democracy and social
solidarity cannot be organized.
Back to the EU level. The national states are the masters of the
treaty. They are the only source of democratic legitimacy.
Anton Hofreiter
(Bündnis90/Grünen): Who wants to abolish the Euro-
parliament?
A preferred method of killing off the national parliaments is to
build up the [European] Union by the further bringing forward of guidelines and
ordinances. Bundespräsident Herzog once stated that 80 percent of all laws come
out of Brussels. An example: EU Ordinance, Council Document 1421/17, for the setting of emission standards for passenger
vehicles. The EU wants to introduce consumption tests for Pkws [passenger
vehicles]. The selected limits are thereby so low that the ordinance is the
equivalent of a ban on combustion engines. Every seventh job in this country,
right honorable ladies and gentlemen, depends directly or indirectly on the
automobile industry. We of the AfD had therefore more than a year ago moved
that Germany protect itself against this destructive ordinance from Brussels
with a subsidiarity reprimand, and all of you rejected it. That is the deconstruction
of a key industry in Germany. I must say to you quite honestly, we of the AfD
want to secure competitiveness, solidarity, the social state and our welfare.
Britta Haßelmann
(Bündnis90/Grünen): You want to do away with Europe! I
think you want to do away with the euro!
think you want to do away with the euro!
And quite honestly: in regards all of you, it is not so clear to
me that you also want that.
Many hearty thanks.
Michael
Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Solid bargains with Salvini!
[Translated by Todd Martin]
