Armin-Paulus Hampel, September 25, 2019, German Foreign Policy

Armin-Paulus Hampel

German Foreign Policy

German Bundestag, September 25, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/114, pp. 13926-13927

[Armin-Paulus Hampel is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Lower Saxony and previously was a television journalist. He is the AfD’s foreign policy spokesman in the Bundestag. Jürgen Hardt is Bundestag foreign policy spokesman for the governing CDU. Heiko Maas (SPD) is the German Foreign Minister. ]

Many thanks. Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests in the German Bundestag and at screens at home.

In 2017-2018, we saw the pictures from Iran: Young people out in the streets, an Iranian Spring appearing to be developing. Changes in the country were possible, appearing to be obtainable, and the political leadership itself was moved.

Today we stand before a completely new situation. The policy in relation to Iran has not led to success. We of the AfD are of the opinion that the nuclear agreement with Iran should not have been recalled. We hold that to be a failure of American policy. It would have been better: Pacta sunt servanda. Treaties must be kept! Nevertheless – Herr Hardt, you have mentioned it – the times have changed. When we still had influence in Washington we were able with the Americans to insist that this treaty be re-negotiated and indeed in regards precisely those questions which were not included in this treaty and which are important for us. Today we stand before a heap of rubble. And not only in regards Iranian policy. What’s more, the entire Near East is destabilized. You know all the countries: Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen. The Western policy has failed completely.

The question however is – why indeed we are sitting in the German Bundestag –: What can German policy now contribute? We for many years had a large and good influence in Iranian policy. Traditionally, our relations have been good. Today, nothing of that remains. We Germans sit at the side table [Katzentisch]. No one can believe that we still have decisive influence, not with our allies, and less than ever with the American allies. They have followed up. Herr Macron has now made the unilateral, national decision to send a naval unit to the Straits of Hormuz. There was no agreement with the German Foreign Minister and none with the British during Brexit. We let slip the opportunity to insert ourselves as acquaintances of Iran and as participants in the talks – as we could have done. And we have not succeeded in having an influence on the Near East countries.

Herr Hardt, you are entirely right – there was once a proposal from us, and Herr Trittin has also mentioned it in committee –: A conference on security and cooperation in the Near East, including all those who would contribute to setting in motion a long-term process of stabilization similar to the Helsinki KSZE [Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe]. And that was not an agreement but a process which ran for many years and contributed to the building of trust and ultimately to the stabilization of Europe. This result we celebrate this year on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

German influence in this form no longer exists. Herr Maas has actually offered no comment on the situation in the Gulf; I have heard nothing. Most of all – we have witnessed it – Herr Macron has assumed the leadership. As acquaintances of Iran, we are on the sidelines. Herr Macron in Biarritz has impressively shown how policy is implemented; I have already referred to his national unilateralism. And the visit of the Chancellor to the UN in New York has not strengthened our position; of that, we have heard nothing.

To the federal government: In the days of a Helmut Kohl and a Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Germany was in fact a global player. I myself as a journalist was then a witness when George Bush said to Helmut Kohl: Helmut, we are partners in leadership. From those days are we long since departed. Then, we actually were a global player. Today, we are just a global payer. That is the difference...

I am grateful, ladies and gentlemen.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Götz Frömming, September 12, 2019, Education and Research Budget

Götz Frömming

Education and Research Budget

German Bundestag, September 12, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/112, pp. 13804-13805

[Götz Frömming is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Berlin. He is a teacher and here responds to the government’s 2020 budget proposal for education and research.]

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Frau Minister, as I was listening to you – it goes down like oil – I could only ask myself: Where actually is this country which you have been describing? It sounds like a Utopia, yet it unfortunately has not much to do with reality. Over half of your budget, Frau Minister, is tied up in the so-called federal-state agreements. The federal audit authority criticizes that in its presently submitted report. Why exactly? Because we thereby enter ever more deeply into core areas which pertain to that federal order of the states specifically defended in our basic law [Grundgesetz]. With the Digital Pact and the entry of the federal government into the basic financing of colleges and universities, you edge towards a violation of the constitution.

Independent of this constitutional problem, the federal-state agreements are in other regards quite dubious: for one, with the help of a golden bridle you force upon the states and localities education policy goals which would not be pursued without the millions of the federal government or an altered prioritization. I cite as example the construction of all-day schools as well as the digitization of teaching and learning. For another, with these partly special funded, long-term means, the formation potential of the duties appropriate to the federal government is reduced. To say it yet again in clear words: Frau Minister, it is not the duty of the federal government to bring tablets or i-phones to the schools or purchase software. It is the duty of the federal government to take care that in Germany there are again firms which are able to develop and manufacture these things.

The federal audit authority legitimately criticizes that. For the first time in history, the federal government with the presented budget enters into the long-term financing – I have mentioned it already – of colleges and universities and other state institutions. Thereby will be effected the once clearly separated federal responsibility between federal government, state and locality. The citizen can no longer comprehend who exactly pertains to what and for what is thereby also responsible.   

            (Noise from SPD, Grünen.)

I can only imagine that you do not want to hear that. An important principle of democracy, that the citizen knows whom he must vote against when something goes awry, is no longer to be.

            Kai Gearing (Grünen): It is always correct to vote against the AfD.

Ladies and gentlemen, with the foreseeable failure of the Digital Pact, the federal government and the states will be passing the buck back and forth. But perhaps that also is already in one sense, ja, practicing from the start the effacement of responsibilities. Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to say quite clearly: There is no digital education, and there is not a computer in the world which can relieve our children of the efforts of learning.

On the whole – according to the federal audit authority in its conclusion – I cite:

A determinative, overall concept may be missing from the agreements contracted

by the federal government and the states

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish in this situation for once to express praise for the federal audit authority. There are independent, courageous public servants in the best sense of the word there, who are dedicated to the facts and thereby to our state and not to some party or other.

            Sven Schulz (SPD-Spandau): That surprises you?

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Only the AfD applauds that!

That that can be dangerous in these times, as we have seen in the Maasen affair.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the next ten years, from 2020 to 2030, 109 billion euros will flow to extra-university research institutions like the Max Planck Society and Fraunhofer Society. That is a potent sum. Besides the Pact for Research and Innovation, the federal government will also commit itself to the promotion of colleges and universities. Here, in the same time frame, 40 billion euros are foreseen, thus totaling 150 billion euros for research institutions and post-secondary education, 150 billion euros which initially must be procured from the taxpayers, from the citizens and productive businesses, ladies and gentlemen. The taxpayer therefore has a right to know what exactly happens with the this money and also whether is is well invested. In this regard, Frau Minister, I have heard little that is concrete and the federal audit authority is right to indicate on multiple occasions that improvements must be made here. The goal agreements and control function of federal government besides leave much to be desired.

Ladies and gentlemen, during the summer pause the committee for education and research had to hold a special session; the colleagues perhaps may later continue. It is about an effort to clear up the remarkable circumstance of a location decision worth millions. It is about the planned construction of a center for battery research which will cooperate closely with industry. Although Ulm had been initially favored by a group of outside consultants, the subsequent choice was Münster as well as Irbenbürren, incidentally the constituency of the minister and the assistant chairman of the committee. The losing locations, ladies and gentlemen, receive residual compensatory payments; so to say, a kind of hush money.

Frau Minister, I must say to you, your conduct in this matter was not only not transparent, it was also incompetent, to put it politely. It is not permissible to thusly handle the taxpayers’ money, ladies and gentlemen.

However, ladies and gentlemen, there is also the positive to announce these days. The education comparison of the states was presented yesterday and from which proceeds that the people of eastern Germany, that is, where the AfD vote grows strongly, are more highly qualified and better educated that the citizens in the west.

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): No – logical!

That besides is corroborated by the findings of the national education report of 2018. Accordingly, in eastern Germany only 7 percent of employment age adults are without a vocational certification. In states like Bremen or Nordrhein-Westfalen, it is over 20 percent. And what distinguishes east and west Germany? Correct: Western Germany has behind it years of migration of overwhelmingly non-educated [bildungsfernen] classes. Therefore, we demand, ladies and gentlemen, that the education level and the ability to be educated must become a core criterion for who may come to and remain in our country.

Karamba Diaby (SPD): What you are saying is a scandal! Such nonsense I have no longer heard!

In the view of the AfD, it is an untenable state of affairs to abandon the industrious, the well-to-do and the intelligent while we on the contrary receive among us the educationally precarious of the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, in the view of the Alternative for Germany, we cannot give up our proven system of national and federal education. We cannot hand it over to foreign directed lobbyists who speak of educational justice but in truth desire to make of education a commodity. The AfD is the only delegation in this house to recognize which dangers proceed from a commercialization [Ökonomisierung] and globalization of the educational system. We in any case will defend our national education system, though it cost us our last efforts.

I am grateful.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Alice Weidel, September 11, 2019, 2020 Budget

Alice Weidel

2020 Budget

German Bundestag, September 11, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/111, pp. 13615-13618

[Alice Weidel is a chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag delegation. She here responds to the German government’s 2020 general budget proposal. Soli refers to a tax paid over the past three decades to finance the unification of Germany. Hartz-IV is a public direct payments program for people of low income. Mario Draghi is the retiring director of the European Central Bank. Ludwig Erhard is a former German chancellor and finance minister.]

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Germany is on the brink of a recession; no simple, cyclical dip, but a powerful regression of economic performance. The exports are breaking down with two-figure losses in some of the important export countries: China, Great Britain, Russia. Especially affected: The automobile industry and machinery manufacturing, the backbone of our industrial production and thus our prosperity. There are endless reports of massive job eliminations at leading firms and in key sectors. Economic growth stagnates and the second quarter 2019 gross domestic product has even shrunk. We are thereby in comparison with the other EU and euro member states the taillight. The crisis is not coming. The crisis is already at hand.

The next recession will not be a fate fallen from heaven nor the work of wicked powers. It is primarily home-made. The difficulties into which the German economy and thus the entire country are sliding are the consequence of your disastrous and anti-economic politics

            Carsten Schneider (SPD – Erfurt): Because the exports recede? What 

            foolishness!

at the root of which is a green-socialist ideology which is ruining our country and is robbing it of future viability.

            Jan Korte (Linke): Yes, that was clever for once. Totally socialist!

This government bears the responsibility for the dis-assembly of the auto industry and for the planned economy of the electric auto. You are ruining our country with the absurd idea of being able to exit simultaneously from nuclear energy and coal-fired electricity and which at a fictitious date in the not too distant future – typical planned economy! – will make the country CO₂  neutral.

            Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): Is it still looking good in Switzerland?

That must for once be made known. That is absolutely grotesque. That is an economic and scientific lunacy which now bestows on us the highest electricity costs in Europe, brings hundreds of thousands of low-income and middle-class households to a state of existential oppression, endangers the supply security and little by little drives from Germany energy intensive industries.

Your tendentious climate protection is nothing other than a monstrous program of de-industrialization combined with a veritable annihilation of the work place. You squander billions to avert in the distant future an imaginary end of the world. You allow yourselves to be lead about by dubious lobbyists like the Deutschen Umwelthilfe – in my opinion, this lobby organization ought to be banned – and thus destroy the basis of our prosperity and our ability to master the pressing challenges of the coming decades. I cite for example the unmastered consequences of unregulated migration into the social system and the criminal statistics.

Yes, I know already why you are squeaking so. The former Federal Intelligence chief, August Hanning, speaks of the more than 2 million overwhelmingly young men who have immigrated since 2015. And the next wave is at the door. The pictures from Lesbos are a Menetekal [shuffling of cards with always the same result]. The Turkey deal, to which you have so long and gladly clung, has failed. The Balkan route is open, and to that you simply close your eyes. We could end the migration across the Mediterranean if you were ready, with the Italian and other Mediterranean peoples, to take care that no more overseas illegals are able to reach Europe.

What however is done? You instead cheer on the humanitarian smugglers and human traffickers, also known as NGOs, allow their illegally smuggled passengers to continue to arrive in Germany and you even want to set up a state water taxi. That is really just grotesque, ladies and gentlemen. A real securing and control of the borders is possible. A single-digit figure of billions would be about the yearly cost – and you know that. No comparison with the lasting economic, political and before all social costs of a continued, unregulated immigration!

You want to restrict the individual movement of millions of citizens with bans, penalties and dirigiste measures, yet illegal immigrants can continue to move freely and unhindered across our borders. Even when the asylum deception evaporates and the right to remain is denied, they need not fear scarcely a single deportation. You have money left over for peripheral, particular interests but not for the effective control of our borders and the defense of our citizens who must turn over to you a record portion of their devalued incomes. You come up short on the return.

Meanwhile, every other Hartz-IV recipient has a migrant background: That comes to almost two-thirds of the so-called refugees living on Hartz-IV. Thus two-thirds of your skilled labor lives on Hartz-IV. Asylum migrants are besides disproportionately a burden in terms of criminality as measured by portion of the population. Serious sexual, robbery and homicide offenses by migrants have increased frighteningly.

            Achim Kessler (Linke): That is racial incitement!

The situation report on migrant criminality by the Federal Criminal Office confirms that in black and white. Stop with the rumpus here!

Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): Did you notice that no one was making noise? That started with the line, “Stop with the rumpus!” Nothing is too absurd for the speaking notes!

That the security of the citizen in public places goes more and more by the board evidently leaves you indifferent. One sees that here. An older mortgage is the failed euro experiment. Ten years of euro rescue by lost extensions of credit and push-button money printing are ten years of redistribution from bottom to top and from the citizen to the state. The zero-interest policy over which Olaf Scholz was so happy yesterday drives the German middle-class and saver into precariousness. The lyric of a wealthy country is long since out of tune. In Europe in regards wealth, the Germans hold down last place. The burst of the Draghi bubble will ignite the euro money socialism. That we know. The portion of bad credit on the balances of the southern European banks – the sums under fire – is gigantic. The zombie banks’ house of cards stands on the shaky ground of the European Central Bank’s negative interest policy which without restraint destroys the business model of the solid banks. We are on the verge of a gigantic banking crash, ladies and gentlemen.

We will experience the sustained development of a public debt and banking crisis, hyperinflation and finally a monetary reform in which the people will lose everything. And to this you have nothing to say. What are you doing to hinder this? Naturally nothing. On the contrary, you even accelerate [befeuern] the development. For that, you receive much applause and plenty of hugs from the European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde, from that woman who as International Monetary Fund director in 2010 declared, I quote:

            We must break the treaty so as to save the euro.

And that is exactly your understanding of respect for the law.

            Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): Don’t you come around here with respect 

            for the law!

For a solution other than one to German disadvantage you, however, presumably could assemble no majority. Since you have isolated Germany in Europe and no one takes you seriously anymore. At international conferences you sit on the sidelines while others pursue and enforce their own interests.

Carsten Schneider (SPD – Erfurt): When it comes to sitting on the sidelines, you are there!

You have disarranged the relation with the USA and driven the British out of the EU and, in the wake of the French, do nothing for a reasonable Brexit solution.

And now you lay before us a budget which before all permits acknowledgment of one thing: that you and your cabinet have not understood that the hour has struck. You consume the ever yet abundantly collected tax money as if the blessing would continue to flow eternally.

Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): What is really going on with the party funding?

Since what happens when the baby-boomers, who are now at the high point of the earnings years, in ten years go into retirement and can no longer be milked for account?

            Carsten Schneider (SPD – Erfurt): We are still waiting for your pension idea. 

Tell it for once!

Precaution for bad times is a term foreign to this budget. Notwithstanding the record size, the investment portion is ridiculously low, though nicely reckoned with an acrobatic skill. Moreover, the Finance Minister earns – which also is absolutely absurd – because investors are paying negative interest on long-term loans. That alone indicates the financial system is out of joint, right honorable ladies and gentlemen, since it is the citizens who by the surtax of negative interest are coldly and disgracefully expropriated. It is the money of the citizens, directly and indirectly collected, which you are squandering.

The economist Daniel Stelter estimates, I cite:

Just on the federal level in the last ten years, an additional 460 billion euros of available funds were frittered away.

End citation. There are sufficient construction projects in this country upon which the citizens’ money could have been better and more sensibly expended.

            Martin Schulz (SPD): Exactly! Swiss accounts!

The infrastructure decays, the streets degenerate, school buildings rot, the railroad runs ever worse, high-speed internet is elsewhere, of major projects like airports which will never be ready there is simply nothing to be said.

The social system is overburdened and not viable. Mass old-age poverty threatens Germany. Public order suffers, security is lost.

            Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Grünen): Yes, that’s why you live in Switzerland.

I know that this does not interest the Greens.

Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): You still live in Switzerland! Why exactly are you 

speaking here about our country?

The Bundeswehr is still scarcely serviceable, the working people are burdened with high taxes and duties.

            Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): You have decided to still live in Switzerland!

Instead of returning to the citizens the excessively gathered funds – you could not even abolish the Soli in a legal manner – your government and its supporting parties already incubate new taxes: CO₂ tax, wealth tax, special duties on all possible things. Each pretext appears to justify to you to yet again burden the citizens because you are simply incapable of managing the  superfluously available tax money. That is after all the truth!

It simply cannot go on. A fundamental re-thinking is required: Environmental and resource management instead of climate defense, an end to the brainless energy transformation, a stop to uncontrolled immigration, a control of our borders,

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU): You have emigrated to Switzerland!

a renunciation of the euro inflation policy and most of all, more freedom for the citizens and all in this country who create value.

Freedom of thought and speech instead of defaming those who think differently

            Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Grünen): Excuse me? You can say anything here.

            Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): And yet you are very big on that!

which poisons the poltical climate.

            Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): You are able to represent all that here!

Economic freedom instead of coddling and new prohibitions, tax and obligation relief instead of tax profiteering, bureaucracy and redistribution.

Listen to Ludwig Erhard – I cite:

State, trouble not thyself with my affairs but give to me so much freedom and leave to me so much of the proceeds of my labor that I may form my existence, my fate, and that of my family, myself.

           

            Martin Schulz (SPD): Most of all, things in Switzerland!

That is the politics of free citizens which our country so urgently requires and which in this government no longer has a home nor a spokesman.

            Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): What is really going on with your contribution 

            fund?

I am grateful.

[Translated by Todd Martin]