Alexander Gauland
EU Council: Brexit, USA, Turkey
German Bundestag, October 17, 2019,
Plenarprotokoll
19/118, pp. 14388-14390
[Alexander Gauland is a national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland
as well as a chairman of the AfD delegation in the German Bundestag. He here
responds to the German government’s statement concerning a recent meeting of
the Council of the European Union.]
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. Frau
Chancellor.
Besides the usual, so-called chronic problems, the
European Union at the present has two acute problems. Two important countries,
both positioned on the periphery, are disengaging themselves from the EU,
albeit by fundamentally different ways and means; in the northwest, the British,
in the southeast, the Turks. We must straighten out anew our political
relations with both. That was also the principal point of your speech.
Let us begin with Great Britain. Ladies and
gentlemen, there is life after Brexit. There is also a policy after Brexit. We
should therefore take care today that our connections with the British suffer
no long-term harm. They remain a political partner, an economic partner, a
military power and obviously a leading European Kulturnation. The
political heft of the EU moreover decreases with the separation of the British.
A nuclear power, a naval power besides is leaving the club.We are therefore
concerned that both sides continue to delude themselves.
Even if it does not suit many in this house, in the
media, in globalist circles: Brexit is the wish of a majority of the British.
It was a bare majority, yes; yet these days this constellation is normal and
historically important decisions are occasionally brought about by bare
majorities. Daily we see how seriously Europe’s oldest democracy takes the will
of the majority. Yes, the British are fighting bitterly over Brexit, before all
over the mode of the separation. In our consensus oriented country that perhaps
appears unusual; but that is a living democracy! Perhaps Boris Johnson may fail
in this fight, but that would still be living democracy.
Even if some of the devout EU idealists still dream
of an exit from the exit, Great Britain will again become a sovereign nation-state.
In the view of the progressives, that is is a regression, ja, a relapse
into, as is said, times long since past. Ultimately, the future belongs to
international, post-national structures. We see that otherwise. We maintain that
the nation-state is not out of date. We believe that this planet remains a pluriverse and that we now will have on our doorstep a direct comparison of which
side with its political system works better. What more can one want?
It is right that Boris Johnson himself must decide
the Northern Ireland question. Either Northern Ireland for a designated period,
that is, until there is a new trade treaty, actually adheres to EU law, since
then the border can remain open, or there is no more EU law there as in the other
parts of Great Britain and then there must be border controls. The two are not
the same. Of course, the duration of the transition period ought not to be
unilaterally determined by the EU, but in common by both partners with
friendly, mutual consent.
Frau Chancellor, I can only reiterate what I have
already said here: Please do everything in your power not to impede the British
withdrawal – for the life after Brexit!
Many Eurocrats of course consider the British
departure to be a narcissistic outrage. That might have to do with the fact
that they themselves are beginning to doubt the attractivity of the Union. The
EU today means bureaucracy, centralism, discord, devalued money, the feeding of
bankrupt states, announced penalty actions against the eastern Europeans
because they do not wish to share the burden consequent upon the German mass
immigration policy. The second most important payer therefore exits. The
Norwegians and the Swiss indicate no interest in joining the club and things
are fine with them. Iceland has withdrawn its admission request.
It will become problematic when such a sense of outrage
is united with an arrogance of superiority and is expressed in open scorn. It
is a distressing phenomenon that differing views of foreign policy have lately
led to dealing with the opposing side as being incapable of sound judgment. It
began with Donald Trump. Presently, it is Boris Johnson’s turn. Where, please,
shall this lead when the media, not entirely without participating in the
policy of government leaders, represents allied and powerful states, for all
that, as clowns? Where this has led in the case of Trump we indeed see in
Syria.
The withdrawal of the U.S. troops is a “I’ll have
nothing more to do with you” signal to the Europeans’ address. While the
Germans are with nothing more parsimonious as military alliance obligations,
particularly on the left side of the house, the German officialdom for two
years speaks of the world’s most powerful man as of a naughty school child.
Ulli
Nissen (SPD): Which he is!
That is hubris to be followed, as you know, by
nemesis. That does not alter the fact that we hold the withdrawal of the U.S.
troops to be false, to be a betrayal of the Kurds.
Martin
Schulz (SPD): Exactly!
On the Bosporus sits a president who dreams of a
new Ottoman Empire, who dreams of the expansion of Islam, who by means of the
Turkish minority, seeks to exert pressure on German policy. “Turkey is greater
than Turkey”, said Erdogan in a speech, and further: We can “not be prisoners
in 780,000 square kilometers.”
Similarly, as you know, he animates his people to
produce children frequently and enlarge the Turkish population.
Britta Haßelmann (Grünen): Can’t
you for once cease these loathsome expressions? What does that have to do with
you?
Armin-Paulus Hampel (AfD):
Just you listen!
Our physical borders are other than the borders of
our hearts, said Erdogan in this same speech, and reckons: Our brothers in
Mosul, Kirkuk, Hassaka, Aleppo, Homs, Misrata, Skopje, in Crimea and in the
Causcusus. For the time being, he does not name Berlin or Duisburg.
Now Erdogan conducts a war of aggression, one
contrary to international law, in the Kurdish areas of eastern Syria. The Turkish
president speculates about an enlargement of Turkish territory and thereby
threatens us with the unleashing of 3.5 million Syrian refugees on Europe if we
dare to criticize him! Among these refugees would be found many Isis terrorists
who are presently fleeing from Kurdish custody.
With what means can we threaten as a
counter-measure? We have a gone-to-pieces Bundeswehr and wide open borders. The
Kurd-Turk conflict has long since arrived on our streets. What does the Federal
government do? You have given Erdogan money so that he can achieve what we
apparently cannot do: Close the borders. We have made ourselves dependent on
Erdogan and thereby liable to extortion. With the blessing of the multiculturalists,
millions of non-Germans with fabricated residence status live in our country
and among them are to be found hundreds of thousands of Erdogan adherents. We cannot,
like the Turkish president with streams of refugees, threaten something like
sending back all Turks without a German passport, since we are a state of law. We
can nevertheless finally begin to learn from the situation and defend our
borders.
We can learn two things: Initially for one, that is
is foolish, and it can one day become dangerous, to allow the immigration of unflinching
people who simply do not know how to assess our order of law and values [unentwegt Menschen einwandern zu
lassen, die unsere Rechts-und Werteordnung eben nicht zu schätzen wissen]
Claudia
Roth (Grünen-Augsburg): You are acquainted with that!
and thereby hope that this problem will in some way
solve itself; and secondly, that which we have always said: We must ourselves finally
again defend our borders.
Ladies and gentlemen, concerning our alliances: The
Federal government should urge that this Turkey under this government can
longer be a full member of NATO. NATO
must at least freeze the membership of Turkey. This Turkey also ought
not become a member of the EU. The EU must lift its accession status, Frau Chancellor.
I hope you will commit yourself to his policy.
I am grateful.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
