Friday, October 25, 2019

Alexander Gauland, October 17, 2019, EU Council: Brexit, USA, Turkey


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]