Jörg Meuthen
EU Reconstruction Funds
EU Parliament, Brussels, May 27, 2020, P9
CRE-PROV (2020) 05-27 (1-022-0000)
[Jörg Meuthen is a national chairman of the
Alternative für Deutschland and he
leads the AfD’s delegation in the
European Parliament where the AfD is part of the
Identity and Democracy party.]
Herr
President. Frau Commission President.
Chancellor
Merkel’s promise was unmistakable: There will be neither euro bonds nor Corona
bonds. Now? Now you assent to a so-called Reconstruction Fund with a volume of
500 billion euros; the super-sized, initially on credit, then to be
tax-refinanced, gift watering can for the European Commission, without present
basis in the law, since the EU on good grounds for long has been denied doing
its own borrowing – which however in the general nonsense of these days appears
to bother no one anymore.
And
now you come, Frau Commission President, in here today and make demands. This
complete madness was for you insufficient; you now want a scoop more of 250
billion euros to dispose of. That is, I say it quite clearly, complete madness.
The price to be paid by the citizens of the [European] Union for this madness
will be gigantic.
You
throw the money about – not yours, but that of the taxpayer – simply as if
there was no tomorrow. What you are doing is entirely irresponsible. It is a
knowledge-free, voodoo economics with which you here are oppressing the
citizens. It is monetary as well as fiscal hara-kiri.
Yet
most men do not understand that because they are plagued with quite different
concerns and because they are not accustomed to think in the categories of such
large numbers. You make use of that with your absurd designs which you so
hypocritically and falsely commend. There will be a wicked awakening.
I
implore the governments of Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden to
reject this madness.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
