Peter Boehringer
EU Reconstruction Funds
German Bundestag, May 28, 2020,
Plenarprotokoll 19/163, pp. 20309-20310
[Peter Boehringer is an Alternative für
Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria. He is currently chairman of the
Bundestag budget committee.]
Herr President. Honored colleagues.
Let us attempt, after this staccato of
planned-economy, EU-speak, to yet again dip into reality and the state of law.
Falko
Mohrs (SPD): For that, we need however another speaker, and not you!
Macron wants to become more powerful. For
that, he needs the EU and a Paymaster Germany. It is absurd that we here today
in any way discuss the Merkel/Macron proposal, since, according to Article 311
AEUV, a credit financing of expenditures is forbidden to the EU – period! At
this point, this debate could and must come to an end!
As a non-state, the EU demonstrably has no
taxation or indebtedness right of its own; the EU as a union of states lives exclusively on the
budget allotments of the member states. Borrowing by the EU cannot be simply
re-defined by a conjuring trick into a new form of resources, as is evidently
being planned here.
Older colleagues might now object: But we did
that already in 1975. Yes, there was then in fact a crisis instrument by the
name of the Community Loan Mechanism – Gemeinschaftsanleihen der EWG – by means
which was in fact paid out over 20 years a few billions to the then, as now,
usual bankrupts: Italy, France, Greece. “Balance of payments aid” as it was
then euphemistically called, when Rome and Paris yet again made the beggars’ pilgrimage
to Brussels to receive some millions.
It was simply dumb that this option
terminated in 1999. With the euro monetary union, the no-bailout clause of
Masstricht entered into effect; today, Article 125 AEUV, with constitutional
authority; it is so now.
Alexander
Lambsdorff (FDP): You still do not understand it!
Balance of payments aid to the benefit of EU
member states, financed by EU credit, was then explicitly forbidden.
Alexander
Lambsdorff (FDP): No!
And it is, ja, quite logical: What shall then
happen with the planned EU loans if some Italian at sometime is bankrupt or
unwilling to pay? Shall the EU, itself incapable of amortization, apply for
insolvency, because the Italian cannot make his amortization payment? No,
naturally would Germany pay the Italian portion. The government’s assertion of
a partial indebtedness liability is pure theory.
That is euro bonds through the back door; or
is it the front door? Did not Frau Merkel say in 2012: “No euro bonds, as long
as I live”?
The proposal is a nightmare, not only in
legal terms but also in regards the budget. The reconstruction funds will be a
new shadow budget in no man’s land, for which however Germany will be fully
liable. You can say partially liable – anyway, we are liable.
Statistically, the initial 500, since
yesterday now already 750 billion euros, will be credited to no one, neither to
the EU nor Germany, although the billions of credit will, ja, actually be taken
up. Angela and Ursula in Wonderland! The 750 billion euros will be poured out
over the beloved for all possible Green/left ideological projects – which will
occur with security – yet naturally first after the withdrawal of such usual
sums as the billions for administrative costs and corruption seepage.
In such a circumstance, budget clarity and
national budget law are only a distant memory. A reference to a formal
participation by the Bundestag as per the so-called limited individual
authorization [Einzelermächtigung] is of no help; we have already plainly heard
that. With an indebtedness of 750 billion euros, with payments to 2058,
certainly nothing is anymore limited, neither in quantity nor in time.
Franziska
Brantner (Greens): We have named the payments exactly!
The budget law, as the Bundestag’s prerogative
and perhaps the last bastion of German sovereignty, is anchored in Article 110
of the Basic Law [Grundgesetz]. The Merkel/Macron proposal disposes of that. A
limited individual authorization of 750 billion euros is a bad joke and like a
dam breaking. Once this dam is broken, then will Brussels ever again receive
giant limited individual sums, to the burden of German solvency, and
grandiosely distribute it in southern Europe and France. Be it in the realm of
trillions, that is for Herr Jung, who follows the Jung Doctrine, still a
limited individual authorization. That is absurd.
Ladies and gentlemen, only states are allowed
to raise taxes, only states can incur debts, because only states can also again pay them back out of future
tax revenues. The EU is however, according to the highest legal pronouncement,
not a state – still not. According to the Lisbon decision of the Constitutional
Court in 2009, it can never become one without a referendum on the surrender of
German statehood. For years and decades, this referendum is however withheld
from the Germans.
The presented proposal presumes
[präjudiziert] the highly illegal situation of an EU state, for which there
would never be a democratic majority in Germany.
Franziska
Brantner (Greens): Certainly not agreed.
With this proposal, Merkel and Macron clearly
depart from the grounds of the free, democratic fundamental order.
It is the duty of this Bundestag to stop the
march, in full frustration of the law, to the benefit of an illegal, federal
EUropa state. We ought not again leave that to the Constitutional Court.
Hearty thanks.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
