Alexander
Gauland
Second
German Presidency of EU Council
German
Bundestag, July 1, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/169, pp. 21055-21056
[Alexander Gauland is honorary national chairman
of the Alternative für Deutschland and a chairman of the AfD delegation in the
Bundestag. Heiko Maas (SPD) is the German Foreign Minister. Article 125 of the
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states in part: “A Member State
shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments,
regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public
law, or public undertakings of another Member State, without prejudice to
mutual financial guarantees for the joint execution of a specific project.”]
Herr
President. Ladies and gentlemen.
Children
in the Grundschule mathematics
classes learn how to find their way around ranges of numbers which become ever
greater – first from 1 to 10, then to 100, then to 1,000, etc. Later, people
then learn what the truly big range numbers are and who it is that puts them in
motion – astrophysicists and EU financial politicians.
Since
there was a European Union, the relation of Germans to billions has indeed
become intimate. As a rule, these billions flow to a country which ostensibly
must be rescued. Each day is greeted not by marmots but by billions in the newspaper
and or on the TV news. Somewhere in Germany they must grow, these billions.
Frau
von der Leyen was no slouch and at the end of last year even brought the
trillion into play. That is 1,000 billion euros – only thus for an
understanding of the range of numbers: A one with twelve zeros. So much will
the EU expend up to 2050 to transform Europe into the Earth’s first
climate-neutral continent. That also states the motto of the German presidency
of the council.
As is
known, ladies and gentlemen, something came in between: A virus out of Asia frustrated
these pious plans. The Fridays-for-Future teenagers could experience what an
authentic crisis is like and had to go into lock down. And now we hear on the
news of three-figure billion amounts to counter the secondary effects of the Corona lock down, which together could come near to the sum which Frau von der Leyen
wanted to expend on restraining the world scourge of carbon dioxide.
Instead
of a CO2-neutral economy, the money will thus now flow into
overcoming the consequences of Corona. We have only one, anxious question for
the Federal government and the EU leadership: Was that then, or do you still
want to make a payment of 1 trillion for Greta’s fairy tale world?
The
Corona crisis has literally shown the Brussels bureaucracy its borders. Herr
Minister – I am of a quite different opinion than you – it has shown how little
the EU is in the way of solving the problems of the European citizens. When it
gets serious, people draw back into their national confines, and it will
continue to be so.
The
fixation of the EU Commission and the Federal government on the various green
illusions and the fundamental reconstruction of economy and society are just as
false as the tendency to shift ever more competences to the European level.
Amidst
the daily reports of Corona and the emerging reconstruction of Europe, one news
item, for example, has been nearly submerged. The Italians, without the EZB’s
feedings, would be bankrupt. According to a Reuters report, in April and May
the EZB took up nearly all of Italy’s new debt. Moreover, no one in the capital
market was ready to purchase Italian national notes on a large scale. This
factual state financing by the central bank [Notenpresse] is not only a violation of all European treaties, but
it irrefutably leads to inflation.
Franziska Brantner (Greens): Deflation!
We
similarly experience that Germany’s yearly contribution to the EU budget shall
increase around 42 percent in the coming years. Ladies and gentlemen, it must
be said ever anew: This EU was founded under the proviso that no country is
liable for the debts of another.
Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): False! There must be
liability! It is quite otherwise, Herr Gauland! Old legends here!
Franziska Brantner (Greens): Herr
Gauland, you know better!
Christian Petry (SPSD): Always these
falsehoods here!
The
Italians clearly have a higher per capita wealth than Germany. Germany is in no
way rich, as is always asserted by interested parties, but it is capable. I
have no idea
Gunther Krichbaum (CDU/CSU) That is
true!
Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That is
right!
how
the Federal government will explain to the Germans that they should now rescue
the Italians who are clearly better off.
Instead,
ladies and gentlemen, it is rather time to give up illusions and leave the Italians
and the Greeks to a currency of their
own
Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Oh, Gott!
which
is to be supported by an economic and social policy for which Rome and Athens
are responsible; or which is simply to be weakened, according to the
circumstances.
Ladies
and gentlemen, this EU is in flames, and indeed not only financially. Herr Macron
declared in February that he wanted to reconquer those territories of the
Republic lost to Islamic separatists.
Franziska Brantner (Greens): That was not the
formulation! Herr Gauland,
you cite falsely! That you are not ashamed to cite falsely!
That is really
unbelievable! One false statement after another!
In
these lost territories of the Republic, a white person today better not let
himself be seen, much less a Jew and no woman who thinks she herself can decide
her personal appearance. That pertains precisely to the eastern Europeans, upon
whom our EU centralists wish to impose obligatory migrant quotas – Herr Maas
has again done that. He who has not first lost something, need not reconquer
it, and it will remain so for the eastern Europeans.
We
are certainly not as far gone as France, but we are on the way. On May 22, the
police praesidium in Duisburg received a letter, in which it is said, I cite
with the permission of the President –
…Duisburg-Maxloh is our part of the city…We forbid
all unbelievers to set foot in our part of the city…All police, journalists and
other unbelievers, we will drive out with armed force or kill…Allahu akbar…
The
Party and Event Scene in Stuttgart, wondrously quick forgotten by the media, at
which Boris Palmer had recognized so many immigrants, has opened an additional
view into a future which has little to do with that golden future being
extolled in the EU’s glossy brochures or as it has been again extolled by the
Herr Minister. There, ladies and gentlemen, are to be found no such
disillusioning facts. The European nations will have to solve most problems in their
own front yard. Brussels will not do it for them. Otherwise, the second German
presidency of the EU Council could be the last.
I
am grateful.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
