Peter
Boehringer
Public
Sector Purchase Program
German
Bundestag, July 2, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/170, pp. 21276-21277
[Peter Boehringer is an Alternative für
Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria. He is the chairman of the Bundestag
budget committee and here introduces an AfD motion (Drucksache 19/20616) addressing
the integration of German and European Union policies in regards a loan
purchase program of the European Central Bank.]
It
is remarkable how a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on the PSPP [Public
Sector Purchase Program], already functioning for five years, could unleash
such activism on the part of the old parties.
Otto Fricke (FDP): In the meantime,
you also are old!
Meanwhile,
a list from the Bundestag’s own European counselors is placed before us which
shall document the meticulous concern over the enormous power of the ECB
[European Central Bank] of those here in house. Interestingly, this list, since
2017, contains very many AfD initiatives which you altogether have rejected.
You certainly did not wish to release part of it, yet now it will be zealously
and officially documented before the Court that the Bundestag was to quite
clearly comply with the integration responsibility required by the Court.
Eight
of the eleven plenary debates on ECB policy took place due to AfD initiatives.
Seven of ten relevant motions alone came from our small delegation – just as
six of eleven relevant inquiries. From the Federal government in contrast came
practically no activity at all. If the Bundestag and the Federal government
should get through the conceivable following complaints to the PSPP in Karlsruhe,
then that could throughout be also due to the AfD motions most deeply rejected
by you.
Thus,
a gift!
Sven-Christian Kindler (Greens): Your
speech is also a gift!
You
have now finally and formally concerned yourselves with the required
proportionality test, although five years too late, and before all
insufficiently; since 2015 at the latest, it was clear that OMT [Outright
Monetary Transactions] and the PSPP will ultimately remove German budget
sovereignty.
Sven-Christian Kindler (Greens): Not
agreed! Rubbish!
The
Bundestag ought to have much earlier tested according to the proportionality
standard not only the decisions over billions, which here were plainly
belittled, but also and primarily the “forbidden monetary state-financing”.
Sven-Christian Kindler (Greens): You
certainly do not know what that is!
We
will certainly not do justice to the integration responsibility with an express
debate on the PSPP compelled by Karlsruhe; nor suffices any non-binding
monetary dialogue in unofficial circles, nor indeed in our secret records
office as occurred on Monday.
The
Federal Constitutional Court already in its 2009 Lisbon decision stated, I
cite: “The legal and political responsibility of the parliament is fulfilled in
so far as it is not a one-time, affirmative act.” Only with regular debates
here in plenary session with the possibility of motions for a resolution prior
to the implementation of a new ECB purchase program may we fulfill our
responsibility.
Colleague
Peterka and I, as well as the AfD delegation, propose precisely this today.
Unfortunately, there is nothing of this in the common motion of the old
parties.
The
FDP’s individual motion in contrast also contains our filibuster [Dauerrede]. Here, we will vote in favor,
even if our own goes yet further.
We
will leave it to the courts to test the ECB’s current PEPP [Pandemic Emergency
Purchase Program] with a volume of 1,350 billion euros. Highly diverse groups
have associated themselves, along with the AfD, in the legal interpretation of “monetary
state-financing”, among whom are the former chief economists of the ECB, Issing
and Stark, the ex-president of the Bundesbank Schlesinger, and even one of the
experts assigned by the Linke as well as one of the Bundestag’s own EU
counselors.
The
ECB’s documentation on the proportionality of the PSPP, missing for five years,
was put before us a few days ago. I confirm that this was first served up to
the media and then much later reached us members in the secret records office. That
unfortunately is the usual abuse.
Eckhardt Rehberg (CDU/CSU): Nonsense!
That is rubbish, what you are saying!
Okay,
to obviate this objection: Partially in the secret records office.
Eckhardt Rehberg (CDU/CSU): Ah!
Michael Frieser (CDU/CSU): Aha!
Franziska Brantner (Greens): And you
have done nothing so as to make it public!
In
regards to the contents, we come to a result other than that of the ECB for the
test of the PSPP. The consequences of the permanent manipulation of the public
lending market are destructive for the saver, pensioner, renter and future
taxpayer as well as for the purchasers of real estate. There is a threat of the
artificial inflation of all asset markets. The zero-interest rates are leading
to a zombiefication of the economy and to re-distributions from the poor to the
rich. At the end stands a depression and in conclusion certainly a monetary
crash.
Our
conclusion’s devastating estimate, “PSPP against All of these Disadvantages”,
is also shared by a new study of the Commerzbank, from which is cited: “On the
whole, there remains doubt even in the basis of the ECB studies as to the
proportionality of the loan purchases.” With the purchases, it acquiesces to “great
risks for the financial stability.”
Vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki:
Herr colleague, come to a conclusion, please.
The
ECB itself says that. It emphasizes that the negative effects of an expansive
monetary policy would increase with the duration. That is sufficient grounds – I
thus come to a conclusion – to ever more critically observe, evaluate and stop
these effects after an intervening ten year period.
Vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki:
Herr colleague, you now have just
one sentence.
Having
been warned by the president, my last sentence: I protest against the utterly
insufficient treatment of this theme of billions in the Bundestag in an
absurdly brief 30 minutes.
Hearty
thanks.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
