German
Bundestag, September 11, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/174, pp. 21837-21838.
Right
honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
The
present perspective for employees in the automobile industry could actually not
be worse than it is at the moment. What is to come is for us nothing other than
the meltdown of the German automobile industry.
That
it comes is furthermore not surprising. In the previous year, we had an experts’
hearing. Those there who heard the experts were – for you, it must be said,
would have been – warned. Especially we of the AfD delegation have denounced time
and again in this house your CO2 legislation which is catastrophic
for the auto industry.
Ja, now you will object: The
legislation comes from Brussels.
Daniela Wagner (Greens): No matter where it comes
from! It is right! No matter where it comes from!
The
fact that you voted in Brussels for a law which will foreseeably destroy this
country’s leading industry is either a sign of your incompetence or of your
insufficient assertiveness in regards German interests in the European Union.
My
estimate of your disastrous policy is shared in unison with leading experts of
the automobile industry and also recently by the FDP. Of course, we in the
meantime have a climate of angst
Helin Evrim Sommer (Linke): The
tears are coming!
and
almost no one dares to openly contradict the socialistic control mania of your
transportation transformation.
Daniela Wagner (Greens): There ought to be angst
only for the likes of you! There ought to be angst for the enemies of democracy,
like you!
– Ja, das ist so.
If
we look at the past week, we may ascertain that, on the periphery of the auto
summit, the partial nationalization of auto industry firms in extremis was
demanded by IG Metall, the SPD and the Greens. The government’s hollow words
were then the result of the summit. It there let it be known that it sees the
salvation of the auto industry in digitalization and autonomous driving. As to
the concrete problems of automobile firms – the perspective of a lack of market
for combustion engine vehicles – it put in not a word. The end of the
combustion engine, politically desired by you, is the cause of the loss of
workplaces in the automobile and machinery building industry here in Germany.
Stephan Gelbhaar (Greens): Please
speak on the topic!
You
cannot compensate for that with a state subsidized electric auto industry.
We
have seen in the example of the solar cell industry how badly senseless technological
demands function. Where are they then, our billions of tax subventions? Solar cells
are today made in foreign countries and all the respective workplaces in
Germany are gone.
Marianne Schieder (SPD): Rubbish!
Precisely
that may happen if subventions are invested in economically senseless projects,
as you here again are demanding.
How
did the works council chairman at Daimler AG say it in the summer of
this year?
Ralph Lenkert (Linke): Ach, the
betrayer!
95
percent of workplaces depend on the combustion engine. – A little group of SPD,
Green, CDU/CSU and FDP politicians, alien to technique and resistant to
counsel, withdraw the basis of livelihood from hundreds of thousands of
hardworking people and Mittlestand businesses,
and that on the basis of the false assumption that electro-mobility will reduce
CO2 emissions in this country.
We
here introduce a motion [Drucksache
19/22186] for saving the combustion engine. The workplaces dependent on the
combustion engine will be saved by a charge on the use of synthetic fuels; and
at the same time, more CO2 emissions will be spared than by means of
the operation of electric vehicles. And if you reject this motion, then you act
against the interests of hundreds of thousands of workers in this country. And
we will take care that you bear the complete political responsibility for destroying
the livelihood of these people. Yes, sir!
Many
thanks.
Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Off course! From
the start, again the rhetorical way!
[trans: tem]
