German
Bundestag, September 10, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/173, pp. 21624-21625.
Right
honorable Herr President. Dear fellow citizens.
Article
17 of the Basic Law [Grundgesetz]
gives everyone the right to apply with written petitions or complaints to the
German Bundestag. Since the AfD entered the German Bundestag in 2017, the
previous, continual decline of petitions in this sovereign house has been turned
around.
The
AfD’s contribution, among others, is to have re-animated a high opinion of democracy
and brought people back into the political discourse who previously felt
themselves no longer represented.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): You have to an
extent abused the committee.
The
petitions portal is by far the German Bundestag’s most successful internet
offering. 40 percent more citizens have registered at the platform compared
with last year and, in addition, 45 percent more co-signers have taken up
public petitions. Unfortunately, this is presently the only opportunity,
besides non-official petitions and direct questions to the members, for a
citizen to directly co-operate in national policy during the legislative
period. For this reason, we wish to further construct direct democracy at last
in our country.
I
very heartily greet the co-workers of the committee staff.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): Who were
publicly attacked by you!
Each
petition, as you well know, is assigned to one of three sections and so about a
third of all citizen requests could be settled in the early stages of the parliamentary
process by means of non-bureaucratic assistance. A big thank you to the
diligent co-workers!
I
may likewise announce a success concerning the publicity of the petitions. You
recall the UN migration pact, in regards which a petition was first publicized
due to the perseverence of the AfD.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): That’s not
true!
And
we prevented the application of the term “Censor Committee”, Herr Gremmels.
Today I can say – so much may be allowed – that by our repeated intervention,
substantially more are being publicized than earlier.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): That is false!
While
there is a political arbitrariness as to which citizens requests will be
publicized, the door remains open.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): False!
We
therefore wish to further re-work the guidelines for public petitions and
firmly and compulsorily establish them in the Bundestag’s orders of business. You
could vote for that.
Dear
fellow citizens, last year the prize for the ministry with the greatest
performance deficit went to the Interior Ministry. First of all were the
letters aimed against the draft law concerning firearms put forward by the
Federal government. Thanks to over 50,000 co-signers, there was in January 2020
a public hearing with the petitioners.
Despite
the lockdowns this year, there will probably be 15 public hearings in 2020; in
December of this year, on the convening of an experts’ committee, including
proponents and critics, on the national Corona virus lockdowns. So you see:
While the Federal government allows, with Christian Drosten and Lothar Wieler,
only two so-called experts, the Petitions Committee, thanks to the citizens, is
already a step ahead.
While
Bundestag President Dr. Schäuble just yesterday at the submission of the
Petitions Report reiterated that he certainly did not want popular referendums
at the Federal level, many citizens, undeterred, see that otherwise and
therefore submit petitions. Even though the coalition contract has the goal of
an experts’ committee, the CDU, CSU and SPD, up to today, have not once managed
to designate the criteria according to which the experts will be invited. Thus I
must say, after three years, the Grand Coalition here has done absolutely
nothing, quite possibly because it wants to do nothing.
And
then when the Petitions Committee, together with a majority of the entire Bundestag,
decides to take into consideration a citizens request, motor vehicles and alarm
defense were two cases in the reported year, then the government does not feel
itself bound by the majority decision and simply rejects these citizen
proposals for improvement.
That
fits the picture; since for three years we of the AfD have been able to observe
how the legislative branch, the Bundestag, is only made use of by the Federal government
to rubber stamp laws
Timon Gremmels (SPD): Rubbish!
which
have been written not the the constitutional law-giver but actually by the
Federal government itself.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): That is
absurd! Produce the evidence!
We
of the AfD, on the other hand, have a completely different understanding of
democracy: The citizen proposes, the Bundestag decides and the government
implements – so it goes. Instead, important decisions were often already
reached previously in the back rooms. We know that, and not just since the “Philipp
Amthor” affair or the lobby activities of an Angela Merkel in the Wirecard
affair.
My
written inquiry concerning non-governmental organizations, like those located
in Berlin, yielded, according to the George Soros financed Council on Foreign
Relations’s own statement
Konstantin Kuhle (FDP):
Unbelievable!
Timon Gremmels (SPD): First clear up
your contribution affairs!
that,
quote: “Understandings derived from these contacts in preparatory discussion
flow into political decisions and government actions.”
Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU): Concern yourself
with the contributions to Frau Weidel and Herr Meuthen! You have enough to do
there!
Members
of this think tank – you also – are, besides government officials like State
Secretary Niels Annan of the SPD, the meanwhile combative candidate for the CDU
party chairmanship Norbert Röttgen and leading powers of the ostensibly
democratic parties, like Franciska Brantner of the Greens and Alexander Graf
Lambsdorff of the FDP.
Konstantin Kuhle (FDP): Good man!
Jan Korte (Linke): You are
controlled from Switzerland! The Fifth Column!
These
obvious entanglements, Herr Korte, confirm the suppositions of many citizens
that the self-described democratic parties, the “better democrats”, in this
country love parliament best and gainsay the citizens in the back rooms.
For
this reason, what we need is a lobby register, one worthy of the name, and such
a motion the AfD will introduce into the Bundestag tomorrow.
Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU): Yet
tomorrow!
To be
continued.
[trans:
tem]
