European
Parliament, Brussels, September 16, 2020, P9 CRE-PRO (2020) 09-16 (3-103-0000)
Frau
Commission President, Herr Parliament President, esteemed colleagues.
Frau
von der Leyen, you have here delivered a most pathetic speech on the State of
the Union. Ascribing this title to your speech was unquestionably done with
consideration. It is nevertheless ultimately only an additional, shameless
labeling swindle by the Commission. The loan is clear: It is a transference of
the speeches on the State of the Union like those we know of by the President
of the United States, or of the speeches on the state of the nation occasionally
undertaken by European heads of state or governments.
Only,
the thing has a decisive catch, which was supposed to be concealed by this
wording: The United States of America is a state, Germany, France and Italy are
states. The European Union is however not a state and you, Frau von der Leyen,
are no head of state, even if you gladly would be one. You can still flourish
ever so many long speeches over the State of the Union.
And
I assure you, we will bitterly oppose your desires, already far too advanced,
of constructing for the EU its own affairs of state along with its own right to
loot the citizen by means of guaranteeing taxation and also lately indebtedness
competences. The EU – please note – is not a state and we will do all within
our powers to see that it never becomes one.
If
you, in the usual hypocrisy of this house and of the Commission, therefore
accuse us of being opponents of Europe or even of being enemies of Europe, then
I on the contrary recall to you: We are not the real enemies of Europe, no, you
are! Since the ideals upon which our wonderful and various continent
historically and culturally stands are the ideals of freedom and democracy. You
trample underfoot both of these with your super-state fantasies with its
corresponding power over the citizen.
You
are presently using the Corona crisis, which in fact actually is a crisis but
which is in no way an unprecedented catastrophe as you wish us to believe, for
the purpose of amassing ever more competences at the level of the EU where they
can in no way be justified. For you, Covid-19 actually is of the greatest
convenience. You speak of an unprecedented crisis. You find therein the welcome
opportunity for an ever further communitarization.
You
speak of a Recovery Fund, as if we find ourselves at the end of disastrous war
with cities laid waste and millions of people to be mourned, as was the case in
1945. That is offensive. It is a knowing, purposeful exaggeration of this
crisis which we actually have as a result of Covid-19 and also of the fully
over-done lockdown of business life. Your so-called counter-measures, Frau Commission
President, will not by the means of indebtedness and taxation orgies help us
out of the crisis. On the contrary, it will intensify the crisis because it
leads us down a completely false, essentially socialistic path. It is no
accident that here in this house it is the greens and the communists who
applaud the loudest.
So
I ask: How blind to history can one actually be? The lessons of the terrifying
20th Century to a great extent and for hundreds of millions of
people– you still have not grasped. You are on a fateful, false way. The price
will be an enormous one, not for you personally, but for the citizens whose
interests you here pretend to represent.
[trans: tem]
