German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/218, p.
27447.
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.
It was a multi-colored potpourri of themes that the
Chancellor wanted to set before us in what is actually a mono-thematic time.
But then comes the day in which all became other. Yes, Frau Chancellor, you
have apologized and taken responsibility for that.
Yet that, ladies and gentlemen, is only the half-truth. 16
Minister-presidents in a night session revealed how far distant they are from
the opinions and feelings of those they govern.
Since, ladies and gentlemen, what they inflicted with this
Easter lockdown would necessarily have struck at least one of them. I do not
thereby entirely speak of the legal problems. Yet, at the latest since people
may fly to Mallorca yet cannot drive to Scharbeutz, it must be clear which echo
they let loose. That even the congregations are denied by them to the otherwise
so tame churches, only yet again demonstrates how far they are from the people.
And now on all channels an improvement is promised. Yet an
improvement must mean that you inform and participate with the Bundestag before
and not after. You nevertheless do that when here you deliver a government
declaration prior to a European Council – why thus not in regards decisions
which quite directly intervene in the life of the people? What the eastern
Mediterranean means to Europe – so was the announcement – is, previously by far
and still afterwards, left to be communicated, ladies and gentlemen.
German policy for many years reliably follows one pattern: A
wish will be formulated, an attempt made to in fact implement it, that it is
not fulfilled is routinely confirmed, and then one is amazed and denigrates the
critics. Frau Chancellor, the European policy also follows this pattern; on
that account, it hurries from failure to failure. A European fiscal union is not
in our interest – we are not the only ones who see this so – for it will be a
debts union.
The EU is incapable of procuring vaccine and organizing the
vaccination in member states; the former British Prime Minister Blair recently
very wisely expounded on that. Why should the EU also be entrusted with the far
more complex administration of European finances? The lesson of the Corona
crisis signifies: Centralism is clumsy, inflexible and works chaotically. Decentralization
is the order of the hour and this order refers to the national state, on which
account the vaccination is functioning better in Great Britain, Israel and even
in Russia.
It does lie in the German interest that first the citizens
of this country be vaccinated, naturally on a voluntary basis. We reject every
kind of forced vaccination, even the indirect. The Federal government is to
concern itself with that and indeed not out of vaccine nationalism, as
immediately runs a more foolish reproof, but out of the same self-awareness with
which one thinks first of the health of his family, for the same reasons that
the Bürgermeister of Kassel plainly must first concern himself with Kassel and
not with Bielefeld. Joe Biden himself in regards vaccination immediately adhered
to the motto of Donald Trump: “America First”. And that is right, ladies and
gentlemen.
And in regards the Corona preventive measures, we will in
the end again stand there and state that all the wishing has not helped. Let us
slowly acquaint ourselves with the ideas that lockdowns produce little to
nothing, intelligent hygiene concepts produce something, large events can be
refused, yet that people lead a social life cannot be prevented.
There are presently put forward three international studies
on the effectiveness of a lockdown on the lowering of the infection numbers. Not
one comes to the conclusion that there has been a distinct, measurable effect.
The epidemiologist John Ioannidis, a professor at Stanford, has evaluated the
effects of lockdowns of various severity in 14 European countries and in the
U.S.A. His conclusion: The preventive measures have affected the infection
curve little or not at all. The curve in Sweden runs parallel to ours. That is
to say, the dynamic of the pandemic evidently does not trim itself according to
whether the public life is shut down or not.
Yet there are no studies on the collateral damages of the
Corona preventive measures. These damages do not affect the economy alone. Isolation,
deficiencies of contact and movement, lack of supervision, the continual
togetherness of families – all of this damages the health of untold thousands
of citizens. The effects upon the psyche, education and intelligence of
children are massive.
The Bundestag should therefore set up a committee of inquiry
to investigate these damages. Certainly in view of coming pandemics, we should
know for what stakes we are playing. Since in the long run, ladies and
gentlemen, the citizens plainly do not forgive a government which has done almost
everything wrong. We could also learn from what has happened.
I am grateful.
[trans: tem]
