German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/215, 27033-27035.
Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable representatives of the Federal government. Esteemed colleagues.
For weeks and months our country finds itself at a standstill. Businesses are idle, families are torn apart. The psychic pressure on people increases as strongly as does the lack of understanding of the repeated prohibitions and restrictions. The Federal government’s Corona preventive measures are untenable, unemployable and are meanwhile for reasonable people utterly unintelligible.
Frau Chancellor, you have maneuvered our country into a dead-end in which we can turn only with difficulty. The people were patient. They have put up with restrictions. Only, at which price? Ever again were they put off.
One gets the impression that your Federal government possesses neither a plan nor the aptitude nor a will for a specific change of course. Do you not see see what is happening with this country and its citizens? Are all of you on the government bench impotent and angst-ridden? Where are your concepts for the German economy, Herr Altmaier? Where remain the long promised and urgently necessary support payments? What have you invested in the economic sector which still has the most employees – the small and Mittielstand businesses? Who guarantees the future of our social security system if the basis for that – the Mittielstand and the skilled trades – de facto no longer exist, having been abolished by you? Only here occurs the real value creation. Only so can we continue to live in prosperity and peace.
Herr Altmaier and Herr Wanderwitz, compared with you, Günter Mittag and Hermann Axen in the DDR were genuine economic visionaries.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): Mein Gott!
In this regard, simply nothing comes from you. We, the German Bundestag, were presented with a great trust by the voters to lead this country in times of crisis. We must again persuade our people that we have earned this trust.
The Alternative
für Deutschland’s Bundestag delegation puts forward with the submitted motions
[Drucksache 19/ 26895, 27204, 27206]
conclusive and rapidly applicable specific measures. It is our goal
to thereby still be able to shape Germany’s economic present and future. It would be much preferred by us, it would by me, if I could be able to say to my children: You need not worry yourselves about the future. At the moment, it is no more clear to me what we can still hand over to our future generations if Germany longer finds itself in the governing power of Frau Dr. Merkel. Quite clearly remain: Debts, depression, lack of perspective.
The scientifically questionable and purely politically motivated “incidence value” ought no more bear the brunt as the basis for your lone decisions in the Corona cabinet. On that account, we here indicate concrete alternatives and concepts for an exit from the misery for which you are guilty.
Right
honorable ladies and gentlemen, allow me to come to the core requirements of
our motions paper. I begin with the basic postulate: The orderly end of the
lockdown – as quickly as possible.
It must be the goal to slowly again start up the economy curtailed for almost a year. This process for each economic branch and business is a different length of time. That must be prepared for! Meanwhile, supply chains are interrupted. Suppliers’ productions were even so reduced as were the consumption chains with the end consumers.
Let us take
the example of the restaurant trade. Shortly before Christmas, the reserve
stores were still full. The holidays were imminent and the expected turnover
did not take place. The resulting losses were multiplied: For one, the taverns
were closed; for another, foodstuffs on a substantial scale needed to be destroyed.
And the previously described process now applies: The supply chains must again run so as to again make business possible.
This allows me to come to the next point and to one of the core requirements of our motions: The basic financial provision of the business people. For all those who still exist need the long promised Corona assistance. Without this can neither basic and wage expenses nor costs for a new start be defrayed.
And for all of us it is meanwhile clear that we in the coming months must still secure a large number of assistance payments to the affected businesses. We must show that on the part of the state we also support businesses in difficult times.
We must today create parameters so that the people want to again implement their innovative ideas in the land of Dichter und Denker. Despite all the difficulties, it must again be attractive to start up a business in Germany. A slogan for this is bureaucracy deconstruction. I can no more listen to it. Citizen and business suffocate under bureaucracy. Every week, new layers are added. We continually bring that into the political debate. Only, you unfortunately are deaf.
Let us look at the side of the consumer. A functioning economic system lives by supply and demand. After a year of part-time work, many of the end consumers simply lack the money to be able to again invest. For that, we propose the long-term reduction of the value added tax from 19 to 15 percent. Domestic demand and our retailers will also profit from this.
It is now naturally asked: How can these things actually be financed? For we are, ja, always hearing: Tax increases or other additional revenues. – Yet here we also need to approach expenditures; for example, by means of savings in regards the apportionments to the European Union. The Federal government plans to increase the German gross contribution to over 40 billion euros per year. We can and must put an end to that. According to our concept, the payments will be returned to and frozen at the contribution level of the year 2019. Project Europa can only have a future with strong, national finance partners. For that, we in Germany and for our citizens require sustainable investments. We must finally again strengthen the domestic economic power.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Federal government, a commentary in the “Neuen Zürcher Zeitung” of March 1 of this year expresses in its title what the majority of Germans meanwhile think of your Corona policy: “Germany in Long-term Lockdown. To Defend to the Death Is Also to Be Dead”. The receding acceptance of your preventive measures or, much more, the people’s clear rejection [deutliche Ablehnung] shows what the citizens are asking for.
Timon Gremmels (SPD): There is no
clear rejection!
Frau Chancellor, end this painful lockdown. What must yet happen before you come to reason and listen to the cry of the people? Adapt and extend the hygiene concepts. Finally trust your citizens! Do not treat them like dumb children! The prolonged prohibitions will not let you curtail the voices of your critics. We will more and more lose connection with the life out there and thereby jeopardize the stability of our democracy.
Esteemed colleagues of this sovereign house, the economy and the people in Germany require a real perspective. We are all tired of the political maneuvering of this Federal government which is no more aligned to our welfare. We are to be treated reasonably. Finally pull yourselves together and vote for the AfD’s motion! We need a fundamental change for Germany!
[trans: tem]
