Friday, August 27, 2021

Alice Weidel, August 25, 2021, Catastrophe Management

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/238, pp. 31026-31027.

Right honorable Frau President. Frau Chancellor. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The last weeks and months of the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel sink into a succession of crises which have been characterized by false decisions, inactivity and government failure.

The July flood catastrophe in Rheinland-Pfalz and Nordrhein-Westfalen has again receded into the background of the headlines. Yet people on the Rhine and in Ahrtal still stand before the rubble of their homes and livelihood; in many locales lacking the required support, infrastructure not to be foregone still lies in ruins. And more than 180 people have died in the flooding and its consequences – victims of weather events with torrential downpours which as ever again for centuries visit the affected regions; yet also – and this needs be frankly clarified – victims of insufficient catastrophe defenses and failures of the state, of omitted precautions and delayed warnings.

The attempt to instrumentalize the suffering of the people in the flooded areas for the enforcement of climate protection dirigisme is an especially shabby diversion from one’s own ignorance and incompetence.

We today discuss and decide on the financial facet of the reconstruction. Six weeks after the destructive flooding, this is more than overdue. We would have long since been able to speak on this had the other delegations in this house similarly joined in the demand of the AfD delegation requesting a special session, instead of once again engaging in petty, little partisan games of exclusion over the responsibility for the citizens’ well-being. Yet at that point in time – and this also needs be clearly said – Armin Laschet, the CDU’s candidate for Chancellor – still stood giggling in the catastrophe zone. Perhaps for that reason, he too did not want the special session.

The omissions and neglect, the cases of state and authority failure, and the structural deficiency which this flood catastrophe has brought to light are not allowed to be swept under the table. To expend money, and to pat oneself on the back for that, is easy. The citizens however by right expect answers which up to today they have not obtained.

Just as did the German Weather Service, so also the European flood alarm system had warned for days of the catastrophe. Why were not passed along in time the warnings by which people could bring themselves and their property to safety? The debacle a year ago of the national warning day obviously lead to no consequences. Sirens which remain silent or are simply not there, alarm systems which do not function: This is a scandal which emblematically describes the state of this country under your leadership.

And why do we need the world’s most expensive public broadcasting if in the hour of catastrophe it not once completes the alarm signals? Automated SMS warnings are now in the draft law. In other countries, they are long since standard. Why not with us? You had thought of Corona quarantine warnings for boundary crossing, for catastrophe defense not.

Thus occur equipment and organization deficits and a personnel shortage in the civil and catastrophe defense. Those affected by the flooding were for days left in the lurch. Catastrophe defense on the level of a developing country is unworthy of an industrial country of Germany’s rank.

It’s true: Catastrophe defense is essentially a duty of the States, in Rheinland-Pfalz moreover for ten years in the hands of a Green minister. The failures of state and authorities in the flood catastrophe however expose a fundamental problem at all political levels. In Germany, the state is strong in regards dangling and patronizing the citizens, in regards collecting and distributing tax money; but it is weak when it is about the fulfillment of its core competences – in taking responsibility for order, law, domestic and foreign security – and in regards the repulse of tangible dangers.

Who wants to save the world climate in 50 years and tutor other countries on withdrawal from coal and nuclear, yet who in his own country does not once manage to sound the warning sirens, he makes himself ridiculous. And who wants to make the citizens believe that tax increases and industry shut-downs for the climate could in the future prevent heavy rains and regional extreme weather, he intentionally plays false.

We therefore need to bring back politics to the ground of reality. Instead of blessing the entire world, we first need for once to again bring Germany into order and concentrate ourselves on the tangible duties and real dangers. In the matter of flood and catastrophe defense, that for example means: To better fund waste water systems and canalizations for heavy rains, adapt building plans, create retention basins and overflow acreage, toughen and build up protective construction and infrastructure, and modernize, continually examine and keep functional the alarm systems. That naturally is more troublesome and less spectacular than making big speeches on climate defense and the saving of the planet, yet it is this for which politicians are elected and paid by the citizens: With all power to serve the welfare of the country and its people [mit aller Kraft dem Wohl des Landes und seiner Bevölkerung dienen].

 

[trans: tem]