Baden-Württemberg
Landtag, October 7, 2021, Plenarprotokoll 17/14, pp. 591-592.
Frau
President. Ladies and gentlemen.
Yesterday we
here heard something of the distinctive worldviews. I have now heard one and
want here in the hall to speak for another.
Herr
Minister-president, you speak of the best possible education for children, of
qualified, skilled workers. We are simply amazed how previous generations
without all-day schools produced skilled workers, how the industrial revolution
and the economic miracle of the postwar time were possible without your
selfless effort in the Bundesrat.
Ladies and
gentlemen, your statement on the debt brake is also of interest to me.
According to the Herr Minister-president, that shall be guaranteed. To continue
to await that is however actually a lofty notion.Your Green State chairman
Detzer noted succinctly:
There is not a debt brake in the world which will prevent
us from making Baden-Württemberg climate neutral.
When for you,
Herr Minister-president, education is as exactly so important as the climate,
then you need to presently declare the debt brake obsolete.
The question
is: Is education really important to you? Just now was it made known that in
the education monitor’s ranking of Federal States Baden-Württemberg has dropped
a further place, in fact from fifth to sixth place. That is a trend which
continues since the beginning of the Green participation in government. Which
might have purely nothing to do with the absent all-day schools. Moreover,
Saxony as before is at the head of the educational monitor in Germany. Wherein
do we of the AfD recall that? In the results of the recently conducted Bundestag
election.
Sascha Binder (SPD): Ach!
In Saxony
have clearly more people voted for the bürgerlichen
parties than in other areas of the Bund – perhaps with exceptions in Thüringen.
Andreas Stoch (SPD): The bürgerlichen or the rightist radicals?
These people
want to maintain the achievement principle in education and in society – in contrast
to you, ladies and gentlemen.
At another place
in your government declaration, the background of all-day supervision is
actually dealt with factually, with – this is nicely re-written – “the better
compatibility of family and occupation”. The AfD has no objection to that, even
if we of the AfD would first prefer to establish that with tax relief and means
of family support. For us, that would be the first step.
Ladies and
gentlemen, if parents decide to themselves supervise their children in the
afternoons and want to have time for that, that should be possible and be
promoted – and with care-helpers and parcel carriers, Herr Minister-president,
which you introduce here as examples. On that point, I am somewhat amazed,
since somewhat later in your speech you spoke of “families remote from
education” [bildungs-fernen Familien].
Thence for me certainly arises the question: Who is meant by “remote from
education”? I hope that you have not thereby meant the care-helpers and parcel
carriers, since that would naturally be a fully inappropriate characterization.
It should be
possible for you in any case to grant that this compatibility of family and
occupation is the background of this legislation – and plainly not the quality
of education. For I here want to for once quite clearly ask one thing:
Instruction for Grundschul children
between seven and ten years from early morning until late afternoon? That was
certainly not meant by you, ladies and gentlemen.
Thus
acknowledge the true background instead of ever again placing educational
opportunities in the foreground. So as to say it clearly: We, the AfD Landtag
delegation, basically agree to a legal claim to all-day places for Grundschul students. This requirement
will not only be seen in the population but also in the many groups referred to
in the corresponding offerings. One of which was already mentioned today: The
single parents in the population in Baden-Württemberg. There are presently a
total of 380,000 Grundschul students
and 2,440 Grundschulen, and 765 of
these Grundschulen presently offer
all-day supervision. Interesting is the number of those who use this offer: Of
the 152,000 who had the opportunity, 80,000 presently partake of it, the
portion of which is something over 50%. From that can thus be derived that for
approximately 200,000 all-day Grundschul
students would be expected additional investment and operations costs.
The appropriations
presentation, Herr Minster-president – with much self-praise – was surely a bit
remote from reality. Since if your argumentation was listened to – prior to the
negotiations in the appropriations committee, the Bund wanted to participate with
a maximum of 50%, and may now be at 70% – , it needs be said: That is not quite
right. Since here is always “up to”, and there is a cap at 3.5 billion € for
the Federal portion of the investment costs. You would have already been able
to previously undersign that – which is of course a zero-sum game.
It previously
was already at 3.5 billion € in regards the calculated investment costs. The improvement
– which needs be deemed by you as a success – is in regards the operations costs,
for which the Bund in the preliminaries wanted to undertake nothing, and
wherein now in the end nevertheless significant improvements have been
attained.
This round
with the “plus/minus null” reckoning in regards the investments can also
naturally still backfire. This round can also still go into minus because we do
not know how many families will claim this offer for their children, how high
the investments in fact will be and whether then also it is not again attempted
to shove onto these rails urgent construction restorations and other
investments in the schools area. We can only demand of you to put an end to
such efforts in good time so that these things will quite clearly be separated
one from another.
Your statement
on Baden-Württemberg’s influence in the Bund was likewise very interesting. Since
this influence is clearly very important to you personally. We thence actually
proceed, ladies and gentlemen, to that that should be self-evident. Baden-Württemberg
is as before the third largest Federal State. The State always had an influence
in the Bund, yet in the last years, especially in the last two legislative
periods, unfortunately no longer in the form of also having had leading
political figures in the top positions; their number becomes fewer and fewer.
It is, taken with a bit of irony, certainly nice that a Green
Minister-president needs hold high the flag of Baden-Württemberg in Berlin, and
the once great bürgerlichen party in Baden-Württemberg
can there generally no more assert an influence.
The hollowing-out
of federalism runs rampant [Die
Aushöhlung des Föderalismus greift um sich]. The Bund keeps the States on a
short leash so as to be able to somewhat better control them. It is thoroughly
positive that the Herr Minister-president is engaged in opposition to that.
On the
proposal to set up a federalism commission: We can quickly set up commissions;
we therein have great experience. Circles of chairs we form relatively free of
interruption. But it makes no sense when here the corresponding guidelines have
not been given and all are also willing to attain that – that means a new redistribution
of means in Germany, more means for the States and more means for the
localities for the maintenance of their duties. For that, the distribution of
sales taxes clearly needs to be changed. We ourselves speak for that and here
also we support you.
I want to
expand on your statement as to what is in the State Constitution concerning
upbringing [Erziehung]: In our Basic
Law also are important, elementary articles concerning upbringing. I cite
Article 6, paragraph 1:
Marriage and family shall enjoy the
special protection of the state.
Further is
stated in paragraph 2 – and this is quite decisive:
The care and upbringing of children is the natural right
of parents and a duty primarily incumbent upon them.
Here we have
distinctive worldviews. I therefore bring up this article from the Basic Law.
Your attempt to for once introduce all-day supervision on a voluntary basis is
worthy of all respect; the offer needs be there. But we know you and expect
that sooner or later you will introduce this as being obligatory. It is in the
genes of the Greens and the reds to want to politically accompany and form the
people from the cradle to the grave. And to that, we are decisively opposed,
ladies and gentlemen.
Anton Baron (AfD): Precisely that is
the point! And the CDU just looks on!
Sascha Binder (SPD): Jesses Gott!
[trans: tem]
