German
Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 30/27, p. 2669.
Frau
President.
We deliberate
today on a ticklish draft law which indeed in its material aspect – loosening
the very long-term investment status of the Bundeswehr – is worthy of welcome –
we support this aim – yet which in terms of fiscal and constitutional legality
is dubious.
To begin
with: We are fundamentally opposed to special funds because they impair the
Bundestag’s regularly transparent decision-making over the budget.
Wolfgang Hellmich (SPD): Nonsense!
And now even
a hedge [Absicherung] on an amendment
of the Basic Law – without precedent! This special fund thus will stand not
only – cite, the Finance Minister – “in addition to the debt brake”, but in the
last instance in addition to the budget.
The Constitution
is misused when a concrete budget figure is written into the Basic Law, and thus
without an emergency is established an illegitimate accessory budget. Something
like this is not done, in complete disregard to the goal of the orderly
armament of the Bundeswehr, which the AfD quite alone for years demands.
Of all
things, a leftist government wants to do something here which we last saw 130
years ago: Under Bismarck, the military budget was written out for years, the
so-called seven year system. Of all things, the Ampel wants in a similar way to restrict the democratic control.
Wolfgang Hellmich (SPD): Also false!
I do not say “abolish”,
I say “restrict”.
The 100
billion of Bundeswehr means is regularly due to be put into the core budget
without introduction of a special fund. And yet there simply is no question: The
majority for this investment, as we demand for years, would be secured here in
house without a problem. For that, there was for years an 80 percent majority
and agreement here in house; it required no amendment of the Basic Law.
So let us be
honest: This construction serves exclusively for the avoidance of the debt
brake. The special fund even receives its own borrowing potential, without
fixed terms of amortization – in cases, not yet – and without a charge on the
constitutional debt limit. Its only about that; for that was this construction
selected.
Since 2020,
the government ever again as an exception sets aside the debt brake and alienates
the means. This is permanent law-breaking which however anyway disturbs no one
other than the AfD.
And again
today an alienation of means is laid out; since this is allowed according to
the draft law by the name of “Bundeswehr Special Fund Act”; unfortunately, not
only for the benefit of the Bundeswehr, but it will also be expended for the armament of not closely defined
partner states, §2. All of this is superfluous and non-transparent.
Increasingly, the core budget reflects only a part of the reality.
The socialists
and redistributionists here in house will welcome this; since naturally it is
much more simple to govern with hidden and out-sourced debts. You already do
this with the climate fund, with the ESM and the EU debts programs. Yet this is
fatal for a higher inflation on account of the causal chain of more ECB debt
monetization; we already have an asozial
7 percent increase of expenses.
The weapons then
at the earliest in summer – at the earliest, rather in autumn or next year or
the year after next – which will be financed from the special fund will not
influence the outcome of the Ukraine war. The Ukraine war in fact serves as an
occasion for a course change in regards the equipment of the Bundeswehr,
neglected for years; the necessity for that is nonetheless of long-standing and
is no consequence of the Ukraine war, not at all.
Who asserts
something other and yet plainly makes a case for Ukraine – and that has, ja, plainly already amply happened here –
is not only fiscally false. Frau Minister Lambrecht and Herr Dobrindt,
according to press reports, you have agreed on the delivery of heavy weapons;
all of that goes quite without a special fund. It went without a special fund.
Not only are you wrong in fiscal terms, but then you shall also declare the
renunciation of a decades-old German state doctrine to deliver no weapons to a
war zone. Yet that would then be for Germany not only a fiscally false but at
the same time a highly dangerous way.
Hearty thanks.
Wolfgang Hellmich (SPD): No idea and
a lot of it!
[trans: tem]
