German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/47, pp.
4953-4954.
Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
Already in the first deliberation on the CETA [Comprehensive
Economic and Trade Agreement] theme – that was on March 18 – I was allowed to
refer to that, for example, our French and Italian friends on the average go
essentially earlier into retirement and at the same time clearly have more
assets than we Germans. Those are facts verified by, among other things, the
ECB’s data. And despite that, Germany just recently shouldered over 130 billion
euros of the so-called Corona assistance funds of the European Union.
Julia Klöckner (CDU/CSU): What does that now have to do with CETA? Are you in the wrong debate?
In any case, it is a decades-long abuse of German policy not
to defend our own interests against the greed of other countries.
Julia Klöckner (CDU/CSU): Wrong theme!
That applies at the European level exactly so as at other
international levels. And exactly here is it called to be just so on the alert
in regards CETA. International trade is basically a good idea, since it
promotes the sum prosperity of the participant states. And we of the AfD also
want that. What we however do not want is the hollowing out of our country’s
sovereignty. And plainly, exactly that is to be feared in regards CETA. The February
9th ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court indicates a certain
doubt as to what concerns a further transfer of sovereign rights to CETA’s
tribunal and committee system. Namely, the Constitutional Court holds it be
conceivable that – I cite – “German officials will be in so far as entirely
excluded from possibilities of direct influence so that a personnel and
material legitimization of committee activity by means of the co-working of
German sovereign authorities would be even so impossible as their
responsibility to the citizens”. In clear text: There arises the danger that in
the backrooms decisions with wide-ranging consequences for our country will be
arranged [ausgekungelt] without
Germany being able to take influence, all the same as to what the voters in
this country have decided. That is the exact opposite of democracy in the sense
of a government [Herrschaft] of the
people. That is the government of the backrooms, and that we do not want!
Verrena Hubertz (SPD): What rubbish!
What we also do not want is that such a free trade agreement
can be used for the ideological wrong way of the Greens. We have certainly
heard that in the spoken contributions. Yet exactly that is now to be feared
when your draft law is looked at. Green ideology through the back door shall
now be tricked up and transacted in the free trade agreement. What then remains
of residual free trade if here the Greens meddle in this way can each one imagine
for himself.
Sebastian Roloff (SPD): Climate defense sure is annoying!
Yet there is hope. The Constitutional Court itself
apparently reckons with an immediate complaint against the CETA assent act –
and it will well be known why.
Despite our fundamental affirmation of free international
trade, we will not be able to agree to the law put forward in this form, but we
will abstain.
Many hearty thanks.
Manuel Höferlin (FDP): How then would you alter the law put forward? Have you once read the law which we decided on? A mere two paragraphs!
[trans: tem]
