German Bundestag, September 7, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/50,
pp. 5336-5338.
Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear
countrymen.
When one listens to the discussion between CDU and SPD, it
can be said: One donkey calls the other Long Ears. – That is your discussion
and your strife culture.
Germany is presently changing at a furious speed. Formerly
the economic poster child in Europe, we are well on the way to becoming from a
donor to a recipient country. The frightful circumstance of the Ukraine war
tears Europe apart, and Germany finds itself in a new, long-term dependency on
the U.S.A. Concerning the real causes, Herr Scholz, you’ve not wasted a single
word.
By means of a wide-ranging economic sanctions regime against
Russia, we will piece by piece isolate ourselves and limit the possibilities of
action. The economic war contrived by Robert Habeck on the basis of these
sanctions damages Germany, our citizens, but not Russia.
Instead of wanting to end the Ukraine war as quickly as
possible, the Federal government continues to deliver heavy weapons. Instead of
mediating with all diplomatic means between Russia and the Ukraine – for
example, with a peace conference here in Berlin – oil will yet again be poured
on the fire by means of the media. Instead of actually de-escalating, the Federal
government wants to enforce its ideologies.
The result: Russia has stopped the delivery of natural gas
via Nord Stream 1 until the sanctions have been lifted. It then really needs be
asked: Did you actually not consider that? Are the means used by Germany and
the results still in proportion here? Ask yourself that!
Chancellor Scholz has said, Russia is no more a reliable
partner. Herr Chancellor, partnerships also need to be cultivated. Had all of
you here really believed that Russia humbly accepts these sanctions? Also
presented is the question of our reliability. Have we renounced the long-term
delivery contracts? Which quantities of gas or oil were actually ordered, were
to be received? What have we actually paid? Question on question which the
government does not answer.
In this situation, sure of victory, the Federal government
blithely drives forward the energy transition – as we have heard here today –
without regard to losing the citizens in our own country. The goal of the
energy transition has failed or was never attainable; since first, one energy
carrier should be replaced by another; second, we have continually pointed to
fossil energy carriers or nuclear energy – besides, Herr Merz, we might have
here in this Bundestag a majority for continuing to operate nuclear energy – ;
and third, you in this regard contribute to that the energy requirement further
grows. Political goals, measures like digitalization, electro-mobility for reducing
the output of CO2 or now the glorification of the warm air pump,
show you continually occupy yourselves with partial problem solving.
I ask you – unfortunately, Herr Habeck is now gone – do you
really so poorly know what’s what, or it it all the same to you how our
citizens should pay for their flame? Yet you have, ja, impressively demonstrated that yesterday evening. Then it needs
be stated: Herr Habeck, you really have as much inkling of economics as a blind
man has of color.
…
Valued Federal government, you do not find yourselves in a
political planning game. What you are pursuing here becomes a bitter reality
for all citizens and businesses. You deride all who daily contribute to the
creation of value. Your proposals offer nothing. It can of course therein lie
that scarcely anyone in your ranks still at all analyses with feasibility.
Water simply comes out of the line. Electricity comes out of the socket. That is
your policy.
Nevertheless, for a change, get yourselves together with the
people who do have an inkling of technology, who use this technology. Those are
the tradesmen [Handwerker]. Those who
can convert your magical fables from the children’s books into living reality. Should
you then find a Handwerker who in the
next years still has free time, it would surely be good. Should this one then
still use construction materials, because the supply chains which you have
distorted are still at hand, it would be better still. Nevertheless, you for
decades with your economic and education policy provide that soon there will no
longer be a Mittelstand. Crushed
under the enormous tax burden, manipulated by means of certification by the
European Union, your disastrous energy transition policy in the end provides
for the death of many branches. This development unfortunately has already
begun.
You see, we have here to do with the sell-out of our
interests. The Federal government stands in its own way and that of our country.
Do you really believe that the people do not recognize what little games you
play at here? Here, it is about the prosperity which our parents and
grandparents have wrought, about prosperity and primarily also about the values
in which generations of families have been raised. Green ideologues destroy it
all at lightning speed. It is devastating that the FDP, the former Mittelstand and Handwerker party, here also applauds. It has failed exactly so.
Dear citizens, you receive from this Federal government no
honestly offered alternatives. The policy of this Ampel coalition always first clarifies what may no longer be. A
case of necessity will be sanctioned so as to enforce its own will or to please
so-called friends. This Ampel government
completely loses sight of the overall context, it manages patchwork with the
result that we more and more lose our economic prosperity. The rescue packages’
billions, which you here want to sell as a success of your government policy,
are hard earned by the people out there. Please do not forget that! All of that
no longer agrees with many Germans, and they will now also be able to manifest
that in the street. It is their basic right to go into the street so as to
demonstrate; that is what every citizen is free to do [das ist das, was jedem Bürger freisteht].
Stefan
Schmidt (Greens): Exactly!
Therefore in conclusion: We continue to need Russian gas so
as to realize a reform of the energy sector capable of the base load. In that
are Saxony Minister-president Michael Kretschmer and the Alternative für
Deutschland agreed. Therefore, Herr Chancellor, make the facts and make an end
of this economic war against Russia. We need a foreign policy led by interests
for Germany and for the continent of Europe.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]