German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/69,
pp. 8058-8059.
Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable colleagues.
Dear spectators in the hall and on YouTube.
For 2023, the Foreign Office may rejoice over 7.5 billion
euros for expenditures. The Ampel is
thus really busting out and others here in the hall applaud. Only we say: It is
too much, and before all in regards to the fascinating questions: What actually
happens with the money? To where does it flow and does it do what it should? In
the coalition contract, the Ampel
parties are understood to have a “result-oriented budget management” [„wirkungsorientierte
Haushaltsführung“]. Yet
we have seen very little of that. When the budget title somehow sounds good and
“climate“ or “sustainability“ are therein, then the
billions fly out the window to foreign countries.
Let us for once
be definite – we have already spoken of it in the deliberations. There is the
so-called Federal Office for Foreign Affairs. That is a chic, new authority in
the portfolio of the Foreign Office in beautiful Brandenburg on the Havel, and
there work any number of motivated experts. We could once inspect it together
with the Minister and it was really very interesting. One of the department
leaders explained to us that in his department in this year 62 co-workers were
at work on 1,900 projects, projects in 130 countries of the world with a value
equivalent to 2 billion euros.
If we reckon that
up, we see: Every single expert is responsible for worldwide projects of a total
value of 32.3 million euros – one co-worker, 32 million euros. Here, we
naturally asked: How can a single expert comprehend and examine such a large
sum, whether the money really matters and effects something? The answer ran: It
will be kursorisch [cursorily]
examined. We take a peek in Duden, which says:
Kursorisch: …continuous, quickly proceeding from one to another, not exacting in details…
Simply stated:
When you propose money for a project, it
will be briefly examined, stamped; the money will be allotted, afterwards a
brief report written – “all was super fine” – done, into the files. –
Following our criticism, the Minister amplified that the Foreign Office’s
projects were pre-tested, primarily however by the project partners.
Nevertheless, Frau Baerbock also said – cite: “We do not control each, single
invoice. We do not control each, single bill. We simply cannot do that”. End
citation.
Look, precisely there lies the snag; since it is by no means
that you cannot control each, single bill but that you simply do not want to. The
funding sections [Förderabteilungen]
of the Foreign Office see to the expending of money. Were it important to you,
Frau Minister – wherever in fact you are – you would reconstruct the section;
you would expend no money without controls. Yet you do precisely the opposite.
And in which countries then will the money generally be
expended? For example, yesterday you approved an additional 33 million euros
for the Republic of Moldavia, for the most part in the area of energy security.
A glance at the corruption index of Transparency International shows no good
picture for this country. There, the Republic of Moldavia lands in place 105,
the same as Panama, and thereby is at the fore in matters of corruption, even
though still slightly behind the Ukraine.
I think, Frau
Hagedorn, many people can thoroughly comprehend the government’s disposition to
help that country.
Ulrich Lechte (FDP): Frau Hagedorn has much more an idea than you!
The country is
heavily affected by the war. Yet certainly in regards to the corruption, it
should nevertheless be an especial concern for you to here enforce an ordinary
control – a control whereby the money really produces something. Yet you simply
do not do it, and you also will not do it merely because you say that here.
Trust is good, control is better. In case someone here now says, “Yes, man, for that we have the Federal
Audit Authority“ – that is a mistake. It of course controls no projects. It simply
does not have the capacities for that.
How thus
precisely the taxpayers‘ money will be dealt with is thus a switching point
which you need to take in hand., Frau Minister. Yet you and your house control,
ja, not any single invoice and not
any single bill.
Yet do you know
who needs to do that? The taxpayers in Germany who generate the money that you
grandiosely distribute. The citizens need to precisely watch every euro; since
normal people can expend the money only once. The citizens also need to
preserve every, single invoice; for their tax statement, for example. If you
conduct a business in Germany, you even need to do that for ten years. If then
one fine day the tax audit arrives – it arrives as surely as the amen in church
– then will the tax examiner inspect every, single bill and every, single
invoice. May God have mercy on you if then something is thereby not right. Thus
when you so lightly speak of that, that you simply cannot so precisely examine
all of that, then you thereby reject for yourself a standard which is an
obligation for millions of Germans. – Frau Minister, no head shaking helps
here. This is just a fact.
Aside from
distinctive foreign policy concepts, we here demand from you more effective
controls. For that, you are more than obliged to the taxpayers in this country.
[trans: tem]
