Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Leif-Erik Holm, January 26, 2023, German Economy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/82, pp. 9739-9740.

Dear citizens. Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Herr Minister Habeck, you say that the crisis is governable. I say: Before all, we can thank the weather god that we have so mild a winter. This has created the possibility of still changing things. Otherwise, it would appear very, very gloomy in our country.

No problem has been solved. You needed to finally come to that and your report grants nothing at all of that. You serve up to us the same transformation sauce as in last year. That will not improve the situation; it will further intensify it. Yet we all in common cannot want that.

What do you do against the inflation? Nothing. We have seen the numbers in your report. Six percent inflation. If we take out the energy relief at the pump, we are at 7.5 percent. At the savings account, there is perhaps one percent interest if it goes well. That means, there is a money devaluation of five or six percent each year for that bit of savings which we have. In that regard, everything at the supermarket becomes more expensive. It is a sozial annihilation program and in return you so far do nothing.

You see the data. The brewers have just said: The beer becomes more expensive. Now you can say: Not absolutely everyone needs drink beer. That may be. Yet it is much more dramatic in regards our industrial backbone. Large concerns are at the tipping point: BASF, Bayer, BioNTech. The de-industrialization of our country continues and I sense here in this room no panic at all. It somehow appears to be that all of that will be accepted. Yet that cannot be!

We are no longer internationally competitive. The others slowly surpass us. We need to do something to counter that, by which we finally improve our general conditions in Germany and bring down energy prices, and indeed permanently.

What is it then when the automobile industry goes, when chemicals step by step disappear from our country? In the end, no one remains to whom the Mittelstand can sell something. The Mittelstand has “Germany for life”, it remains here, it must remain here. If the giants are gone, then they do not quickly come again. The workplaces are lost. In cannot so continue. To the contrary, you as Economy Minister need now finally lead.

You can happily dream of becoming the green economy party of which I have read today. That of course is of no use to you if the hitherto economy has been run away.

No, this crisis is not so governable. In any case, not if one believes himself in this situation to be able, with the fantasy of an expensive eco-transformation, to continue into an energy nothing. You thereby put in play our prosperity.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): If we do nothing, then we put in play the prosperity!                        Mein Gott!

There is much to do. There are so many things to do: The reconstruction of the infrastructure – even here, you are blockading, as we see, the street reconstruction – , the bureaucracy deconstruction. Elsewhere, guidelines are abolished. What happens with us? We require a “supply chain care obligation law” [Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz]; all actually speak this word monstrosity. Does anyone here still want to speak seriously of bureaucracy deconstruction? Nothing happens in this country.

Other countries perceive that the withdrawal from nuclear power was nonsense because we require at every time a sufficient supply of energy. We need nevertheless act when we see that in the auto industry the electricity costs for the production of one auto have risen to 800 euros. In the U.S.A., they have also risen, but to 250 dollars. This distinction makes clear: We cannot live long with these energy prices. The energy prices must come down; we need a sufficient energy supply.

On that account, the power plants at hand need to continue to run beyond April 15, 2023. We have secure power plants. The Belgians do it: They let them continue to run for ten years – power plants which are less secure than ours. Why, please, don’t we do it when even your Federal Network Agency chief says: “That could actually be done”?

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): He did not!

            Felix Banaszak (Greens): Not at all! False accusation!

He said it for the French power plants which we also use. And if it applies to the French power plants, then it rightly applies for our secure nuclear power plants.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): No!

            Felix Banaszak (Greens): That is a false accusation!

No, it is your policy which refuses to accept these things. You refuse to accept a rational energy policy which is necessary, as is managed by other countries around us. There have been warnings of electricity rationing. The city plants warn of long-term doubled prices for electricity and gas. All of this happens in our country. It is your false policy.

Herr Minister, you squander too much time on developing new, rosy, feel-good dictates for your economy report. Please finally do your official duty so that our businesses remain here and our workplaces continue to remain in this country.

Thank you.

 

[trans: tem]