German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/117, 14461-14462.
Right honorable Frau Minister. Ladies and gentlemen.
As first section of the sectoral ministries, we discuss this year the Family Ministry budget. I wished that the serial order would also reflect the government’s setting of priorities. Yet that unfortunately indeed remains just a wish.
We have now already heard it many times. The big theme in this year are the savings guidelines and primarily your decision to cut, as it happens, the parental allowance [Elterngeld]. You and your colleagues from the red and green delegations then gladly refer to the guidelines from the Finance Ministry, and then all of you in the Ampel openly blame one another for this decision; we have today already heard it. The citizens, or in this case the parents, as always pay the bill.
Frau Minister, you have the departmental responsibility for your Ministry and your budget. You alone thus bear the responsibility for which places will be cut.
Here I would gladly remind you that you are the Family Minister. The word “Family” is not there for nothing and not for nothing in the first position. Why do I say this? Because apparently at the budget deliberations within your government you indeed have not represented the interests of the the families, but rather the particular interests of your green colleagues and the interests of your ideological friends in diverse, so-called non-governmental organizations and networks with queer, gender or whatever ideologies. Say it: The families needed once again to be neglected.
Frau Minister, as it happens, to save in regards Elterngeld is the last thing that would occur to me as the AfD delegation’s budget member. There is still plenty in the expenditures in your Ministry where one can save – we ever again pointed it out to you and your coalition with our motions to amend in the past. One need only correctly set the priorities.
I want however to direct the attention to additional places in your budget draft. There are additional areas where you have regularly cut, namely in regards the child and youth policy around a full 220 million euros, and in regards the volunteer services around a total of 75 million euros. Also, the cutting in the area of the future package for exercise, culture and health of around 95 percent – that is, almost to zero – we regard most critically.
There prevails a near unanimity among experts who say that the Corona preventive measures have inflicted an essentially greater harm on the children than has been admitted, especially as it concerns their sports performance. Meanwhile, only 12 percent of children are categorized as “fit” – 12 percent! To just now save in regards one of the most important programs which should counteract this, or indeed to let the program run out completely, that is a fully false signal.
Where you have once again effected no savings measures is in regards the entire NGO network, as by chance in the program “Demokratie leben!”. Here, 200 million euros continue to flow unhindered to dubious organizations and associations which, among other things, preach Islamic fundamentalism or indoctrinate children with gender ideology.
You also have not saved in regards the promotion of the youth organizations of political parties. That means, all parties here represented – with the exception of one, naturally – get additional tax money for their “non-political” work.
And naturally was nothing saved in regards the so-called anti-discrimination commissioner. Frau Ataman is allowed in these times to lay hold of a budget multiplied nearly three times since 2020,
Felix Döring
(SPD): That’s not right! There is less there! Have you at all read the draft?
And I am sure that you, as in the previous budget deliberations, will extend even more money. For you see overall discrimination, and the more discrimination you discover, the more money you of course require to fight against it.
Felix
Döring (SPD): Das sind Falschnachrichten!
Sönke Rix
(SPD): Fake news!
Many questions arise in regards the child basic security. The world is haunted by quite different numbers. Of late was there talk of 2.4 billion euros – not from next year, but first from 2025. On the website of your Ministry, the most comprehensive social reform in years and the mounting of a real fight against poverty will be spoken of. It should thus become the big push.
Yet if one now considers that the Kindergeld presently costs around 50 billion euros per year, and in regards the child basic security we are speaking of 2.4 billion euros, that does not sound so big a push.
Leni
Breymaier (SPD): Yawn! Yawn!
The raise will not even cushion the inflation, to say nothing of creating an increase for the families. Even if you figure in an additional rise in the Bürgergeld [citizens’ wage] for children from 2025, the numbers do not suit the basic security which you so proudly present. Yet on that we will deliberate in the next budget, not in this one.
In conclusion, we can say of this budget plan: We of the AfD delegation see a considerable need for correction in regards the draft budget of your Ministry, and of course nevertheless look forward to the budget deliberations.
Stephan Brandner (AfD): To be sure!
I am grateful.
[trans: tem]
