German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/143, pp. 18091-18093.
Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
It needs be well stated following the government declaration of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and after Herr Merz’s speech, that they have argued completely past the primary cares and problems of one’s own country. Frau Haßelmann, your speech was a pure war speech, nothing other. That has really shaken me.
It thus need not be wondered that ever more citizens look at the Federal government with concern and really with a lack of understanding. If one peeks at the half-time of this Federal government of which it needs be truly said: This country has never been so run down since the Second World War. Within a few months, the economic nation of Germany has been decisively changed by this Federal government: Inflation, a shrinking economy, rising insolvencies. And, as a crown, the Federal Constitutional Court declares your special debts budget unconstitutional. Your conclusions from that – we have today already again heard it: You do not allow yourselves to be diverted, and run exactly so as ever, with the KTF and eyes open into the dead end. – Thus appears this government’s present policy.
From the SPD we hear at the party day: Social spending certainly belongs to the SPD’s DNA, social spending which is meanwhile most deeply unsozial because it no more cushions the emergencies of individuals but presents in the form of Bürgergeldes [citizens’ wage] a kind of basic income. This is tied neither to conditions,
Christian Petry (SPD): Nonsense!
nor is partially worse paid work motivated and generally something done for the social state. You see, valued colleagues: This policy continues to create one-sided dependencies and plainly no innovations.
Christian
Petry (SPD): No idea!
Herr Chancellor, we know you are not a man of many words. You will perhaps go into the history of the Federal Republic as the eternally silent Chancellor.
Stephan Brandner (AfD): Olaf, the Forgetful!
For you, not only the information for the Warburg Bank has gone missing; there is also no idea in your cabinet – none which we notice – of what you actually want to make of Germany. In that regard, we have again today heard nothing. The entire world you want to save and the climate, too. Yet these cannot be the only goals of a German Federal government.
The citizens of this country need to stand quite high on the agenda for you. In your election campaign, your yourself ever again spoke of “respect”. Where remains the respect for those in this country who are economically active, for the Mittelstand, for the trades, for industry? Instead, you artificially restrict the energy supply. You disconnect intact nuclear power plants, permitting, with the attacks on Nord Stream, that our critical infrastructure be destroyed, and stop the import of Russian gas.
The Economy Minister conducts his green economic war within Germany and in the entire world. These also he will not win. He so far fails with that, as the economic sanctions against Russia indicate. These have for a consequence – we certainly see it presently – that the Russian economy grows and ours shrinks. That is presently the situation.
Today, almost every second large business considers emigration from Germany, and every third already sits on packed bags. In that regard, no words from you, Herr Chancellor. And with the rising CO2 prices which you today have announced, you make Germany as a business venue even more unattractive. Industry associations warn of a de-industrialization. The Alternative für Deutschland had done that already for years. For that, we were accused of conspiracy theories; that was then your assertion. The CO2 duty – Frau Haßelmann has just said it, subventions were cut – will not then rise around 30 euros per ton, but around 45 euros. Thereby will the inflation be further heated up next year, and this business venue be further ruined. That is your policy, and that we will prevent. That, I can promise you.
Ladies and gentlemen, Germany finally needs a prosperity policy in the citizens’ interest. There is therefore finally required an audit. Unnecessary spending needs to give way, and to that belongs the entire theme complex of Ukraine. What I have heard here today really leaves me to an extent stunned. Presently there is six billion euros yearly of Bürgergeld for 700,000 Ukrainians. To the year 2027 shall be expended an additional 17 billion euros for weapons deliveries and five billion euros for the reconstruction. And that – we have heard today what you want to arrange at the European Council – also includes the planned entry of the Ukraine in the EU. This will cost 130 billion euros; the Institute for the German Economy has calculated that. As primary financier, we will of course again need to finance that.
These expenditures should now before all be defrayed from the regular budget. And here is seen how this Ukraine emergency situation, which you today in principle have announced for next year, shall be planned in the future: By overtaking future, eventual payments lapses of other countries – this you have already today said. Here is seen that we ever more become a war party. We really cannot allow that we continue to impose ourselves in the Ukraine and make ourselves, as single payer and a war party, co-responsible for misery and suffering in the region.
We presently see – let us peek at the U.S.A.: The U.S. Republicans in the Senate block a package in the billions for the Ukraine and for Israel, because the U.S. citizens plainly do not want to spend more money for foreign wars. The German citizens also no more want that. We need no invented enemy images and firewalls. We finally need – it is what the economy also demands – reasonable parameters so that the remaining businesses continue to produce here. Grasp tax reductions as investments! Businesses and end consumers could figure on a relief of seven billion euros were you, for example, to take back the increase of the [trucking] fee. So as to justify your own budget, you continue to invent additional possible emergency situations. For the hospitality industry, the emergency situation ends in January of next year, and the complete value-added tax will again be due. We say: Seven percent needs to be retained, because otherwise the 19 percent will also apply for meals in day-cares and schools and here also prices for families will further rise.
Valued Federal government, you all flit through the political everyday. You have no concepts, no goals. Yet with your chair circle policy, you have meanwhile again made hyper-morality and black-white thinking socially acceptable [fähig]. You promise everything to everyone, and of that can thus passably hold to nothing. And therefore, dear colleagues, it lies at hand: This Ampel – so long as it should exist – stands permanently in the red and thus at a standstill. Germany requires change. Germany requires the Alternative.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
