Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, April 23, 2024, Pensions and the FDP

AfD Kompakt, April 23, 2024. 

That the reduction-free pension at 63 was an expensive election gift of the SPD to its – it needs be said, former – core voters is clear. Nevertheless, the problem is presently in abeyance, since alone the age limit is already continually pushed higher; for those born after 1964, to 65 years. What is overlooked by the entirety of these calculations: The focus on the fixed age limit is no longer suitable for today’s real life of employees. 

We of the AfD delegation demand more freedom and self-determination in regards pension entry. And to that pertains: 45 contribution years are enough. Who has collected this should also without a reduction be pensioned, which can but need not be at 63. To that extent, there is nothing “to abolish”. Only one thing is certain. No one should need to work longer than to 67 years. 

Concerning pensions, the FDP has never distinguished itself with especially original proposals which go beyond “we all need to work much longer”. To a pension reform belongs a socio-political concept and a solid financing. For both, the FDP has nothing to offer, which is seen in the fully under-financed “equities pension” [Aktienrente]. What the FDP now contributes to the pension at 63 is just more wind. “12 Point Plan”, that sounds snappy, only the question is: What has the FDP actually done in the last three years?

[trans: tem]

Kay Gottschalk, April 12, 2024, Tax Relief

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/164, pp. 21103-21104. 

Right honorable Frau President. Dear colleagues. Dear taxpayers in the gallery. 

            Katharina Beck (SPD): We’re taxpayers , too! 

And before all things: Dear tax kleptomaniacs – it cannot be otherwise said – of the Debts Coalition! 

I want to again help you on the point upon which we speak here today. We are speaking on that the minimum livelihood be made tax free. This besides results from the ability to pay [Leisitungsfähigkeit] principle. Okay, that is difficult for the Greens, – it cannot be quite comprehended there – yet for the SPD meanwhile also. 

I want to help you with the point of what the Constitutional Court said. We have today spoken so much of human dignity. The Constitutional Court actually derives this principle from the human  dignity. I cite with the permission of the president: 

It is accordingly not only not sensible when the state first takes from the citizen as tax a portion of his minimum livelihood, and afterwards returns the money to him in the form of support payments 

– as for example in the form of social assistance, housing money and many other things. It is besides a principle which this Debts Coalition manages for years: To take money away from people so as to refund to them a small portion. No, the Constitutional Court further states that, as a result of such proceedings, people who actually were in the condition to live independently were forced into the position of a supplicant to state offices. That reveals precisely your policy, my dear friends of the Debts Ampel. 

Yet let us come to the sobering numbers. Here, even the CDU has slumbered; the press here assembled has slumbered. The scandal of the Bürgergeld [citizens’ wage] increase on Januuary 1 of 12.1 percent, namely from 502 euros to 563 euros, occurred already on 1 January 2023. You of course then increased the basic allowance by merely 5.4 percent, while with the Bürgergeld introduction you just raised the old social assistance contribution from 449 euros to 502 euros; that is 11.8 percent. Reckoned as a basis percentage, you increased the Bürgergeld in not 15 months by around 25 percent. 

            Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn (Greens): That is falsified. That’s not right!                                 That is wrong!

And in regards the basic allowance, you have not managed an increase of 12 percent. That reveals you for what you are. To that I say: Phooey, that’s shameful, what you are doing! 

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Na, na, na! Slow down!

 For nights, so to say, I checked that with the calculator and it certainly wasn’t difficult. You now hopefully have noted what we here demand – and Herr Lindner now partially, quite timidly – is only a drop on the hot stone. 

So as to support the same with facts, dear taxpayers up there: 

            (The speaker holds up a diagram)

From one euro – this is from the Taxpayers Union – remains 47.5 euros cents. 

            Vice-president Aydan Özoğuz: Herr member, in that regard, we have…

Print this!

             (The microphone is disconnected) 

            Herr member, I am speaking with you. 

            (Member Kay Gottschalk (AfD) continues to speak) 

            Herr member, is it then so difficult to pause for a second? 

But of course! 

I am simply attempting to bring to your attention that we here have an understanding to display no drawings and pictures. 

This is no picture. This is a graphic. 

            It was a graphic. Yet please refrain therefrom. 

Good. I do so in the future. Thank you for the reference. My party since 2019 has here brought in multiple motions and draft laws and therein demanded increasing the basic allowance, or to introduce the tax schedule on wheels [Tarif auf Rädern] which is even in some of the elections programs of parties which have been present here. You have refused all of this with threadbare reasonings and prefer to increase the Bürgergeld in the last 13 months by 25 percent. 

Your learning curve – it can, I believe, be stated – actually approaches asymptomatically the zero line. I hope that the voters at the next elections will correspondingly prepare a bill and make the X by the party which is really committed to the people who are working. 

On our motion [Drucksache 20/10975] is the program name: “Observe the Wage Difference Rule [Lohnabstandsgebot] – Relieve Wage-earners and Mittelstand”, and the basic allowance in fact clearly increase – I believe I’ve made clear why it must be – to 14,000 euros. It needs be said: Herr Lindner has a bad conscience, you not. He undertook a small project and wanted tax relief in the future for foreign employees in the first three years. At least he recognized: For real skilled labor, how I would define it, Germany is quite unattractive. Yet this also applies for the home employees, ladies and gentlemen of the FDP. Perhaps be honest for once! 

Herr Fuerst supports the whole, in which is stated in his study – I cite with permission of the President: "Who works full-time not always has more therefrom”, especially the people who earn between 4,000 euros and 5,500 euros and live in large cities; since then basic supplements and other supplements come to nothing. He calculated: When a labor force under this government changes from part-time to full-time, then it has 32 euros more. 

You thus see: Only one party here in the German Bundestag is really committed for the people. We stand for that working people do not meanwhile become supplicants of a socialist state, ladies and gentlemen. 

I am grateful for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Jörg Urban, April 17, 2024, Inflated Government in Saxony

AfD Kompakt, April 17, 2024. 

Already in the present legislative period, CDU, Greens and SPD have created thousands of new positions, often so as to take care of their own party personnel with lucrative posts. A renewed growth of the ministries we decisively reject. The bureaucracy is not allowed to be ever again inflated. We instead need to deconstruct it.

 

A shrinking population and the digitalization need to have as a consequence a leaner administration. We are of the opinion that the number of ministries also is to be reduced. The Kultus and Science ministries, for example, could be combined.

 

According to the government’s positions development report, alone the State Chancellery of Minister-president Kretschmer has created 296 new positions within the last five years. Similarly highly inflated under the regime of the Greens were the Justice and Environment ministries. There must finally be an end to this self-service mentality.

 

 

[trans: tem]

Rainer Kraft, April 10 2024, Energy Policy and Politics

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/162, pp. 20812-20813. 

Right honorable President. Valued colleagues. 

After many errors and confusions, the Union again professes nuclear power. This could be debated long, wide and sarcastically. Yet I simply leave it and say: Welcome back to the rational side of German energy policy. 

This is besides an energy policy represented by the AfD since 2013, thus from the time of our formation. Your obligatory expressions for an acknowledgment of the renewables of course still appear in a motion, yet have already retired from your demands, and that is a step forward. Finally recognized is that a reliable and economic electricity supply with contingent energies, dependent on season and weather, is not feasible, and is thus a risk for Germany as a business venue. 

Herr Träger, last weekend, electricity customers needed to pay up to 56 euros per megawatt-hour in electricity disposal costs so that the German excess electricity production could be dumped in foreign countries. 

Generally, a comparison with foreign countries, for example France which you so readily criticize, is eye-opening. German is faced with around 500 billion euros in system integration costs for the massive construction of the network. France does not need this construction. France will not need a hydrogen core network for 20 billion euros. 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Nevertheless!

France does not need 16 billion euros every 20 years for large electricity storage facilities. And electricity disposal costs for excess electricity no French electricity customer will ever need pay. 

            Beatrix von Storch (AfD): Hear, hear!

Yet what France does have, Herr Träger, are emission values of around 20 grams CO₂ per kilowatt-hour of electricity. I venture in this place a prognosis: With your energy policy, Germany will never achieve this value. 15 million tons of CO₂ – for the science-adverse Ampel coalition, the most dangerous substance on Earth – since the final exit from nuclear power in 2023 will each year additionally be emitted in the German energy sector. 

             Harald Ebner (Greens): Wrong! Wrong! Less than ever!

To 2030, that will total up to around 90 million tons of CO₂. For the Ampel, it’s all the same. 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): No, that’s simply not right! Fake news!

Dear colleagues of the SPD, Greens and FDP, finally admit that, for you, CO₂ emissions are all the same! For you, it’s only about an ideology, business nepotism for the re-distribution of tax billions, and the patronizing of the citizens. Throughout Europe, the hydrogen preliminary projects are dying:           

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Remain with the atom!

Lately, the H₂ Sines Rotterdam project in the billions; earlier, the German lighthouse project “West Coast 100” in Heide. Other projects like Uniper in Rotterdam are put off for the present. Nevertheless, billions in tax monies, provided for in means of promotion, die in one project after another. Yet in the BMWK [Economy and Climate Ministry], one continues to ride the dead hydrogen horse. 

It is thus right and important that the Union sees it as does the AfD, and that the society-splitting firewall falls in the energy policy. Doubts are nevertheless brought up, dear Union. The Union demands forbidding the decommissioning until a new government can conclusively clarify the question. It naturally needs be said more precisely: Until a new Chancellor and his coalition partner decide this. Since it well needs be asked, dear Union. How, with a Green coalition partner, do you want to introduce the fundamental, required change of direction in the German energy policy? 

Dear Union, if you seriously mean it with the return of nuclear energy and an end of the catastrophic green energy policy, then one thing is clear: The firewall must go! 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Oje, oje!

To sum up. Dear colleagues, your motion goes in the right direction. We agree with it, even if it is faint-hearted and lets miss precisely what this country in the present economic situation urgently requires: A basic avowal for a fundamental, long-term and reliable change of direction in the German energy policy. Since the contingent energies with immense integration costs do not deliver what our industry and citizens need. You thus have a choice: Either you sell out the welfare of our country in an ideological coalition with the Greens, or you decide for cooperation in energy policy with the AfD. 

 

[trans: tem]

Markus Buchheit, March 26, 2024, Compulsory Refurbishment of EU Buildings

EU Parliament, Written Question to the Commission, E-000948/2024. 

The Commission has ordered the compulsory refurbishment of all public buildings in the EU. 

Can it therefore say which of its own or rented buildings in Brussels and Luxembourg, and those of its delegations and agencies, meet which energy standards? 

How much will refurbishment cost until single-glazed glass fronts, revolving doors, open garage entrances and draughty gaps between window panes and frames all meet the highest level of insulation it has prescribed?

Peter Boehringer, March 21, 2024, Debt Brake

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20611-20612. 

Frau President. 

For the umpteenth time the Linke wants to abolish the debt brake, this time disguised as a “reform”. Meant, however, is the cold abolition; Herr Görke was certainly at least honest. Since 2020, we clearly have a great coalition of all old parties for a boundless making of debt. In addition, we know that the tax money will not be sufficient for the government even in 2025. And the SPD’s speaker has confirmed that a great left-green debt coalition thoroughly sympathizes with this “reform”, or with the abolition idea. 

What does the Linke now concretely propose? In the future, a “transition phase” of precisely one year shall increase the possible excess indebtedness, which diametrically contradicts what the Federal Constitutional Court permitted just last November: Very clearly, a setting aside of the debt brake only for the year of a catastrophe itself. Any time exceeding a year was explicitly forbidden by the Federal Constitutional Court. That does not interest the leftist writers of the motion. 

In the motion’s second demand, the single hard guideline of Article 115, namely the structural deficit limit of 0.35 percent of GDP, shall be annulled. That however would be no “reform” of the debt brake, but a material alteration of the Basic Law’s wording, which may not proceed with a simple motion but only with a law to amend the Constitution with a two-thirds majority. The motion is thus also badly written. 

With the third demand, the besides already highly mathematical finding procedure for the debt brake’s business cycle component shall be still further complicated. Who for once takes a rudimentary look at the formulation [Formelwelt], and the arbitrary scope of valuation which will be used for this calculation, knows that a self-indebted government chronically short of money can thereby vastly exceed the permitted limit of indebtedness – even today. The aim of the Linke, to receive still “greater fiscal scope”, as it is in the motion, is thus absurd, since this scope today already is enormous. 

Clearly, the terms in Article 115 of the Basic Law are very spongy. There are therein named arbitrary expectations without clear deduction criteria, free of parameters as a result of unclear entities, certain cyclical norms, gaps in production, estimates of potential and cyclical settlement procedures, all without binding definitions. And the number in the end will determined by technocratic procedures and legal decrees. 

Dear Linke, you should here just simply love the already existing planned economy, instead of wanting to reform it. Precisely that of course already is your vulgarized Keynesian theoretical model of a world. Simply enjoy it as long as you are still permitted to sit here and play with a national economy. 

Many thanks. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Nothing missed there!

 

[trans: tem]

 

Christine Anderson, March 20, 2024, Democracy Promotion Act

EU Parliament, Written Question to EU Commission E-000861/2024. 

Germany is in the process of bringing in a ‘Democracy Promotion Act’ designed to establish additional tools for promoting democracy. There are considerable concerns, however, as regards the act’s constitutionality and whether or not it runs counter to the EU’s core values. The criticism centres around potential government overreach and the creation of structures that threaten to curtail the freedom and independence of civil society in breach of the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). 

1. What is the Commission’s assessment of the compatibility of Germany’s Democracy Promotion Act with the EU Treaties, particularly in view of the reservations raised by the Bundestag’s parliamentary research service concerning its potential unconstitutionality and violations of the EU’s core values laid down in Article 2 TEU? 

2. Does it consider there to be a risk that the Democracy Promotion Act would quieten or silence opposition voices and critical civil society representatives? How does this square with the principles of freedom of expression and democratic pluralism enshrined in the EU Treaties? 

Beatrix von Storch, March 21, 2024, Internet Censorship

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20448-20449. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The DDG [Digital-Dienste-Gestez] implements the EU’s Digital Services Act: EU-wide internet censorship. The Ampel has decided that for this censorship the Federal Network Agency is responsible and coordinates it. No joke: The officials, who hitherto have regulated the transmission and competition in the gas and electricity network, are also responsible for on-line censorship, 

            Tabea Rössner (Greens): A lie! Impudent! 

instead of, for example, the Federal Justice Ministry. 

At the top stands Klaus Müller, former Green minister from Schleswig-Holstein, exactly so as his Green chief, Robert Habeck. Green clique! Yet before the law is at all in effect, Herr Müller openly threatened in January 2024 – cite: 

“When I catch anyone the second or third time…then I need to say with all distinctness: The Digital Services Act then has very sharp teeth.” 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): That’s right!

The threat is not a fabrication. Herr Müller or the coordinating office at the Federal Network Agency can impose penalty payments against on-line platforms which do not sufficiently censure. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Are you nervous on that account?

Six percent of the worldwide daily revenue, millions of U.S. dollars in penalties – without being imposed by a court. Ergo: The platforms will censor, and the Green coordinating office will therein no doubt give rise to what is to be censured. 

             Tabea Rössner (Greens): Such idiocy I’ve never heard!

For a brutal deletion practice by the platforms suffices this danger of penalties in the millions. 

Yet the coordinating office may do much more than what a judiciary or police in a state of law may do: Conduct investigations, gather evidence, hear witnesses, examine witnesses, inspect places of business without a court order, seize property up to three days without court authorization. And for support, the coordinating office is allowed to name civil law organizations for so-called trustworthy whistle-blowers [Hinweisgebern] whose indications of censorship [Zensurhinweise] are to be preferably implemented. We all know who that is. Stasi Kahane for laughing no longer sleeps. This army of leftist on-line denouncers shall cull and report disliked opinions, and the data of people of wrong opinion will then be passed on to the BKA [Federal Criminal Office]. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): So that you cannot thereby spread all your hatred!

This law paves the way to a digital police state. 

            Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): No smaller does it get now!

For that, the Ampel now massively arms the BKA. Money is there, but not for the fight against organized criminality, clans or terrorism, but so as to persecute expressions of opinion on the internet. The number of officials in the reporting office shall be increased more than ten times from today’s 39 to 430. And the BKA states on page 64 of the proposal, Herr colleague Mordhorst, 

            Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP): Preamble, Frau von Storch! That is not the text                        of the law! 

that the test cases [Prüffälle] will increase by more than a hundred times, from 6,000 to around 720,000. The overwhelming majority of test cases will affect blameless citizens who have been denounced by the left-green on-line Stasi. 

Who on Facebook insults Habeck’s heat pump is – Schwupp – a test case for the BKA. Hundreds of BKA officials need to occupy themselves with that. 

You use this proposal from Brussels for your ideological fight against all and anyone who is not left. The more its backing in the population dwindles, the more the Ampel employs surveillance, intimidation and repression – see the Democracy Promotion Act. 

            Renate Künst (Greens): You need to pay attention that the features do not slip!

This state has lost every measure, writes the NZZ [Neue Zürcher Zeitung]. With this coordinating  office, it creates a Green species of directed censor officials; and proudly writes, they are completely independent. That means, they are without any democratic control. This censorship monster belongs in no democracy. On that account, all democrats will today reject this attack on our free democratic basic order. 

Many thanks. 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): What do you want then?

 

[trans: tem]

 

Gunnar Beck, March 11, 2024, Climate Excommunication

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV(2024)03-11(1-242-0000). 

In 1633, the Inquisition excommunicated Galileo for helio-centrism – that is to say, for his renunciation of a Church dogma that the Sun circles around the Earth. Last month, ECB director Elderson threatened all co-workers with discharge who – cite – “deny the reality of solely man-made climate change, or that the climate change endangers the price stability.” 

Now, as a conservative, I rejoice over anyone who believes that earlier was much better. However, the ECB should preferably exchange its climate inquisitors for good economic historians, who know that not the climate change but the expansion of the money supply accelerates the inflation, just as Hans de Witte and Wallenstein managed it without limit in Galileo’s time. For its climate dogma and monetary policy are the greatest hocus-pocus in Europe since the geo-centric world view. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Martin Hess, March 15, 2024, Leftist Terror and Free Opinion

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/158, pp. 20296-20297. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

In our country, leftist extremism has long since developed into leftist terrorism, and the Federal Interior Minister not only inactively looks on at this development, so dangerous for all our security, 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such an idiocy!

no, as a result of her ideologically conditioned, utterly unavailing focus on the fight against rightists, she herself has become the fire accelerator of this development. That is unacceptable and can no longer be borne. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such an idiocy! 

That we in our country urgently require a course correction in regards the terror and extremism struggle has not for the last time been indicated by the cases of an arrested RAF terrorist and the attack of the leftist-extremist “Vulkangruppe” on the critical infrastructure in our country. 

The RAF terrorist Klette, sought by arrest warrant, was not discovered as is to be expected in a state of law by police authorities, but by journalists who simply researched in publicly accessible sources and thereby came upon the track of this serious criminal. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): For once is free journalism desired! For once that is good! 

This enemy of the state by no means lived underground. She has, utterly unabashed, taken part in normal social life, given tutoring and was a dance teacher. And despite this, she was not to be found by our security authorities. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): What is it then with your co-workers?

And the Interior Minister has the audacity in all seriousness to then ascribe this success to her own ostensibly so successful security policy. Frau Faeser, – who unfortunately is again not here – how stupid do you actually deem the citizens of our country? 

The truth is this proceeding is an evidence of incapacity for our security organs 

            Dorothee Martin (SPD): No! You are an evidence of incapacity for Germany!

and shows the entire dysfunctionality of our state in this central security area. That must finally have an end. That is also evidenced by the state actions in relation to the leftist-terrorist “Vulkangruppe” which lately in Brandenburg committed an arson attack on an electricity pylon which, as a result of a widespread electricity blackout thereby produced, caused not only hundreds of millions of euros of damages in the Tesla works there, but before all also lead to a danger to the lives and health of patients in the clinics and doctors’ offices affected by the blackout. For days, supermarkets could not be supplied. 

Yet this was not the first attack of these violent criminals. Since 2011, these terrorists commit such attacks on our critical infrastructure. The last sitting of the Interior Committee clearly and distinctly showed that to this day not a single one of these perpetrators has been identified, to say nothing then of arrested. This is a security policy scandal. More blind in the left eye a state cannot be. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): So, now for once on the rightist-extremists in your own ranks, your delegation co-workers! Say something on that!

It is all the more serious when it needs to be acknowledged that this state in a fight against rightists opposes all that is not of the left, and thereby no longer knows any red lines. That a school director in Germany removes a 16 year old student from a class in session and, without notification of the parents, has a warning talk conducted by the police 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Madness!

because she shared a Schlumpf video on social media, and defended the opinion that Germany for her is more than a place on a map, Germany for her is a Heimat, 

Lamya Kaddor (Greens): For you, that would be totally appropriate in regards an Islamist video! That is your double morality!

            Florian Müller (CDU/CSU): It doesn’t go for both! 

shows every convinced democrat that this fight against rightists has nothing but simply nothing to do with the defense of our democracy, but wants to bring about exactly the opposite, 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such rubbish!

namely, the entire exclusion of every non-left opinion from the democratic discourse. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Nonsense!

These left-green-red political commissars are thereby politically active as gravediggers of our democracy, Herr Hartmann. And that they now attack even our children [sogar an unseren Kinder vergreifen], 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Please?

we may and will never let pass. 

In this country must cease that legitimate expressions of opinion are persecuted under the covering of an ostensible, constitution-relevant delegitimization of the state. 

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): Aha!

We require finally again a correct freedom of opinion. 

            Dorothee Martin (SPD): We have freedom of opinion! Yet it doesn’t suit you.

Our security organs need instead to finally concern themselves with factual security dangers and to that belongs primarily the so far neglected criminal leftist extremism and terrorism. This needs finally to be fought with all severity and consistency. 

And when the AfD is responsible for the government, 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Never!

then we will implement precisely that. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Never again! 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Then you can stop now! That will never happen!

The security of our citizens before all forms of extremism has highest priority for us. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): But not in your own ranks!           

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): Start with yourself! 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Never again fascism!

And in contrast to the Interior Minister, that is no hollow phrase for us, but an obligation for active conduct. We will implement a clear zero-tolerance strategy with maximum robustness. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): But not for your own people!

We ban the leftist-extremist Rote Hilfe and the Antifa. We conclusively disconnect the leftist-extremist platform indymedia.org. We take care that all leftist-extremist occupied buildings in Germany be finally evacuated, 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): And you call yourselves democrats! Impudence!

and we forbid the financing of leftist-extremists and terrorists. Thus need all enemies of the state be dealt with if one wants to create security in Germany.           

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): And your own people?

The clear message of an AfD government to all leftist-extremists and terrorists goes: The times in which you could romp nearly without limit in our society are over. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Done for by acts of government!

This state strikes back immediately. We no longer let ourselves be terrorized by you. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Mariana Harder-Kühnel, March 20, 2024, Gender Speech

AfD Kompakt, March 20, 2024. 

Speech as a fundamental pillar of our society needs to be free of ideological ballast. The decision against the gender speech underlines Bavaria’s acknowledgement of these values. The AfD expressly welcomes this step, since it fulfills our demand of many years for a renunciation of a kind of language spoliation. 

We nevertheless may not stop here. The ruling in Bavaria needs to serve as a model which conforms to that of other Federal States. For that, the AfD is committed to that the clarity and comprehensibility of the German language are placed above ideological experiments. We demand of the Federal government to follow the Bavarian example and, in common with the other Federal States, to issue a nationwide, State-inclusive ban of gender speech. 

The AfD stands for a policy which places at mid-point the citizen and the conservation of our cultural identity. Bavaria’s decision is a step in the right direction, yet may be only the beginning. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, March 20, 2024, War and Peace

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/159, pp. 20331-20332. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable Herr Chancellor. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

The omens under which you set out for this European Council are dark. The Ukraine war is already in a third year. Serious efforts to end the fateful bloodletting in the midst of Europe are  not in sight. Warmongering and war rhetoric determine the tone in Brussels as well as in Berlin. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Not in Moscow?

Michel, the President of the European Council, demands: Europe needs to prepare itself for war and change over to a war economy. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): In which world do you live, actually?

The French state President Macron speaks of the mission of NATO troops in the Ukraine theater  of war, and boasts that France would be in the position for that. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): What you say, Putin could not say better!

In the ranks of the Union, in a remarkable historical amnesia, –  Herr Merz, because you the entire time interrupt – 

            Till Steffen (Greens): That’s in your manuscript, but he didn’t do that!

one dreams of carrying the war to Russia. The Union stands for that. In lock-step with the FDP armaments lobbyist Strack-Zimmermann forms a black-green coalition of warmongers which flatters itself with martial rhetoric – even you, Herr Chancellor; a shame that you are not here – and accuses others of defeatism. 

            Till Steffen (Greens): I believe that was a failure of translation from the Russian.

The bellicose over-bidding competition rings the more absurd against the background of the desolate state of our own armed forces. The Bundeswehr has at its disposal, as before, not one, single mission-ready army brigade. Nevertheless, the debate revolves steadfastly around new weapons deliveries and financial aid in the billions to Kiev, while the reconstruction of our own army and the recovery of capability for our own national defense is here obviously of no priority. It was right, Herr Chancellor, that you spoke against the delivery of the Taurus cruise missile to the Ukraine. 

Dorothee Bär (CDU/CSU): Yes, praise from the AfD! That is super for the SPD! Madness!

It would not be in the German security interest to strip our armed forces of an additional important weapons system. In that regard, the Bundeswehr does not even have at its disposal a sufficient number of these cruise missiles so as to fulfill its obligations vis-à-vis NATO. The delivery of this system, which as an offensive weapon may have effect far into Russia and can even reach the Kremlin, would be a quite clear participation in the war. The commitment of German soldiers for servicing would necessarily follow after it and thereby dramatically increase the potential of escalation. 

And even you, Herr Scholz, have ever again fallen down and have let yourself be forced into escalation. First should German armored howitzers bring the war’s turning point, then German defensive panzers and finally German combat panzers. None of that fulfilled the ratcheted-up expectations. Now the escalationists extol the Taurus as a game-changer or wonder weapon. Even with the Taurus, the Ukraine has not the faintest breath of a chance to achieve its war aims. The truth is needed for that. 

Even if this time you remain steadfast, the Nein to Taurus does not suffice. Germany is acting de facto as a war party. Germany participates by means of the sanctions in an economic war against Russia. Germany delivers weapons to the Ukraine. Germany gives to considerable extent financial assistance, 

            Christoph Meyer (FDP): Has the Kremlin written down all of that for you?

and Europe expropriates capital income on Russian reserve deposits – from my viewpoint, that is forbidden. 

Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Russia Today speaks! Here is the latest news from Russia Today!

Instead of driving forward the escalation with warmongering and weapons deliveries, the German policy needs to call to mind its strengths. That means: It needs to venture all to step forward as a mediator and get negotiations underway. To that, we are besides also obligated by the peace precept in the German Basic Law. 

Without question is Russia’s war in the Ukraine an attack contrary to international law. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Ach ja? 

            Christian Dürr (FDP): Ah!

Just so without question has the Ukraine the right to self defense. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Aha!

The decision in that regard to support it does not however release us from the obligation to rational policy in the well understood interests of our own country and our own people. 

German interests are represented and defined in Berlin, not by chance in Kiev or in Washington. Even in the U.S.A. are there long since signs of an exit [Ausstieg]. To believe the Europeans could alone continue to conduct the U.S.A.’s proxy war against Russia would be folly and hubris in one. 

            Kordula Schulz-Asche (Greens): Proxy war?

The Ukraine war has long since run aground. It devours month by month billions in money and material and countless soldiers’ lives. The talk of victory and endurance from Kiev is unrealistic. This war must not be frozen in, it must be ended. 

            Katja Mast (SPD): Putin can pull out!

A Ukraine as a theater of war, de-populated and devastated for years, helplessly dependent on foreign payments and under the continual danger of the escalation to a Third World War, is neither in the German nor European interest. It can also ultimately not be in the interest of the Ukrainian nation. 

Germany’s interest is peace in Europe, the normalization of economic relations with all countries, Russia also, and the ending of the sanctions war which most harms us alone. The way there leads through negotiations. You cannot execute this charge, in that you glorify one of the war’s opponents and demonize the other. Realistic foreign policy has the duty, in the propaganda thunder of the war parties which we here everyday hear, 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Just from you!

to find the contact points for a durable exchange of interests. Certainly, when the weapons speak, diplomacy is not allowed to be silent. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your time is expired, Frau Weidel.

Act for the best of one’s own people and the peoples of Europe. Seek the way to peace 

Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Frau Weidel. 

so as to prevent a major European war.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

 

 

Sylvia Limmer, March 13, 2024, EU and Combustion Engine

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV (2024)03-13(3-264-0000). 

Herr President. 

It is delightful that majorities across delegations could be repeatedly formed for the Euro 7 norm which, instead of green ideology and visions, could at least partially maintain measure and mean for the auto industry, and are thereby ultimately consumer-friendly, since it would have been autos in the low price segment which, with the EU Commission’s original draft, would have experienced a massive price increase. 

And that we could enforce with the stronger requirements the stability of drive batteries is in any case a success, and we are thereby a bit closer to the goal of ending the regulatory preference for e-autos. 

Obligatory on-board surveillance systems and stronger limit values for trucks and buses we definitely reject, yet it is of course a fact that it is basically not really about reducing harmful emissions, since these in regards nitrogen oxides have been reduced about 70% in the last 30 years, even though the permitted vehicles have doubled. The goal of the implementation of the so-called mobility transition of the Green Deal was always an accelerated end of the combustion engine. 

Thus in regards this vote out-weighs the fact that, with this vote for this Euro 7 compromise, the EU Commission’s fully unrealistic limit values are off the table, and we will vote for this proposal. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, March 14, 2024, Peace and Cruise Missiles

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/157, pp. 20089-20090. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen. 

A delivery of Taurus means the prolongation of the war. Yes, it harms perhaps Russia, yet the Ukraine as well, and primarily it endangers Germany. As the Alternative für Deutschland, we condemn the Russian attack on the Ukraine. We stand for the territorial sovereignty of each country and honor the will of the respective population. For that, is required a peace which we want to attain by all peaceful means. It therefore ultimately needs to be about discussing various solutions in common at the negotiations table. 

The delivery of Taurus harms primarily Germany. Yet we still are not perceived as a war party – still! You have it hand, Herr Chancellor. Therefore, we request of the Chancellor to consistently further pursue at this point the line of peace in Germany and in Europe. And before all, do not allow yourself to be extorted by the warmongers in the CDU, in the FDP and of the Greens. That, we request of the Chancellor. 

Valued colleagues, 75 years ago the German people fortified themselves with a Basic Law – cite – “as a member of equal right in a united Europe to serve the peace of the world.” And precisely that still needs to be the commanding guideline. 

A so-called voltage drop [Spannungsfall] was posited here in parliament. Then came into play the Bundeswehr as a defense army. Except: We are not allowed to let it come even so far, ladies and gentlemen. International involvements are just so to be avoided as a self-provoked status as a war party. Both, we of the AfD do not want. 

We want to provide humanitarian assistance in a proportionate framework – and that, consistently. For that, however, we require an efficient economy. Yet instead of being concerned for durable infrastructures, the Federal government tells tales of a war economy, of novelties even in the health sector. 

A defense-ready Bundeswehr we still cannot put forward. A 100 billion euros special facility – special debt – is ready and cannot be invested. Why actually not, Herr Pistorius? Instead, one-way frigates will be deployed to the Red Sea. 

Allow me to say a few sentences on the theme “Security in the Bundeswehr”. From an unprotected discussion on the potential delivery of weapons and their employment, a necessary measure of respect, morality and professionalism was missing. The loose connection with security standards has brought forward a situation which could be understood as an open meddling [offene Einmischung] in the war. 

Today, it’s about Taurus. And what would be the next step? Do the colleagues of the so-called middle of the house want to send soldiers to the combat mission? Think primarily, in regards your decisions of conscience, – I know, there is no conscience in regards Herr Kiesewetter and Frau Strack-Zimmermann – in the interests of your families, friends and acquaintances! 

We as members of the German Bundestag decide here in the end on war or peace. I therefore demand of you to take in hand your own responsibility for the peace and to reject this war motion of the CDU. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Guido Reil, February 26, 2024, Food Prices

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV (2024)02-26(1-150-0000). 

Herr President. Dear colleagues. 

We speak today on the fight against inflation, on foodstuff prices and their consequences and basic origins. Foodstuff prices have in fact in the last two years dramatically risen by 29 percent. Blatant examples: Sugar, 74 percent; wheat flour, 69 percent; margarine, 50 percent. 

What does this mean? People are driven into poverty. Poor people starve. Especially severely affected: Our pensioners, the people who have worked for the prosperity in our country. Those who create the relief are in Germany besides honorary members at the German Tafeln [food banks]. We meanwhile have 1,000 Tafeln and these care for almost two million people in need. The Tafeln need to alleviate the greatest emergency, an emergency which the politicians have provided. 

Since what are the actual origins? Interesting is: The foodstuff prices decline globally, they rise only in Europe. Globally, they are meanwhile again at the condition of 2021. A study of the American agriculture ministry from 2020 forecast: If Europe implements the Green Deal, the per capita cost of foodstuffs increases around 150 dollars. They forecast that in 2020. Who wants to lower foodstuff prices needs to toss the Green Deal onto the trash heap of history. 

 

[trans: tem]

Stephan Brandner, February 22, 2024, Corrupt Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/154, pp. 19757-19758. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Herr Fechner, that was way past the themes on which you have spoken here. Yet you have made a gift to us of the seven minutes – a very good thing! The people outside there nevertheless need to know: It is all the same what you fill out in your order of business, you in any case do not restrain yourself when it is at the expense of the AfD. Therefore: Considerable hypocrisy, I need say to you! 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Why then do you continually lose? Why do you continually lose before the Constitutional Court? 

As to the matter itself, – you have regrettably missed the theme; to the back of the class, Herr Fechner! – it is about old parties, crony business, nepotism, family gangs. We have already been acquainted in this legislative period with the Graichen clan in a Green ministry. Suddenly, a scandal in the FDP Transportation Ministry: There, a section leader for hydrogen has provided his relations and acquaintances with millions; 

            Tina Rudolph (SPD): Greetings to Azerbaijian!

hence, a quick stop of hydrogen projects at the Transportation Ministry. 

All of this is however no exception, ladies and gentlemen. We have the Porsche-mails, of which Herr Wissing apparently also has not heard. We have Herr Lindner and the BB Bank. All of which is very dubious. We have the Kahrs connections through which colleague Kahrs has supplied his Sozikumpel in Hamburg. We do not exactly know what’s with the Benko clan and the Federal government. We have Löbel, Tandler, Sauter, Nüsslein, CDU and CSU captains 

            Ruppert Stüwe (SPD): Yet you are the delegation with the most criminals!

all up to the collar in a corruption and donations swamp. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): So, now on the code of conduct! On the theme!

And you present yourself here in all seriousness and act as if you want to change anything for the better! 

Ladies and gentlemen out there, you must know, regardless whether mask deals, Habeck clans, Benko, Gabriel, Lindner, Tandler, Löbel, or how they all are called, thus regardless whether SPD, FDP, Greens, CDU or CSU, 

            Tina Rudolph (SPD): Nicely excluding your own corruption scandals!

all of you – and this I say ever again from here – have looted the state, without limit. You know no boundaries so as to fill your pockets at the expense of the taxpayers out there. Your daily allowances should be enough. You have not been appointed for lobbying. Despite this, you do not trouble yourselves with what is going through the people’s minds out there, ladies and gentlemen. 

            Frauke Heiligenstadt (SPD): That is unparliamentary!

Apropos lobby contacts: Is Frau Agnes Strack-Rheinmetall here? 

            Ingo Bodtke (FDP): That is an impudence!

She likely continues to lobby. 

You cannot and do not want to halt the lobbying because all of you profit therefrom. Thus the lobby register law is nothing but a dead bird. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): “Dead bird”! There you have long reflected!

It contains no legislative, no executive footprint, as we want, so can be verified: Where has someone somehow exercised an influence on legislation? That, all of you do not want. Representatives of interests can decline the statements on their financing. Lobbyists need not reveal for which projects and statutory purposes they are working. There are so many exceptions that the exceptions are the rule, ladies and gentlemen. 

Today, it is only about minimal alterations. You thereby want to trim that you simply slept through the original legislative process. 

            Anke Henning (SPD): How can one talk so much rubbish?

You have headlong brought into this parliament a few hours before the final vote motions to amend which you yourselves do not understand. We therefore here today need to speak in plenary session on redactive alterations. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): That is just idiocy! Dumb thing! We do nothing in the lobby register! Nothing is changed in the lobby register!

We could have spared ourselves all of this. Had you done reasonable legislative work, as we will do it when we shortly are in the government, we would have been able to completely spare ourselves this debate point. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): You certainly have not read it, Herr Brandner! You do not grasp the simplest points! 

Tina Rudolph (SPD): We can spare ourselves this entire democracy if you are in the government!

You have once again exposed yourselves. It is good that this could again be expressed here; I know not how long that still goes. 

Many thanks. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Ja, tschüs! 

 

[trans: tem]

Joachim Kuhs, February 27, 2024, EU Finance and Ukraine War

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV (2024)02-27(2-025-0000). 

Herr President, esteemed Commissioner Han, valued colleagues, Herr State Secretary. 

Even this laboriously negotiated and stripped down revision of the seven year financial framework will fail. Whereon do I fix this? Now, if Herr Orban needs be sent to drink coffee so that all negotiation leaders thus agree, then everyone recognizes: Here, something is not in order. Is this a rotten compromise? 

When in the second round, two-thirds of the 50 billion euros for the Ukraine facility is financed by debt, and it is supposed this would not burden the EU budget, then, valued colleagues, one is self-deceived. Do you really believe that the Ukraine following this frightful war will be in a position to service the interest payments, to say nothing of the paying back the principal debt? 

When a third of 21 billion euros is scraped together from all sides and new gaps are thereby everywhere opened up, then every Schwabisch Hausfrau knows: That can only cause discord and irritation. 

Yet what most depresses me personally, and this I’ve said already in committee: Have you, honored colleagues, even once asked the people in the Ukraine what they really want? Do they really want more money? That, I do not believe. These people want peace for their country. If we here in plenary session – just recently, Herr Gahler, you said it – continue to promote the war with weapons deliveries, and not work towards peace, then we thus make ourselves culpable for the people in the Ukraine, and also for the soldiers, who daily die or are crippled by the hundreds. Dear colleagues, let us finally stop this war! 

 

[trans: tem]

Jürgen Braun, February 21, 2024, Navalny, Russia and Germany

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/153, pp. 19512-19513. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear colleagues. 

The core of every democracy is the opposition, not the government. There are governments in China, North Korea, Iran; however, there is opposition only in democracies. 

            Norbert Röttgen (CSDU/CSU): In Russia also! 

Make a note! 

Russia has been deprived of its most important oppositionist. On Alexei Navalny, millions of cultured Russians in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk had placed their hopes. They wanted a fatherland that would be a part of that common European house of which Michail Gorbaschev spoke and for which Navalny fought. 

For this fight, he first needed to pay with his health, then with his freedom and finally with his life. The convictions he tangibly represented thereby played a subordinate role; for thoughts are not crimes. When anyone is unjustly confined or is persecuted, one should also then stand up for him when one does not share his convictions – in the case of Navalny as also in the case of Assange. 

Nevertheless, a look today at Navalny’s tangible positions is worthwhile, especially since the old parties ably ignore these positions. Alexei Navalny was a patriot – according to green-left standards, even a nationalist. He fought against a prevailing corruption and the erosion of the state of law. While for ethnic Russians an infrastructure is scarcely available, party bosses enrich themselves without limit. And the political competition is either not permitted for election, or is similarly banned. Yet Navalny also fought against excess foreign influence. He never forgot that the murderers of the oppositionists Politkovskaya and Nemzov were the Moslem handymen of the regime. He criticized illegal immigration and the spread of Islam on Russian territory. He criticized the accompanying criminality and religious radicalization. He also wanted no building of mosques in Moscow, since he was a patriot. The sympathy of the Ampel parties and of the Union at the death of Navalny thus appears more than questionable; since against anyone like him, they would have immediately introduced a party expulsion proceeding on account of so-called hostility to Islam or foreigners, and in no way would have celebrated him as a hero. 

Let us recall in remembrance: For what was Navalny officially condemned? For so-called “extremism” and the propagation of “narcissistic ideology”. Does that perhaps remind you of something, dear colleagues? 

Agniesczka Brugger (Greens): To compare yourself with Alexei Navalny! That is an impudence! 

With a cunning similar to Putin’s, you proceed against the only opposition in this country. 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Unterirdisch!

Minister Faeser even openly discusses an AfD ban and sics the domestic secret service on us. 

Omid Nouripour (Greens): There is no secret service in Germany! There is only an intelligence service! 

That no longer has the least thing to do with legality. The Internet Enforcement Act of the preceding government even finds official applause in Russia and China – thus, internet censors. For years there in Russia, opposition gatherings were forbidden, as were demonstrations against Navalny’s imprisonment, and in fact under the pretext of Corona. And that we also know from the best Germany ever. 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Mein Gott! 

            Derya Türk-Nachbaur (SPD): Shabby! Sick!

And not least: The state media in Germany increasingly attempts to generate a climate of non-contradiction [Widerspruchlosigkeit], a political unity brew. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such stupidity! Such rubbish! 

            Stephan Brandner AfD): Completely right!

In the face of the farmers’ protests against the Greens, the journalist Knut Bauer just last week raged on the compulsory financed state radio that one dared to disturb the event of a – I cite – “government party”. This same mentality in the GEZ media is similarly found in the Russian state media. 

Agniesczka Brugger (Greens): Your AfD-mimimi has nothing to do with the debate’s subject. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Just listen for once! That is the truth!

And there, it is held to be criminal when the government is criticized. 

            Julia Klöckner (CDU/CS): Here, no one is imprisoned! 

And there, judicial positions are politically appointed. And there, movements of private citizens’ finances are controlled. Frau Faeser has again done so as before. Minister Faeser thus wants Russian conditions in Germany. 

            Renata Alt (FDP): Shame on you! 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such stupidity! 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Yet it is your friends who sit in Moscow!

There are governments everywhere, even in dictatorships. The decisive difference between dictatorships and democracies is not in the existence of a government, but in that of an opposition, of a free and unrestricted acting opposition. 

            Till Steffen (Greens): What are you afraid of? 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Yet you drive to Moscow for Herr Putin! 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Putin’s sychophant!

 Now after the death of a courageous oppositionist, let us in the future the more take to heart to let the citizens freely vote and to promote free political competition, instead of wanting to ban opposition parties. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Excellent! 

 

[trans: tem]

Bernhard Zimniok, February 7, 2024, Digital Services Act

European Parliament, Straßburg, P9 CRE PROV (2024) 02-07(3-183-0000). 

Herr President. 

During Corona we clearly saw how divergent opinions were defamed by the mainstream as hate and incitement and were rigorously censored in the social media. That these opinions then later proved in large part to be correct – one need only think of the ostensible protection of the vaccination or the ostensible utility of masks – clearly shows that for the state it is only about the prerogative of interpretation [Deutungshoheit], about being able to justify the inhuman Covid preventive measures. 

The lesson should be to strengthen freedom of opinion, to prevent censorship and to oppose state fake news campaigns. Yet the present situation in Germany now indicates exactly the other direction. The anti-democratic strivings of the government are even intensified: Government demonstrations against the opposition on the basis of a fake news campaign stimulated by the government – as there is only in totalitarian systems. 

This is supported by the government broadcasters ARD and ZDF which at these demonstrations more than 100 times interviewed ostensibly random demonstration participants who then were revealed as representatives of the governing parties. These anti-democratic proceedings once again prove how important social media is at the present time, where citizens can independently inform themselves. And precisely on that account, the Commission opposes freedom of opinion on the platforms by means of the Digital Services Act. The Digital Services Act therefore ought to be just so comprehensively abolished as the public broadcasting in Germany. 

 

[trans: tem]