German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/199, pp. 25915-25916.
Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
“…parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good...” [*]
Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): Amen!
Patrick
Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Claims for which you have never been fit!
So far Edmund Burke in his famous speech to the voters of Bristol in 1774. Ladies and gentlemen, let us compare the present situation of this parliament with the ideal of then.
Patrick
Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You might need to get out!
This, what you have made of our parliament, is the exact opposite in comparison to what Burke described, ladies and gentlemen.
Real deliberations, the struggle over the best solution for the good of the people, no longer take place.
Johannes Fechner (SPD): No self-evidently!
Patrick
Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You’ve never done it!
SPD, CDU, Greens and FDP have come to an understanding for a trimmed daily order of the German Bundestag. Only urgently necessary points of the daily order shall spoken on. Initiatives of the opposition – the actual opposition – shall be set aside with or without debate. Ladies and gentlemen, that is unparliamentary, that is undemocratic, that is an assault on the heart of our democracy.
It is evident, ladies and gentlemen, for you, the general good does not come first, but your party interests. We presently in fact have a minority government. That has been seldom acceded to in German parliamentary history, but is commonplace in other countries. There, one has no fear of the free struggle for the best solution. Minority governments, ladies and gentlemen, need not necessarily go along with a parliamentary standstill. They could be stellar moments of democracy. Yet for that is required authentic and courageous democrats.
Patrick
Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Then you need to get out!
Of those, ladies and gentlemen, we have too few in this parliament. It also does not help that you yourselves always mutually dilute being democratic. Now, where it would come to that, you deny democracy, ladies and gentlemen.
What then would be so bad if members for once really follow their consciences when a good motion achieves a majority only with votes of the opposition? Yet as I hear, you want no votes from the wrong side. Honored colleagues of the CDU, when it is about the good of our country, then there is no such wrong side.
Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): The
level was already low, but now it becomes subterranean.
You then stand with your firewall on the wrong side.
Patrick
Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You are always on the wrong side!
Following the frightful terror attack at Solingen on the 23rd of August of this year, the CDU/CSU delegation chairman wrote an urgent letter to the Chancellor. I may cite therefrom:
“Release…the vote in the Bundestag on the the required laws…We want no participation in your government and no offices; we want that you fulfill your oath of office and avert harm from the German people. For that, with us you have a majority in the German Bundestag…”
Jürgen
Braun (AfD): Aha! Hear, hear!
Thus far the Chancellor. In what concerns forgetfulness, Friedrich Merz in fact has a Chancellor quality, ladies and gentlemen.
In fact in September the CSU/CSU brought in such a motion. Its content: To limit the migrant flow and begin with a return. Not by far enough, but a step in the right direction. And what have we experienced? Last week, precisely this draft law was on the daily order for a second and third reading. It would have been able to receive perhaps a majority with the votes from the ranks of the FDP and AfD. Yet precisely on this account it was withdrawn by the CDU/CSU.
Jürgen
Braun (AfD): Ach, here, someone is
afraid!
You were afraid that your own motion could pass, ladies and gentlemen. That allows a deep look and says much of your understanding of democracy.
Who should at all still believe that your motion was seriously meant by you, which you previously presented and in which was written a bit in the AfD sound? Did you perhaps only present all of these motions because you know that they will be rejected, and now where you could receive a vote in favor,
Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): No, we want to pass them, only not with you! That is the only reason!
you present no more such motions.
The long since running secret negotiations on a new government with the Greens or the SPD should not be encumbered. Ladies and gentlemen, you have the entire time only simulated opposition. That is shabby.
Ladies and gentlemen, the problem nevertheless is: Who votes for Merz, receives Habeck. How often have the two actually met for secret negotiations?
Till Steffen (Greens): What does secret mean?
Erhard Grundl (Greens): If you knew it, it’s not secret.
Sebastian Hartmann
(SPD): What did you plan in Potsdam?
The citizens can vote for that they want, they receive always the same politics. Here, one need not be surprised by a political dissatisfaction.
Vice-president Aydan Özogŭz: Come please to a conclusion.
Following the next elections, ladies and gentlemen, we will, in Edmund Burke’s sense, again make the parliament of our nation a deliberating and deciding assembly.
Many thanks.
Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): There, you contribute definitely nothing!
[*] The Works of the
Right Honorable Edmund Burke. 6 vols. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854-1856.
[trans: tem]
