Christine Anderson, July 23, 2026, Charging Stations

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, E-003112/2026 Commission.

Written Question.

On 24 February 2026, the partly publicly-owned German energy company EnBW concluded a multiannual agreement with XCharge for high-power charging stations. EnBW operates more than 8 000 fast-charging points and plans to expand its network to up to 20 000 by 2030.

XCharge was founded in Beijing. According to its US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, its chief executive officer (CEO) and its chair/chief technology officer (CTO) control approximately 81.9 % of the voting power through Class B shares, while holding approximately 31.2 % of the share capital.

Operators of recharging points are expressly covered by the energy provisions of the Network and Information Systems (NIS 2) Directive, subject to its scope criteria. The Commission has also identified strategic dependencies, unauthorised access to operational data and remotely triggered disruptions as risks arising from connected energy equipment. It has restricted EU funding for projects using solar inverters from high-risk suppliers.

1. Beyond the general cybersecurity and supply-chain obligations under the NIS 2 Directive, does EU law require the assessment of suppliers’ ultimate control, third-country legal obligations, data access and remote software-update or maintenance capabilities?

2. Can charging equipment comply with the EU cybersecurity framework where persons exercising decisive control over the supplier retain remote-access or update capabilities and are subject to the laws of a third country presenting elevated security risks?

3. Will the Commission apply supplier-security and funding restrictions to networked charging infrastructure equivalent to those applied to solar inverters, or explain why charging networks should be treated differently?

Siegbert Frank Droese, July 9, 2026, Digital Euro

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)07-09(4-0208-0000).

Frau President. Honorable colleagues.

The proposed legal framework for the digital euro encompasses elements such as 
obligatory acceptance regulations, the involvement of the digital identity system, 
identification mechanisms, as well as continuing interventions in payments market 
structures. Beyond that, the proposal could have considerable effects on the existing 
banking system and the structures of private investments, as well as fundamentally 
change the relation between citizens and public monetary institutions.

The totality of these elements give rise to considerable doubt that Article 133 alone
presents a sufficient legal foundation for the currently foreseen legal framework. 
The digital euro thus hides the danger to expand the range of the Union’s legal 
currency competence by means of an extensive interpretation of Article 133 beyond 
the limits foreseen in the treaties. A proposal with such wide-ranging effects on 
the payments system, market structures, the banking system and payments mechanisms
in its current form is not allowed to be supported.

[trans: tem] 

[AEUV Article 133: Without prejudice to the powers of the European Central Bank, 
the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary 

legislative procedure, shall lay down the measures necessary for the use of the euro 

as the single currency. Such measures shall be adopted after consultation of the European Central Bank.]

Alice Weidel, July 9, 2026, Industry, Budget, Free Speech

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/89, pp. 10882-10883.

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

The Chancellor is there; I can see him back there.

Beatrix von Storch (AfD): He shuns the picture in common!

Herr Merz, since you are in office, with narrow-minded assurance you do 
the opposite of what you have promised and what would be right for this
country. 

Michael Kellner (Greens): “Narrow-minded assurance”, yet you 
know of what you speak, or?

You wanted to speak on the situation. You have not done it; for the situation
in this country is disastrous. Month by month, 15,000 industrial workplaces 
fall away. The auto industry is in a downfall. The de-industrialization turns 
into mass flight. Even Volkswagen staggers. 100,000 workplaces are on the 
verge. Suppliers and service providers fall like dominoes. Not a week without 
bad news. The German Mittelstand expends reserves. The insolvency tsunami 
expels prosperity and good jobs from Germany. Every 20 minutes a German 
firm goes bankrupt. The productive future investments have fallen to the null 
point. Germany has declined in international competition.

The ideological costs of your Politik and the Politik of your predecessors 
burden the German economy and all Germans and are no longer to be borne. 
At 6 trillion – 6,000 billion – euros estimates the economist Bernd 
Raffelhüschen the accumulated costs of the German migration policy. So 
expensive again becomes the failed energy transition if it is then executed to 
the bitter end, and nothing other than an industrial desert is left behind in 
Germany.

And the citizens and the taxpayers? They grow poor. They feel the downfall 
every day in their own pocketbook. The sozial spending explodes. It rises faster 
than the pay. Who works and pays taxes, he is the dummy torn between rising 
tax and duties costs, escalating costs for energy, housing, cost of living, and 
shrinking real incomes which everywhere do not suffice for a living. Out of 
such a situation there is only one exit: To lower the state expenditures, to 
eliminate all that is superfluous from the budget, to end the ideological wrong 
way, to leave in the citizens’ pocket more of the hard earned money, and to 
immediately liberate the economy from bureaucratic and fiscal restraints and 
immediately end the artificial increased expense and scarcity of energy. That 
is precisely what you promised the citizens before the election. You do the 
opposite. 

Instead, you deride the taxpayer with an anti-reform package which lifts the 
exploitation to the next stage. You preen yourself with a fake tax reform. You
do not relieve the taxpayer, you further burden him. You increase and discover
new taxes on tobacco, plastic, alcohol, sugar and crypto investments. You cut 
the parents money, burden families, increase the sozial contributions. Under the 
title “rich tax”, a pure tax of envy, you draw money from the pocket of the 
Mittelstand. You load the accounting for the expenditures. You one-sidedly
seek out the taxpayers and contribution payers and in addition insult them – 
they should work more and longer, not so many sick days – as complainers who 
should step aside, if you please. 

So that citizens and journalists put fewer inconvenient questions, you tighten  
the freedom of information law. You give more competences to the secret 
services and to the Constitution Protection. Ja, the fleecing and the suppression 
of the citizens and of the opposition need to conclusively proceed with the state
repression. 

And that fits that today your Ursula von der Leyen of the CDU in the EU 
Parliament wants again to have by expedited motion a vote on the total control
of the citizens, chat control, after this was rejected umpteen times. Vote until it
passes! By the total control in autos, in the chats, you thus want to control the 
citizens, while Ursula von der Leyen has deleted her Pfizer deals by SMS.

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): It’s about sexual abuse of children!

I say to you one thing: To you applies the saying “All men are equal, many are 
more equal”. And that exactly is your CDU Politik summed up. 

You put forward a draft budget and a finance plan which explode all limits 
of  the spending frenzy and debt-making. You thereby further finance the eco-
socialist climate protection ideology of which the rest of the world for long 
wants to know nothing more. You continue to squander billions and billions 
of  euros for useless development aid which makes BlackRock still richer and 
nourishes some profiteers and lobbyists. With your Politik, you serve not 
Germany, but perhaps secure for yourself a high paid occupation by 
connection after you have left behind nothing other than scorched earth.
You pump additional untold sums into the NGO swamp and into the migration
industry, even when its favorites sink into a morass of corruption and infidelity; 
or, like the flight assistant of the murderer of six in Stade – from the SPD – are 
entangled in criminal machinations. 

You stir up Kriegsangst, and mis-use this as a license so as to, under the pretext
 of security expenditures, let fall the last inhibitions in regards debt-making. You
drive the arms spending to astronomical heights, without that thereby something
would be won for Germany’s security. Instead, you construct a state-controlled
and -financed armaments economy as a replacement for the real industry directed 
to fundamentals – an armaments industry the products of which you donate to 
the Ukraine. 

Year by year, you want to make more than 200 billion euros in debts; that is 
one trillion euros until 2030. In the next year alone, we pay interest in the sum 
of 40 billion euros, this year 32 billion euros. This then accumulates until 2030. 
I know, you laugh, you find that funny. 

Heidi Reichinnek (Linke): We don’t laugh. We suffer. 

To 2030, we have an interest service of 80 billion euros. – Listen to yourselves, 
for you cannot deal with numbers, especially you of the SPD. You can’t do it. –
You thereby risk losing Germany’s top rating in the capital markets. Your 
financial policy drives Germany directly into state bankruptcy, and the owners, 
the citizens with homes and mortgages, into ruin. Who profits? Perhaps BlackRock
or international investors can purchase at the lowest prices the German real estate 
in the year 2029 or 2030 at the latest. There again is closed the circle for this 
Chancellor Merz.

You leave behind a heap of rubble for those who come after you. A heap of 
rubble! I can say one thing to you: We will, despite this, accept the challenge and 
do the necessary when the voters give us the mandate. 

Dirk Weise (SPD): That, they will not do!

And when everything will have been knocked kaputt by you, we will liberate the 
state budget, the sozial system and the taxpayer from unnecessary and harmful 
spending and subventions. We will cut back the rampant Staatsapparat, halt 
the mass migration into the sozial system and push the consistent deportation 
of illegals and criminals. And we will abolish the individual right to asylum! We 
will end the ideological energy transition and lower the oppressive energy costs 
and tax burden. We are ready to overtake responsibility for Germany. Finally 
make free the way for a new government!

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Boring!

That is the one service which you can still do for this country, Herr Merz!

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Boring! Always the same!

[trans: tem]

Mary Khan, July 8, 2026, Drug and Migrant Cartels

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)07-08(3-0290-0000).

Herr President.

Europe stands before an explosion of drug criminality and we experience 
a record availability of illegal drugs. The EU meanwhile has overtaken 
the U.SA. as the largest cocaine market, and at Eurojust [European Agency
for Criminal Justice Cooperation] the number of cases in only five years – 
only five years – has risen 60 percent; drugs worth 20 billion euros were 
seized. More than half of Europe’s most dangerous criminal networks are 
active in drug smuggling, two-thirds employ violence, over 70 percent use 
corruption so as to influence officials and port personnel.

This is no longer a side issue; this is a security policy total failure. Europol
itself states: The networks which smuggle drugs to Europe are largely the 
same criminal structures which also organize illegal migration and 
human trafficking. The cartels have long since understood: Europe’s 
open borders and its political coddling is their business model.

Our ports may no longer be gateways for drug cartels, and our borders 
may no longer be business models for traffickers. The solution is simple, 
that is to say: Secure exterior borders, destroy trafficking networks and 
stop illegal migration. 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, July 9, 2026, Merz Government II

German Bundestag, July 9, 2026, Plenarprotokoll 21/89, pp. 10868-10871.

[...] Let us come to healthcare reform and to the first day illness note, Herr 
Chancellor. And here again becomes clear that you really have null empathy,  
primarily for the citizens. Were such a proposal submitted by me and us, I 
would place myself before the voters. You however are full of mistrust and 
ill will in the face of the sick. Much more, you would thereby still further 
strain the already thin medical coverage. There are now full waiting rooms and 
long lines at the doctors' offices. There is actually shown that you apparently
do not at all know what proceeds out there in the country: Full waiting rooms, 
as was said, added to that the documentation obligations, overburdened health 
personnel; these then need to wait in line at the nearest doctor's office for an 
illness note. 

Herr Merz, such unmenschliche proposals will only be represented by politicians
who themselves seemingly never worked with the hands, but only have controlled
foreign capital from a manager's seat as an upper employee. 

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Does that apply to Frau Weidel?

Please do not get me wrong: I rejoice for everyone who in his calling is successful
and earns money. Those citizens who even perhaps came somewhat easier through 
these difficult times will nevertheless even so be burdened by your unpleasant 
approach to Politik.  

Wherein we also see you generally plan new costs. Just in the health field, the 
chronically ill and families will be burdened with the greatest costs - be it the reduced 
subvention for dental replacement, the obligatory costs of co-insurance for spouses, 
the rising costs for pharmacists, or the financing of gaps in the rescue service. All that 
damages the provision for young and old, their health and the attractiveness of our 
country. You drive with these measures remaining medical professionals out of the 
country. You worsen the health of middle- and low-earners - this is besides the 
majority of the citizens in Germany - the retirees and, before all, the future generations. 
Herr Merz, you also ever more leave the way of the sozial market economy. The bow 
is more quickly over-stretched than you actually think. 

The Alternative fur Deutschland is also here in position to build bridges, for the market regulates much in the area "Business and Economy". In the area of basic duties of the 

state, like health, education and infrastructure, or affordable energy, we in Germany see 

the state obliged. The people primarily need again to be at the center of Sozialpolitik, 

those who have contributed to creation of value and are also plainly active and will be active: Those are our children. With them stands and falls a sozial system. It thus can 

conclusively only be about using the savings potential of 12 billion euros in the area 
of Bürgergeld contributions for precisely this group of persons, so as to bring into 
employment all, namely those who are capable of work and are of corresponding 
age and thereby ending the state incentives for tax-financed non-work.

This concerns even so the immigrants into our sozial system, primarily from the 
Ukraine and from Syria, as precisely those who simply no longer want to 
work because they have settled themselves. Only with a strong focus may we 
strengthen the sozial accounts and, before all things, the community. We thus 
need to take in hand quite clear limitations and also formulate severe penalties 
for benefits abuse. These are exactly the important signs to the majority of 
citizens that thereby their hard work and willingness to perform again pays.
Germany can thus also again become family- and children-friendly. Like a 
thunderclap then the news of the planned cuts in the parents money hit all 
young families. You have spoken of families and children, Herr Merz. I am 
astonished that you at all formulated that. Yet which signs do these cuts send? 
What is this actually for priorities of this Federal  government? We have in 
Germany meanwhile the lowest birthrate since 1946. And what comes from 
this government, what pertains to family policy, what pertains to promotion?
Nothing. Null. That is really a disgrace for this country.

This Federal government wants to obligate everyone up to the 70th year of 
life to work, and invest preferably in panzers instead of children. It will play 
off the generations one against the other, and in the end commit the valuable 
tax money to none of either side.

You want the control of conflicts and wars not through diplomacy but through  
sanctions. These damage the German economy, the German people and the entire
European continent. Peace means prosperity, and prosperity is the basis of
security. 

Yet with horror I need see that you want to achieve the prosperity at the cost 
of peace. Massive upgrades and armament have nothing to do with the mandatory
fulfillment of alliance obligations. In the past twelve months, the spending for war 
weapons increased about 25 billion to over 124 billion euros. You regularly
celebrate your armaments intoxications, and have no one who wants to take up 
arms. The Federal Minister of Defense, Pistorius, needed to painfully experience
that following the reaction to approximately 300,000 questionnaires sent for 
military registration - merely a scarce 530 reports for voluntary service followed.

Beatrix von Storch (AfD): Hear, hear!

The German people quite obviously no longer want to have themselves made 
fit for war.

And the young generation has decided. The time of the War Minister is past. In 
place of being employed in the construction of a destructive war economy, there
needs finally again be at midpoint an impulse for a peaceful living together between
the peoples of Europe. The NATO could be an alliance of peace, and not the finance
machine of the Ukraine war.

For a conclusion, yet a brief remark on law, and on the obligation of parties for 
holding their party meetings. We are all legally obligated to the same conduct. Just so 
more reprehensible are the calls for violence of individual members of this sovereign 
house who have exchanged democracy for the right of might. We could see in Erfurt
who these are, who ostensibly defend our democracy. They of course have 
contributed to that Apollo journalists were victims of uncontrolled assaults and the 
split in our society was driven ever deeper. The security measures for our national
party meeting in Erfurt cost many weeks of preparation time by police and Bund 
security forces. I want in this place to state to all mission forces my express thanks. 

President Julia Klöckner: Please come to a final sentence.

Dialogue and diplomacy are also the basis for security and prosperity.

Many thanks.

[trans: tem]

Volker Schnurrbusch, July 9, 2026, Humanitarian Aid

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026) 07-09(4-0019-0000). 

Her President. Frau Commissioner. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The less real influence the EU has worldwide, the more it portrays itself 

as a moral great power. Nothing against assistance in acute emergency 

situations and the protection of humanitarian personnel, but your resolution 

wants to make of humanitarian policy a permanent instrument in the 

billions with its own implementation architecture and sprawling political 

obligations.

It's always the same pattern: The Greens demand in the Bundestag three billion
euros, yet as long as in Germany bridges decay, hospitals suffer a personnel
emergency and retirees need to gather deposit bottles, such an application is 
simply inappropriate. 

And what happens with the money? In Yemen, the GIZ [Society for International
Cooperation] for years misappropriated German aid money - manipulated accounts,
gang-organized fraud, two-figure millions in damages which here will be further 
reinforced: The financing of NGOs and oftentimes corrupt regimes without we 
in Europe gaining something from it.

And where in the world our aid shows good results, it is often others who profit
from it. China manages its development policy strictly geo-strategic, and 
exclusively for its own uses. If Europe does not want to be the useful idiot who 
prepares the field for China's investments, then this claim to saving the world 
needs to stop.

Humanitarian aid - yes, but oriented to need and strictly controlled. It is not 
allowed to be considered isolated from the other development policy. We require
conditionality: Who wants our means needs to cooperate in regards, for example, 
fighting illegal migration. The blank check for global NGOs and endless transfers, 
which the left half of this house into the EVP demands, that is a sell-out of 
European interests and thus we reject this resolution motion. 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, July 9, 2026, Merz Government I

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/89, pp. 10868-10871.

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

Herr Chancellor, I really need say before all things that, in regards the first part 
of your government declaration, I really asked myself: Where do you live, actually?
In regards your statements, your wishes which you spread here, your polling
results must have gone through the roof. If one looked at that, you spoke  
of the costs of failures - of the costs of failures! I say to you: The costs of the 
failures rise everyday so long as you are Chancellor. Allow me please to 
continue with a citation: 

"That which the Social Democrats can do well is to make
debts, raise taxes and ever higher state spending. Now they 
give money to foreign people. We now have almost 900 
billion euros in state income. Can we occupy ourselves for 
once with the thought whether we have a problem on the 
spending side?"

End citation. The former Chancellor candidate of the CDU and CSU, Friedrich Merz, 
spread these understandable thoughts about one and a half years ago on 6 February
2025 on X. One may therein see, Herr Merz, what interests you in your idle talk 
of yesterday. It can be said, that is a mirror image of your entire Chancellorship.
It is and remains for you a unique tragedy. No one can rely on your word. You wriggle 
through autumn of reform, through reform spring, into the reform summer. In 
regards the duration, we take it you've been quite a time in a reform jam on the decaying
streets and bridges. A quarter of your government time has already run out, and we all 
know that the remaining time of this legislature until 2029 will pass by more quickly
than you believe - even if you hold on so long. You nevertheless cannot make me believe
that you had at all thought out the contested themes in the victory whirl of the spring 
of 2025.

Exactly so dishonest do you behave in the face of the citizens. The loss of trust in the 
word of this Federal government is scarcely still to be figured. You say the one thing, 
and as a rule first of all do nothing. As soon as something in the form of a law reaches 
the German Bundestag, you in the coalition are at least disagreed in the media or 
contradict yourselves on the public stage. Honestly said, I thought you in your parties
are somewhat further. All in all, you paralyze the economic and social progress. 

The Union in addition still walls itself in behind a firewall; for the party enemy 
identified by you gains ever more in approval, and you lose support and, before 
all things, credibility. You underlined this today with your speech. What however
is still not clear is, Herr Chancellor: If you in angst need to hide from us behind your
firewall, why do you actually at the same time make use of the proposals which were
worked up in our Bundestag delegation? 

Let us name it by name: You already long understood that you and your party need
to make Politik with our themes so as not to be swept from the political market, like 
the erstwhile FDP. Out of pure opportunism, you have turned left in a green direction
and drive in a circle without success. 

Your business model thereby further exhausted, you negotiate bad deals so as to 

remain in power. As example I just want to recall the climate and transformation 

fund. The increase in the billions of this budget item clearly did no harm to your 

election as Chancellor in the second round. Only, it appears you were, in your time 

out of politics, not really thus prepared for the leadership of a state. And that is 

logical, since BlackRock stands, ja, on the other side of the recipients of hard 

earned tax means which secure the return of your shareholders. 

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Ach herrje!

And precisely this you make clear with the budget Politik of your Federal 
government. Your cabinet in the 2027 Federal budget wanted to expend a 
total 555 billion euros. For that, the Federal Republic of Germany will be 
indebted by an additional 118.7 billion; with that of last year, over 200
billion euros of new debts. That is already double that of the original planning.   
Besides: Of the European treaties like Maastricht, Herr Chancellor, we 
no longer need speak at all. You for long no more observe them.

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): How then would you 
do it, Herr Chrupalla? Tell for once!

I want to again remind you, Herr Merz: A state is no business firm quoted on the 
exchange, which in any case cannot at option be quickly purchased, wrecked 
and merged.

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU):  Ever the same speech!

What however you could know: In regards to personnel and to processes, a 
state needs to be set up lean. And also there, this Federal government uses no 
savings potential in which for example it consistently takes into the state 
pension system the servants of the state, Herr Hoffmann. That would be a real reform.

 
How then do you want to still longer explain to the citizens that, for example, 
officials without a high income have at their disposal 70 percent already at 
pension age, and all others need to secure their retirement portion through ETF 
financial business, by which apparently armaments concerns still earn money 
for your war. And just in times of rising insolvencies, weak economic growth, of 
de-industrialization in the chemical industry, of the de facto elimination of mini-jobs, 
in times of war which make necessary the rebate at the pump, the sozial 
splitting needs to have an end. And just that which is financed by the community
needs to act as a part of the community. 

President Julia Klöckner: Herr member, do you permit an interim 
question from the ranks of the Union delegation, and that is from
Herr Alexander Hoffmann?

Bitte schön.

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Thanks, Herr Chrupalla, that 
you permit the interim question. I was of course well nigh 
astonished. You speak here for minutes and thereby do what you 
always plainly do: You bad mouth [quatscht] our country into 
a depression. 

Stephan Brandner (AfD): Na, na, na!

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): You bad mouth our people 
into a depression, Afterwards, Frau Weidel will speak. She                                                       does precisely the same. Now I am happy that in your speech                                                    finally for once occurs a position which was clear on how the                                                   AfD would do it.

Bernd Baumann (AfD): We say that continually every day!

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): That was the following position:
We reconstruct the pension account when the officials finally pay
into the pension. That was finally a concrete proposal. You have 
clearly occupied yourselves with funding it. I want to share with 
you - 

President Julia Klöckner: Excuse me. Quite briefly: It needs be 
possible when a member of your delegation permits a question
that you first listen to the question. Yet this also belongs with 
that: This is impulse control. Bitte.

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Thus, you are the delegation 
with the most interim questions, then you can also listen for 
once when someone else asks. How would that be, actually?
The AfD thus finally makes a concrete proposal. The officials 
pay into the pension account, and we thereby reconstruct the 
pension system. Herr Chrupalla, there are various studies - 
besides, the preceding pension commission also occupied itself
with this question - which have arrived actuarily at a fully clear 
result: The pension account cannot thereby be reformed and, 
before all, also not be placed on a stable footing, since opposed 
were corresponding payments costs. Apart from that, the officials
provision is fundamentally protected on that account. I now 
confront you with these studies and would gladly have your
answer whether you, against this background, still want to 
adhere to this epic proposal. 

Thus first, Herr Hoffmann. When I permit to you the question - you speak frequently
of the "delegitimization of parliament" to which we, ja, allegedly contribute - and when 
the leader of the opposition gives a speech here, then he speaks, and does not "bad
mouth", as you label it. 

Point one: You nevertheless always speak of civility [Anstand], and then I at least 
expect that you as State group chief of the CSU also have this civility. Point two: 
Yes, we in our demands have also included that all pay into the system of the 
Pension Insurance, officials also. 

Alice Weidel (AfD): And politicians!

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Do the math!

That is justice; it is about us. You have taken the politicians as a circle of persons 
which we have always supported. You espied this from us, because of course
ever more citizens demand this. That it does not proceed from today to tomorrow, 
that officials - with a terminal date regulation - should pay in, this is fully clear.
Yet it should nevertheless be. Why? A pensioner in Germany receives an average
3,400 euro pension for the same employment time 

Alice Weidel (AfD): Clearly less!

of a tradesman, a member of the Mittelsand, a quite normal doctor, a nurse, thus 
all those who have paid into the retirement system. The average pension of these 
is nevertheless 1,200 euros for men and 1,000 euros for women. Do you find that just?
Precisely that is the injustice, and that is the two-class society in the retirement which
we want to abolish. 

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Question not answered!

[trans: tem]

René Aust, July 8, 2026, Climate, Balkans, Taxpayers

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)07-08
(3-0021-0000).

Frau President. 

Europe and Germany already have a thousand heat deaths to lament 
and, during this, one wants to make the price for energy still more
expensive by means of the CO2 emissions trade so as to influence 
the climate worldwide. Precisely this is the distinction between theory 
and practice; this is the distinction between those on the left side and 
the patriotic powers of Europe.

We do not believe that higher taxes and an added burden for the citizens 
would somehow change the world climate - and this thesis has, ja, 
already failed in reality. Instead, we want to quite practically help the 
people; for example, in which old folks homes, care residences, 
hospitals, schools are outfitted quite completely and systematically
with climate systems. We want practical Politik instead of Cloud
Cuckoo Land. 

Something else which is on the daily order is the question of 
the expansion. The Balkans are an unbelievably important region
for us; they are strategically important for Europe. On that account, 
we also want that the Balkans and the European Union work together
much more closely; for example, by means of privileged trade relations
- that these be still further expanded. 

What we however do not want is that these countries in the present 
situation are accepted into the European Union. We do not want that 
additional recipient countries are accepted which at the end of the day
further and still more burden the German taxpayers.

The last expansion rounds have not been completely processed by the 
European Union. As before, there are large conflicts; as before, the 
institutional rules have not been laid out at this dimension. We first 
need to work out that this European Union and the European 
cooperation again become feasible, in which one concentrates on 
the essentials and to which are plainly not added ever new duties
and countries.

We want that the Balkans are brought up [herangeführt] nearer to us, 
but plainly without burdening the German taxpayers.

[trans: tem]

Alexander Gauland, June 25, 2026, Ukraine War

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/86, p. 10491.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Erich Maria Remarque’s best known novel ends with the protagonist Paul 
Baümer dying at the front while the army’s report for that day announces
„Im Westen nichts Neue“ [All Quiet on the Western Front]. The mass 
death in the trenches was by then nothing new.

The war in the Ukraine meanwhile lasts longer than the First World War. 
There will have died in 52 months hundreds of thousands. In the east, 
nothing new and no end in sight. We are accustomed to it. On the contrary: 
The Ukraine’s drone attacks far into the Russian hinterland awake brave 
hopes of some of those who dream of forcing back the Russians to Crimea, 
and perhaps even throwing them out of Crimea. I think that the Ukraine, 
in the sense of a reconstruction of the status quo ante, cannot win this war.

And for us, the war financially becomes the last straw. Self-evidently is 
Germany again the largest payer in the EU: 40 billion for the war so far; 
in addition, up to 35 billion for refugees. In the spring of 2026 alone, 4.2 billion 
euros in military aid were transferred. We send money to the Ukraine 
while in Germany poverty grows, the infrastructure rots, and the economy 
shrinks. The most recent results from the Deutsche Bahn are like the 
flaming writing on the wall. The Chancellor however has not rendered 
his oath to the Ukraine. If the Ukraine wishes to continue fighting, that is its 
good right, but not our business. 

Jürgen Hardt (CDU/CSU): Now you let the cat out of the bag!

For it is simply not true that the Ukraine also defends our freedom.

Peter Beyer (CDU/CSU): Oh, yes!

It is no NATO member, and its fight is a fight over the formation of the 
post-Soviet, indeed post-Czarist space. Even if we hold it to be false, 
it is the empire of Peter the Great which Putin wants to reconstruct.

Knut Abraham (CDU/CSU): Aha!

And, as is known, that reaches not to the Gate of Berlin, indeed not even 
to Warsaw.

Sara Nanni (Greens): Putin however speaks of coming to Berlin!

In German interest are the peace negotiations and an end of the war with 
a compromise. Yet in that the Federal government despite our own
failures in the past – we here have discussed it – deals with Putin as solely 
guilty and like a criminal, 

Sara Nanni (Greens): Like a criminal? He is a criminal!

Jürgen Hardt (CDU/CSU): He is a criminal! He kidnapped 20,000
children!

and grants Russia no legitimate interests in this conflict, it makes a 
compromise peace impossible.

The Ukrainian leadership wants to attain that the EU, better still the NATO 
becomes a war participant. Apart from proximate risks for us, that would 
for many years be the end of the peaceful relations with Russia. Cite: 

“A Ukraine in the EU would block any reconciliation with 
Russia in the future. And this reconciliation would 
nevertheless be decisive for the future of Europe.”

End cite. The last two sentences stem not from me but from Klaus Dohnanyi, 
my dear SPD.

The Ukraine war is not Germany’s war; yet all seek to make it that, 
with exception of the Linke. Germany expanded its support step by step. 
It began with helmets, with defensive armaments. Later came heavy weapons, 
air defense systems, panzers, and the training of Ukrainian soldiers for that. 
Now is again discussed whether we deliver Taurus cruise missiles whereby 
Germany would be in danger of being responsible for an attack on Saint 
Petersburg and Moscow. In the sense of the old formula “inter pacem et 
bellum nihil medium”, we are long since combatants.

No, the world does not go under if in the future eastern Ukraine belongs to 
Russia. It could however go under if the military escalation screws are
ever further turned.

Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU/CSU): Was that dictated by Putin?
Inconceivable!

There have always been spheres of influence. For the U.S.A., it is all of 
North and South America, as laid down by the Monroe Doctrine since 
1823. The U.S.A. acts accordingly and has always done so. Thus let us 
stop binding our own hands with fairy tales of the equality of all states, 
quite independent of their geopolitical situation. The end of the dying is 
more important, ladies and gentlemen. 

I am grateful.

[trans: tem]

Alexander Jungbluth, July 6, 2026, European Investment Bank

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, 
P10 CRE-REV(2026)07-06(1-0106-0000).

Frau President.

The report makes clear the growing role of the European Investment 
Bank within the European Union. With a balance of around 600 
billion euros and a record volume of 100 billion euros in financings, 
the EIB has become one of the most influential of Europe's financial 
institutions. This expanded role nevertheless needs to remain anchored 
in AEUV Article 309.

The EIB was created as an investment bank, and not as a replacement 
for a political decision process. Its strength lies in the financing of the 
European economy, not in the expansion of its mandate. 
True economic sovereignty begins with a strong productive economy; 
the investment priorities thus pose a question: While 53.5 billion euros 
are foreseen for climate goals, agriculture and bio-economy receive 
merely 6.2 billion euros.

Beyond that, ten percent of the EIB financing flows outside of the 
EU. Europe should nevertheless not afford itself this capital outflow. 
The EIB should undertake exclusively investments in our national 
economies, strengthen our member states, and promote industry, 
innovation and competitiveness.

The EIB should ultimately be measured by one, simple standard: 
Whether it helps strengthen Europe's productive economy and 
the interests of its member states. 

[trans: tem]

Gerold Otten, May 22, 2026, Defense and Artificial Intelligence

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/81, pp. 9774-9775.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The 2015 annual report presented for arms control documents far more than 
one mere crisis. It describes the systemic erosion of the global security architecture.

The Federal government's analysis in that regard named three central fault lines.
In first place here is the unsustainable disintegration of the nuclear order. The 
end of the New Start Treaty and the uncontrolled expansion of the Chinese nuclear 
arsenal mark the crossing into an indistinguishable, multipolar world of rival
superpowers. At the same time, regional agreements fail, as for example, the INF 
Treaty between Russia and the U.S.A.

The second fault line is the unconfinement of modern conflicts. Space has become a 
military operations area. At the same time, we experience the withdrawal from  
verified arms control treaties, as for example the Ottawa Convention on the ban on 
anti-personnel mines, and by EU states; a direct consequence of the altered 
threat perception in the East.

The third fault line is the technological disruption. The deployment of artificial 
intelligence and autonomous weapons systems on the battlefield is no longer a 
theory but reality. These weapons systems dictate the speed of modern warfare, 
and in seconds decide over life and death. 

In all of these points the report delivers a plausible description of the situation, 
although the description alone falls short. We need to posit for ourselves a      fundamental, inconvenient truth: The structures which defended us for decades were the result of the Second World War and the Cold War. They are the products of a past epoch.     We no longer find ourselves in a transitional phase. We stand in the midst of a        completely fragmented, multipolar reality. The era of unipolarity, of the uncontested supremacy of the U.S.A., is conclusively past.

China has established itself as a powerful counterweight. Russia manages an unconfined power Politik and forges alliances in the global South. The middle powers there manage a purely transactional Politik of interests. They conclude economic agreements with Peking, purchase armaments in Moscow and cooperate in security questions with the U.S.A.

The result is no stable, rules-based order, but a phase of the radical new categorization.        It is thus unlikely to be able to successfully analyze the challenges of the present            within the structures and with the methods of the past. 

That is to say: On the situation analysis, we here today are indeed largely agreed.                Yet where we fundamentally differ is the methodological approach for the            achievement of the goal. This is exactly shown in the Federal government's arms           control strategy. Its declared goal is the global stability by means of multilateral    agreement, transparency and the regulation of technological progress. Demanded                   is the outlawing of fully automated weapons systems and new rules for cyber- and        outer-space.

We support these ordnungspolitischen goals, yet we doubt that they can be achieved        with yesterday's methods. Who closes the eyes before this reality, manages                Geopolitik in the rear-view mirror.

An arms control requires two fundamentals: Trust and geopolitical stability. Both                no longer exist in this multipolar world order. Worse still, Germany has blithely       squandered its traditional role as honest broker on the world stage. 

Instead of pursuing a foreign policy lead by interests, Germany hides itself behind the template of an ancillary leadership role, and thereby submits itself unconditionally to the Brussels transnational technocrats.

We all pay the bill for this misguided Politik. Certainly in Germany, we feel harder than ever before the economic and political censures [Verwerfungen] of this world order. Our view is accordingly, it must be a core duty of a wise German foreign policy to stand for that the described tectonic shift does not escalate to a global war, that it does not harm Germany. 

That however would presuppose the acknowledgment of interests of equal rights of allied partners, yet also of competitors. Only on this basis is possible a success of diplomatic strivings and initiatives for disarmament and arms control. 

This recognition is denied by the Federal government and by the parties long sitting here in moralizing self-complacency. 

The Federal government seeks instead an impossible balance. It wants to be a wide-ranging, moral court for the arms regulation, and at the same time create a most modern army efficient in war, yet thereby obviously fails in its own ideological blinkers.

 
As in a magnifying glass, that is shown in regards military deployment of AI: The Federal government dogmatically persists in the primacy of human control and also wants to enforce this concept internationally.

That is clearly intended to be ethically noble, yet ignores the technical realities which today are clearly shown in the Ukraine war. For the defense against hypersonic weapons and drone swarms, to name an example, the human reaction time is no security factor but the deadly bottleneck. Who here persists exclusively in manual control, consents to accept technological inferiority in an emergency situation. Who however irresponsibly accepts the inferiority of our armed forces, risks the lives of our soldiers and destroys every military credibility.

The same paralyzing spirit prevails in Federal German science. While Washington and China radically drive forward the civil-military fusion, a well-fed scientific estate clings to civil stipulations. This artificial separation blocks precisely that technology transfer which the Bundeswehr so urgently needs to at all keep pace. We brake the progress exactly there where it is most critical for the national defense.

The third hurdle is the over-flowing bureaucracy. AI development cycles are measured in weeks. Our procurement procedures, on the other hand, continue to administer a decades-long hardware process. An army which reacts to technological disruption with formulas, over-regulation and control mania, loses the connection before the first shot has even been fired. 

These dogmas in dealing with AI characterize the Federal German Politik. Without a fundamental turning away from these dogmas, the Bundeswehr will not become Europe's most powerful army, but a grave for billions in tax money without any added value in security policy.

Who hopes AI weapons technology threats can be enclosed internationally, and at the same time ignores AI's defense potential, makes himself ridiculous internationally. The armed forces plainly cannot be modernized and at the same time the technological progress be blocked as this government is doing it. Both mutually exclude themselves, when the goal should be to be the strongest conventional military power in Europe. 

This report is thus no future plan. It is the written document of a strategic sluggishness and of a moral complacency which endanger the security of our country.
Many thanks.

[trans: tem]

Anja Arndt, June 17, 2026, Genetically Altered Plants

EU Parliament. Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)06-17(3-0163-0000).

Herr President. Right honorable members.

Today is not about progress or stasis. Today it's about the trust, freedom of choice and 
control of our seeds, food and our agriculture. We vote on the de-regulation of so-called 
NGT1 plants. These plants are altered with new genome techniques and can end up in 
our food, feeds and in our farmlands. We will be told that this can theoretically arise 
naturally or through conventional cultivation, yet theory replaces not practical         experience, and speed replaces no security. 

Who broadens such techniques needs to guarantee control, transparency and free         choice. Yet precisely this is lacking because the labeling obligation is lacking.                 There is also no legally secured patent ban. NGT1 plants thereby become a 

gateway for bio-patents, concern power, monopoly and new dependencies for                     our farmers and breeders.

 
As long as labeling, traceability and a real patent ban are lacking, there may be no vote 
for the Council position. I welcome therefore the vote for all motions to amend which 
demand the labeling obligation and exclude ability to patent, and initially vote for the 
leftists' and greens' rejection.

[trans: tem]

Martin Reichardt, May 21, 2026, Education and the German Left

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/80, p. 9665.

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen present. 

We move today for a national education summit in the knowledge that the motion 

[Drucksache 21/6029]  as always will be rejected. It will be rejected even though is evident that Germany is stuck in the deepest education crisis in its young history, ladies and gentlemen.

The crisis finds expression in the sobering number which says that 40 percent of the 15 years old students no longer achieve the minimal competence in reading and mathematics. The origins of this crisis are various, yet have one thing in common: They are the result of serious failures in the Politik of CDU, CSU, Social Democrats, Linke and Greens. Here follows a small selection:

For starters I name the re-stringing of the proven, three-part school system, with its inherent performance orientation, by means of a system which has so far lowered what is demanded that a great part of those with an Abitur are no longer capable of studies, and a large number of students are dismissed in the occupational world, those who no longer fulfill the minimal requirements for professional training.  

In addition is the replacement of an education oriented on the factual [Realien], consisting of reading, writing, figuring and natural science, by a leftist, ideological indoctrination of outlook [Gesinnung]. Here are two examples:

After weeks of deficient German instruction due to a teacher shortage, occurs in the first planned hour of German an outlook speech on the leftist discovered terminology of so-called everyday racism. Students who ask why no German instruction takes place will be persuaded with the accusation they would be willing to promote racism. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Where was that?

 
Or: After weeks of school trans propaganda, a child in the eighth class outed himself as a trans-sexual. Immediately, instead of doing correct instruction, documentation on the injury to trans people will be shown and the injury to the so-called queer community will be made a theme. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Which school? Which place? 

Maïk Brückner (Linke): Where was that, then?

The list of this nonsense could continue as you like but, ladies and gentlemen, I spare myself that. Let us let it be.

In conclusion, of course may not be lacking the permanently denied pink elephant in the room: The consequences of the unhindered mass migration and the teaching of students with insufficient knowledge of German in regular classes.

Maïk Brückner (Linke): Bingo!

In addition comes the violence problematic inherent with this clientele.

The named problems are thus so intensified that a traceable teacher shortage – some 35,000 – prevails. The new secret recipe against this shortage is called SOL, self-organized learning. In clear text, a teacher supervises umpteen classes in which then nothing more runs, ladies and gentlemen.

And no, my dear self-named leftist democrats, it does not suffice to simply pump more money into the education system and ever further increase the number of school social workers. Their number has climbed from 3,000 in the year 2010 meanwhile to 20,000, which however has obviously in no way prevented the catastrophic development in the German education system. 

The education summit demanded by us is compellingly required and needs to make a theme of and solve the problems just raised here by me. The time of hiding behind pedagogical optimism and naïve leftist wishful thinking needs to end, ladies and gentlemen. 

Katrin Fey (Linke): Begin with yourself!

And still one thing: The fact that educational success in Germany depends heavily on the parents’ home is caused by you of the old parties. It is namely recognizable that in a desolate educational system shaped by leftist ideology

Maïk Brückner (Linke): Eijeijei!

often only such children unfortunately can be successful whose parents have the possibility of helping at home and paying for remedial instruction,

Götz Frömming (AfD): Right!

and privately compensate for the catastrophic failure of your Politik, ladies and gentlemen.

Maïk Brückner (Linke): Then what do you cry about?

In education – as generally – the Linke themselves with assistance from the CDU create the problems which they afterwards can no longer solve. The blame will then be sought everywhere and nowhere.

I call upon you: Make an education summit which begins to finally do away with your years-long catastrophic Politik and its failures.

Maïk Brückner (Linke): Breathe!

Our reference to that enjoins: Return to a performance principle, Realien education instead of leftist indoctrination, and no regular schooling without sufficient knowledge of German. Vote for our motion. Do penance, and save our children.

Many thanks.

[trans: tem]