German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/56, pp. 6745-6746.
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.
Chancellor Merz speaks of an age of “Great Power Politics”. The truth is: The power Politik was never gone. That, we see in the Ukraine, in Venezuela, in Greenland. New is not the reality of the power Politik. New is a persistent, chronic weakness of Germany which encounters an increasingly multipolar world in which the interests are again openly carried out. In such a world, Germany then is only capable of acting when it combines its powers, sets priorities, and finally learns to stand up for itself.
Before all is the CDU responsible, through decades of government failures, for almost all major political mistaken decisions which have made our country vulnerable. The completely wrong mass migration, a threat to security since 2015, the anti-economic [Wirtschaftfeindliche] withdrawal from nuclear and coal energy which drove us to dependency on gas imports and de-industrialized Germany, with dramatic consequences for welfare, public finances and sozial peace. Germany cannot afford to give away its resources to the Ukraine while we here at home are vulnerable.
Our capitol city Berlin has just experienced how vulnerable critical infrastructure is, and can be quickly omitted by sabotage. Tens of thousands of households, following a leftist extremist attack, sat in darkness and in cold. Diesel generators were lacking, diesel generators which were in the Ukraine.
Claudia
Roth (Greens): Oh nee!
Kay
Gottschalk (AfD): Listen!
Germany shall pay in the next ten years for the reconstruction of the Ukraine with sums which lie beyond any serious ability to plan.
Claudia
Roth (Greens): Ja, serious!
The CDU combines that with the formula: “So long it is necessary”. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a blank check, and blank checks are in the Politik always the beginning of the end of any control.
Every cent of the so far around 1,000 billion euros of the Ukraine aid is debt-financed – financed with debts which in the form of principal and interest cost will afflict all future Federal budget charges.
Stefan
Keuter (AfD): The next generations!
Debts are tomorrow’s taxes, ladies and gentlemen. We forfeit the future of our children for a country the hand of which is outstretched for our money, and to thank us apparently blows up our own German infrastructure.
Knut
Abraham (CDU/CSU): That is shabby!
Shabby is that you of the CDU permit such a thing. Shabby is that to this day you have not sought to clarify the Nordstream explosion, Herr colleague of the CDU.
Thomas Rachel (CDU/CSU): Shabby is that you still haven’t said a word for the civilian population in the Ukraine which is attacked daily from Russia!
What do we want to actually have happen?
First: Corruption and lack of transparency. A corruption scandal again shakes the Ukraine up to the highest circles, with effects on the energy and defense infrastructure. When a state is at war, and at the same time billions seep away, then that is not only morally unbearable but is also extremely dangerous for security policy. Since money, weapons and material do not simply disappear. They again emerge elsewhere, in dark channels, in black markets, in criminal networks.
Stefan Keuter (AfD): Darknets!
Robin
Wagener (CDU/CSU): Those are the things with which you are familiar.
Second: Demands without end. It is always the same process – more weapons, more money, more guaranties, more appeals. Yet where actually is the clear accounting, what happened with the donated benefits?
Third: We as Germans can no longer afford this. While our local governments are at limit, while families and Mittelstand note every month how expensive everything has become, while the Bundeswehr cannot even secure it own basic equipment, we shall play the role of long-term paymaster in a foreign conflict thanks to the CDU Politik.
Claudia
Roth (Greens): Thank Putin!
Ladies and gentlemen, there needs finally be an end to that!
Thomas Rachel
(CDU/CSU): For that, the Russian Putin is responsible.
What do you
then say to a war of aggression counter to international law?
What do you say to Russia’s aggressive war counter to international law?
Listen for once! You are elected as a representative of the German people, and not as a member of the Ukrainian Rada! This, the CDU’s Politik needs finally to understand.
Thomas Rachel
(CDU/CSU): That is, ja, embarrassing!
Fourth, and this is the point which altered everything: How do we deal with the apparent Ukrainian attack on our infrastructure, on the sovereignty of Germany? The Federal Court of Justice in its ruling of December 10, 2025, on the Nordstream sabotage, proceeded on the basis that the attacks on the Nordstream pipelines resulted from a “highly likely […] foreign state order”. It was accepted that the act was initiated and controlled by a foreign state. The defense of the Ukrainian suspects wanted to attain immunity for these, in which – listen well, dear colleagues of the CDU – it is argued the act is a part of the war between the Ukraine and Russia.
Knut
Abraham (CDU/CSU): Who gave the order?
Everything, really everything indicates that this attack was ordered with knowledge of the Ukrainian government. The Federal government cannot simply so continue as if this was not acknowledged. I today quite clearly demand of you: Finally examine this!
Knut
Abraham (CDU/CSU): Yes, yes! For months!
Billions of German tax money were invested in this infrastructure project, and you did not attempt to manage a clarification. That is harmful for Germany and our citizens.
We therefore want that now an investigative and tracking staff for the clarification of corruption, money laundering, arms trafficking, and finance of terrorism be established [Drucksache 21/3839]. We also want that complete transparency be established vis-à-vis Bundestag and public by a website following the model of the American Ukraine oversight structures. One matter needs finally be clarified: Who expends the taxpayers’ money, he has no right to non-transparency.
Claudia
Roth (Green): The AfD says that!
That, the CDU needs finally learn and understand, ladies and gentlemen.
We say today quite clearly: No more weapons deliveries, no additional armaments. Yes, humanitarian aid is possible. But all that effects a prolongation of the war, we no longer want.
Stefan
Schmidt (Greens): Putin has written that
for you, or?
We want that German tax money finally remains here in Germany, and does not flow to whichever oligarchs. We want to take care that this money benefits our schools, our streets, our German infrastructure, our citizens – something which these gentlemen have long since forgotten. For that, we were elected to make Politik for German citizens – and not for the Ukraine!
Thomas Rachel (CSU/CSU): We make Politik for all peoples. That is the distinction.
[trans: tem]
