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]

Mary Khan, May 20, 2026, Victims of Migrant Crime

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)05-20(3-0404-0000).

Frau President.

A 15  years old girl in Hamburg was a victim of a gang rape. To this day,                             she is traumatized. Eleven men appeared before a court, only one was jailed. She was left in the lurch by this system, by that system which by means of the illegal mass immigration also imported the phenomenon of gang rape – even if the SPD, as before, lies about it.

And then the incomprehensible: An enraged women wrote a so-called hate commentary against one of the perpetrators and was arrested. The convicted rapist remained at large. That is no victims protection! And to victims protection also belongs justice for the parents. Since 2015, ever more migrant perpetrators are declared not legally responsible [unschuldfähig]. The mother of Lianna K. and the parents of the murdered Yannis from Aschaffenberg will never know justice since the murderers, on account of war traumas, were categorized as incapable of reason [unzurechnungsfähig] – the new favorite framing of the leftists.

We miss that in this draft and therefore we will not vote for it.

[trans: tem]

Markus Frohnmaier, May 21, 2026, Nordstream Investigation

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/80, pp. 9520-9521.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

On September 26, 2022, the greatest assault on the economic infrastructure in the history of the Federal Republic was committed. Three of four strands of the Nordstream pipeline were exploded – critical infrastructure in which Germany and its partners had invested over 16 billion euros.

Today, in May 2026, we still have no conclusive explanation. We know only: Seven Ukrainians are under earnest suspicion, among whom is a Ukrainian former secret service man as operations leader, and a saboteur who previously received military training with the Bundeswehr – you heard right: German taxpayers have paid for the training of the man who later blew up German energy infrastructure. Thus appears Ukrainian gratitude and the short-sightedness of this government.  

The Federal Court of Justice on December 10, 2025, in all clarity declared: The explosion was a violation of German rights of sovereignty. The pipelines were no legitimate military target, certainly after Germany had supported the Ukraine with weapons and billions of euros. The act occurred with a high likelihood – listen well, dear colleagues of the CDU – by state order, at least of the Ukraine and perhaps also of additional states. Period!

And the Federal government? Silence in the woods. I put a written, single question to the Federal government, quite simple: Have you requested an extradition of the five suspects to be found in the Ukraine? A question to be answered with yes or no. A question which any government which acts in the German interest, which does not understand itself to be Kiev’s marionette, would have answered with a clear yes. Yet the answer of Herr Wadephul’s ministry: Rejection, no information can be given on this.

Either the Federal government has never seriously demanded an extradition – or the Ukraine has rejected it. In both cases, ladies and gentlemen, it is a scandal which this Bundestag needs to clarify. Ladies and gentlemen, who does not answer such a question, he has something to hide. Who does not answer such a question, he does not serve Germany. Who does not answer such a question, he serves someone, but not the German citizens. 

Who then in these days – and this is the last straw – proposes an associate membership in the EU for the Ukraine, a country at war, inclusive of EU assistance clauses, dear CDU/CSU, he serves a foreign country to which he can send his own children. As a father of two children, I distinctly say to you one thing: You don’t get my children!

Let us look at Warsaw: There, a court has quite knowingly set free one of the suspects. A provocation contrary to the state of law. 

Alice Weidel (AfD): Absolutely!

Quote, Minister-president Tusk: “Europe’s problem…is not that Nordstream 2 was exploded, but that it was built.”

Irene Mihalic (Greens): So it is!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is unbearable that an EU partner approves of terrorism and sabotage against German infrastructure and that in this regard until today there is no clear reaction from Berlin.

This shows one thing quite clearly: In foreign policy, this government consists of servants of foreign interests. 

Jürgen Hardt (CDU/CSU): This, the righteous says!

I promise you one thing: We will end this national self-abasement for which the CDU here in Germany has to answer. 

Instead of demanding compensation from Kiev, instead of defending German interests, Chancellor Merz publicly excludes the re-start of the intact pipeline – a voluntary self-mortification. While German households today pay 80 percent more for gas, while our industry for this pays quadruple what American competitors pay, you sacrifice our energy sovereignty on the altar of unconditional loyalty to Ukraine. Germany has transferred 94 billion euros to the Ukraine since 2022, 55 billion euros for the military alone. For thanks, President Zelenskyi, to whom all of you here collectively in plenary session, with a non-parliamentary term for a  designated body part, have crawled, according the Wall Street Journal, has quite personally approved the terror operation. 

Alice Weidel (AfD): So!

Ladies and gentlemen, the question is no longer whether an investigative committee comes, the question is why you are afraid of this. You for years have left your own people in obscurity. You have taken care for the perpetrators’ business, 

Jürgen Hardt (CDU/CSU): You stand on the side of Russia!

President Julia Klöckner: Your time has run out. 

and undertaken as good as nothing to hunt the perpetrators. I promise you one thing: 

President Julia Klöckner: Your time, regardless of promises, has run out.

You cannot still take up time.

The investigative committee will come at the latest after the next Bundestag election. 

[trans: tem]

René Aust, June 15, 2026, European Economic Independence

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)06-15(1-0060-0000).

Over night, Europe was cut off from leading technologies. In this area also, the dependence on the United States of America once again became a boomerang . Yet who actually is responsible for this? Just a few decades ago, it was so that Germany in regards the development in this area was quite advanced; names like Schmidhuber and others were exemplary for that. 

Yet it is so that the financial regulations here in the European internal market make it ever more difficult to really drive forward such large developments - in contrast to the U.S.A.. And the AI Act, the law on artificial intelligence and the regulations pertaining thereto were once again - so as to formulate it carefully - over-formulated. The excess caution, to be able to regulate in advance all that is possible, lead to that our firms could not develop at a sufficient scale - in contrast to the United States of America.

Today, the outcry is again great. We need to place more freedom and less bureaucracy at the disposal of our businessmen. Yet in other areas also the dependence of Europe and Germany is simply horrifying because we thereby make ourselves liable to extortion. Europe needs more partners in the world, and this only works when those responsible in Europe no longer instruct with the upraised middle finger and want to re-educate other cultures, but by which we extend the hand for honest cooperation.

[trans: tem]

Siegbert Frank Droese, May 21, 2026, EU Capital Market Securitization Reports

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)05-21(4-0257-0000).

Herr President. Honored colleagues.

We deliberate today on two reports on securitization - on one side, for equity 
requirements, on the other, on a so-called securitization framework. For the ESN
delegation is clear: De-bureaucratization is right. Exactly so clear is however for 
us also: We are allowed to issue no blank checks for new financial instruments. 
The citizens have not forgotten the financial crisis. Securitization is not allowed to 
mean privatizing profits, disguising risks and in the end leaving the taxpayer liable.

We support simplification there where it increases transparency and strengthens the 
economy. We nevertheless decisively reject regulations which blur liabilities, 
centralize supervision and place Brussels capital market policy over the stability of 
national banking systems. Our standard is thereby quite simple - solid financing for 
business firms, security for the European saver and no rescue packages at the cost of 
the citizens. Thus formulated, it is impossible for us to vote for these reports. 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, June 11, 2026, Merz Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/83, pp. 9927-9929.

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

This government declaration was the recessional of one who has failed. Herr Merz, your own people already discuss your discharge, yet they sing songs of praise to themselves.

For the facts: The labor market topples. The German economy has lost a half million jobs in the first quarter vis-à-vis the previous year. Every 20 minutes a business falls victim to the insolvency tsunami. The number of industrial orders collapses twice as much as expected. The industrial core is melting. High taxes and energy costs, bureaucracy and a planned economy strangle the basis of our business while the state Apparat ever further grows. Industry’s exodus to foreign countries borders on mass flight.

With the businesses and the jobs go the people. In your first year in office, so many Germans citizens have emigrated as never before. 

Mirze Edis (Linke): On account of the AfD!

It is the young, it is the well educated who go because in their own country they no longer see a future.

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): You were first to go! To Switzerland!

The mass immigration into our sozial system from the third world, on the other hand, continues unabated. A six-figure number of illegals immigrates under the pretense of asylum, and with that an additional large city through the backdoor of family reunification. In regards deportations, your balance is still more catastrophic than that of the Ampel.

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Such nonsense!

Does thus appear a migration change?  Quite the contrary. You still manifest the failed mass immigration in which you discard the German citizenship to these illegal migrants. The trashing of the German passport in your first year in government has reached a new record. Who does not live in a sealed-off bubble, for her the increase of violent, sexual, brutal crime is no cold statistic, but a daily accompaniment in the form of one’s own fear and the concern for our children. At the train station in Nürnberg, hometown of CSU chairman Marcus Söder, migrant gangs plied a German female minor with drugs so to abuse her as a sex slave. I ask you: How many Nürnbergs are there in Germany? And what have you all – yes, all here – by mass immigration, brutality and moral decline made of our country?

Do not take the Germans for naïve. 

Harald Ebner (Greens); Eijeijei!

They very well register how you treat them. They hear exactly when the Sozial Minister and SPD chairman Bärbel Bas makes us contemptible as a “brown unit” [Einheitsbraun]. Who thus speaks, hates her own and herself and has no business in government. 

Your contempt for the Germans is also found in the Sozialpolitik’s expression. The German tax- and contribution payers shall pay higher pension contributions and work longer. They shall accept higher rising sozial contributions and massive benefits cuts and, in a case of maintained care, commit their entire wealth and their own homes for which they long saved. But they shall come up with the life-long, full provision for millions of third world boarders.

Dagmar Schmidt (SPD-Wetzler): That is a lie!

Siemtje Möller (SPD): That is simply fake news!

One need not know more of this Federal government!

For migration costs, 

Jürgen Cosse SPD): Have you another theme?

development aid, energy transition, climate protection madness, you yearly squander three-figure billion sums. There is no talk of savings and cuts. The failed energy transition has already squandered 500 billion euros and will still cost ten times that, thus over 5 trillion euros. You have wantonly and intentionally destroyed the energy infrastructure of the Federal Republic of Germany. 

Billions upon billions of euros you send to the Ukraine and thereby finance the prolongation of a war which long since ought to have been ended.

Florian Müller (CDU/CSU): Ask Putin!

Tilman Kuban (CDU/CSU): You get along with Putin!

To this day, you demand no accounting from Kiev over the explosion of the Nordstream pipeline. Vital infrastructure for our economy was thereby destroyed, and a massive harm was inflicted. Instead, you wantonly seek the confrontation with Russia, an atomic power, so as to distract from your own failures. You speak of war, you always only speak of war and want to support this war and draw Germany into this war. In that regard, peace is exactly what this continent needs – and the Ukraine also. Let us finally speak of peace instead of war!

And to the truth also belongs: No, the Ukraine may never become a member of the European Union and of NATO. Period, stop, basta!

Wilfried Oellers (CDU/CSU): You read what Putin wrote for you!

Record debts, higher taxes and duties, de-industrialization, danger of war, migrant violence, hate crimes against Germans: The citizens have no more to expect from this Federal government and from you.

– Hit hounds howl. –

That is not only your failure, Herr Merz, but that of your entire government. For that, you bear the responsibility, you have submitted yourself, for better or for worse, to the leftist SPD, hostile to Germany and to performance. With such personnel, a political change is not done.

Wilfried Oellers (CDU/CSU): With your kind, also not!

Therefore, urgent reforms now need be initiated.

We need to immediately declare the so-called climate crisis and the energy transition to be at an end. Even the world climate council has meanwhile cashed in its horror scenarios. Thus why wait? We need to set aside the CO2 duty, lower the energy taxes, re-enter the nuclear power, completely abolish the combustion engine Verbot and the heating Diktat. What we need is market economy and favorable energy, not a Verbotspolitik. 

Ralf Stegner (SPD): Your understanding, you’ve completely abolished!

The state citizenship law needs be reformed and the naturalization hurdles need to be drastically raised. The sozial state migration magnets need to be shut off. Illegals migrants need to be rejected without exception at our borders. Criminals and illegals need to be turned back.

– You should for once make Politik for our country, dear SPD. You are already at 11 or 12 percent. Or where are you now? –

If one has actually only been with the Antifa, then you can also make no reasonable Politik. This we of course see in the Vice-chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil: Learned nothing, never worked, only been with the Antifa, cannot deal with numbers. And thus our country is precisely there where it certainly is.

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Oh Mann, Mann, Mann!

Dirk Weise (SPD): Here comes the elite movement, here forward!

You thus have two options, Herr Merz. You can loosen the blockade by which you end the leftist coalition with the SPD and seek new, constructive majorities, 

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Here, I laugh myself kaputt!

or you can continue to wait and do nothing – which is to be expected – until the citizens compel new elections for an AfD reform government. First in the States, then in the Bund.

We are ready to overtake responsibility, because Germany has deserved, 

Ralf Stegner (SPD): Germany has deserved democracy!

because we Germans have deserved to be well governed.

I am grateful.

Ralf Stegner (SPD): Such a farce!

Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Big propaganda show! That, you likely learned in Moscow!

Ja, schmerzlich, nicht wahr? Das tut weh!

[trans: tem]

Leif-Erik Holm, May 22, 2026, Nordstream Power Plant

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/81, pp. 9779-9780.

Dear Citizens. Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Germany speaks of exploding energy prices, of a lack of supply security, of new gas power plants which shall be built. Meanwhile, the Federal government wants to give away a fully functional gas power plant in Lubmin.

It is a question of an important power heating coupling system which pre-warmed the gas arriving there from the Nordstream pipelines. Since the destruction of our critical infrastructure, this power plant can no longer do its service. We say: That need not remain so. The AfD positions itself strictly opposed to giving away our infrastructure. We want that this power plant remain in the Lubmin location in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and I demand of you to include yourselves in that.

All Germany shakes its head that we, in times of tight accounts, give away our functioning facilities to foreign countries, 

Michael Kellner (Greens): Out of solidarity!

And then even to the state which with high likelihood had the Nordstream pipelines blown up, on account of which this power plant was idled in a moment. That is really just grotesque.

Michael Kellner (Greens): Yet no one needs that power plant!

Claudia Müller (Greens): Grotesque is your speech!

How much corn need one have drunk to make such a policy? The presumed perpetrator receives a gift wrapped in ribbons. Out of self-respect, that cannot be in our own national interest. 

Many citizens also see it so. I experience it directly on my tour through Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. At a stand in Greifswald-Wieck, practically right opposite from Lubmin, a man came to me and said: He previously had actually been a non-voter, but since he heard the story of the power plant,

Michael Kellner (Greens): Jaja!

he had now decided: It’s enough: He now votes AfD. That is actually a good decision. Who wants a far-sighted Politik, he votes AfD. 

What is it then if the Ukraine war – hopefully soon – goes to an end and relations with Russia are again normalized? The power plant would then be ready to again prepare unrivaled favorable gas. Precisely this gas we need for an affordable energy supply.

Michael Kellner (Greens): You want to again make us dependent! Na super! Hearty thanks!

Beatrix von Storch (AfD): We become independent by power plant giveaways, ja? There, we become independent?

I do the math for you, Herr Kellner: We still have an operable strand from Nordstream. Which could deliver some 27 billion cubic meters of gas per year. That would be a quarter of our requirement, in the future even still less. There would thus not at all be any dependence. That, you cannot here assert. That is rubbish!

We await a responsible Politik that takes in view such opportunities. No one today can seriously forecast how the geo-political situation will appear in five or ten years. Perhaps the new cold war quickly goes to an end, what we all of us would ultimately wish. And then? Who this power plant gives away with a swipe of the pen, he thereby knowingly destroys an important strategic option of Germany and thereby inflicts a serious harm on our country.

Alice Weidel (AfD): An additional serious harm!

Let us look at a new construction. The new construction of such a system would last three to five years – plus planning time, likely eight years – and the taxpayer would need again grasp deep in the pocket. Around 100 million euros would again be gone. That makes clear: Here, we should be making SEFE [Securing Energy for Europe, GmbH] facts which are then scarcely to revise. A responsible government, which thinks further than twelve to noon, would keep this system on board in the country.  

Michael Kellner (Greens): Clear! It thus stands around and gathers dust!

And in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the opinion is clear on that. Thus a majority of the local government in Vorpommern-Rügen also demanded examining domestic options. In Mukran, a power heating coupling system is sought for the LNG terminal.

Claudia Müller (Greens): Yet you demanded the opposite! What now?

The motion besides came from the AfD and was also supported by the CDU. And CDU State Chairman Peters said: Critical infrastructure should initially be used here in the country, and in doubt preferably not leave the country. – Aha! And so you also should also keep it here, dear colleagues of the Union. Herr Amthor, you can for once respond the same.

Ladies and gentlemen, the giving away of the system would from every viewpoint be a serious failure at the cost of our citizens and businesses. Who wants good, forward-looking Politik for Germany, he would leave the Lubmin gas power plant in the country, and indeed ideally there where it is now, where it in the future can offer new opportunities.

Many thanks.

[trans: tem]

Hans Neuhoff, May 19, 2026, EU Defense and the U.S.A.

EU Parliament, Strasbourg,  P10 CRE-REV(2026)05-19(2-0383-0000).

Frau President.

The United States is withdrawing troops which in the course of the Ukraine crisis it had moved to Europe. That was politically announced and thus foreseeable.

Who is now concerned the U.S.A. would quite suddenly leave Europe in the lurch, can calm down, turning to the other page: Great powers tend to have their vassals tremble occasionally. Yet the U.S.A. will not choose to to give up its bridgehead to Eurasia. The true enemy of Europe is not the Russian Federation but the Islamic totalitarianism. It threatens the open societies not only from without but also from within – supported by the leftist-green zealots of this parliament. 

Thus the actual question is not whether America remains. The question is whether Europe will awake. Who preaches strategic autonomy may not at the same time order his security policy maturity in Washington [darf nicht zugleich seine sicherheitspolitische Mündigkeit in Washington bestellen]. It does not go well together to emancipate oneself rhetorically from the U.S.A., yet to practically always purchase new weapons from it. 

[trans: tem]

Marc Bernhard, May 21, 2026, Heating Law and CDU

German Bundestag, May 21, 2026, Plenarprotokoll 2/80, pp. 9558-9560. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Hurrah, the heating law will be abolished, and everyone can again install what he wants – that is the fairy tale which you of the Federal government want to tell us. Your proposal of a so-called modernization law [Gebäudemodernisierungsgesetzes] is nothing other than Habeck’s heating hammer through the backdoor. 

With your Biotreppe [Bio-stair] you obligate the people to operate new construction oil and gas heating with initially 10 percent, later 60 percent bio-gas or bio-oil. Ja, where then shall all the bio-gas and bio-oil at all come from? According to your own statements, you yourselves do not know. The green energy minister from Baden-Württemberg confirms that initially there is not enough of this bio-manure. 

You also do not know what this madness will cost, yet proceed on, according to your own testimony, it will be so expensive that, practically, the people will simply no longer be able to afford operating an oil or gas heating. The people thereby remain – 

     Vice-president Andrea Lindholz: Herr colleague, there is a wish for an interim                         question from the Union delegation. Do you want to permit it? 

Gladly. 

     Vice-president Andrea Lindholz: Herr colleague Koller, please.

    Hans Koller (CDU/CSU): Many thanks, Herr colleague, that you have permitted the interim question.     You indeed have said we ourselves did not know where all the bio-manure shall come from. Have you     actually, really spoken with the branch? In this week, the bio-gas council came together, the bio-gas         technical associations met and on all sides is clearly confirmed: We have this potential. We have here     structures, and we can also service this. Do you not want to know, or does this not suit your ideology? 

You should perhaps preferably know your government better. I have put precisely this question to State Secretary Bartel yesterday in the Building Committee. I put to him the question: Where will all of this bio-manure come from? And he then correspondingly said to me: That, we do not know. 

    Klaus Wiener (CDU/CSU): The branch! Perhaps not him, but the branch! 

In the summer there will be a commission which will be occupied with this theme. This is completely irresponsible, what you are doing here. You introduce a bio-stair, and do not know where all the fuel shall come from. That is the reality.

And the green Energy Minister in Baden-Württemberg has exactly confirmed it: This bio-manure is not on the market. You coax the people and introduce some kind of stairway into nothing. You will not thereby come to grips. Stop lying to the people! 

         Hans Koller (CDU/CSU): I’ld recommend that to you!

Finally make reasonable Politik for the people out there, that they then can again pay their heating costs! 

There is besides: You do not know what this madness will cost, yet thence end in the people will no longer have sufficient money to operate this heating. Thereby remains for the people only the warm pump or distance heating, exactly so as with Habeck. 

Not only Habeck’s heating hammer remains practically in force, you worsen the situation for not already today installed oil and gas heating to the point of inability to pay; namely, through the certificate trade in 2028, decided in common by you, CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens, already in the German Bundestag. That is in fact in one and a half years. All experts thence proceed on that the CO₂ tax will thus at least be quadrupled to quintupled. 

            Andreas Lenz (CDU/CSU): Rubbish! AfD experts council, apparently! 

            Lisa Badum (Greens): You have the source of the numbers? Nonsense!

In regards gas heating, that leads to a price increase of around 60 percent – just by the CO₂ tax. And in regards heating oil, we are speaking of a costs explosion of around 100 percent. Here, the CO₂ tax portion will climb from the present 21 cents to then almost 1 euro per litre of heating oil. 

            Andreas Lenz (CDU/CSU): That’s just not right!

That means added yearly costs of around 1,200 euros for gas and 1,800 euros for oil. 

That is to say: You are worse than Habeck, who simply verboten the people from newly installing oil and gas heating, while you act as if you would leave to the people themselves the free choice to decide which heating they install. At the same time you, however, make oil and gas so expensive that no one can afford it as well, thereby drive the people in fact to the warm pump and thereby force them to expend 100,000 to 150,000 euros for the installation and the necessary reconstruction and insulation measures. Most of all owners and landlords will simply not be able to pay that, and thereby they will have no other choice than either to need to sell their dwelling at far under value, or again install a gas or oil heating. 

Because you quite precisely know that many renters can no longer pay the heating costs on account of your CO₂ cascade of increases, you now want to defend the renters from your own Politik in which you leave it to the landlord to pay. The landlord in the future shall pay 50 percent of the CO₂ tax of their renters, even though they have no influence on the heating consumption. This is nothing other than a bad, immoral contract at the cost of a third  party. 

And is thereby long since fully clear that the heating hammer is fully ineffective, absolutely ineffective. Since the optimistic accounting of the former Habeck ministry itself proceeds on a yearly savings of just one, single percent of the entire German CO₂ emissions, thus the CO₂ quantity which China blasts into the air in just five hours. And, for that, you destroy the savings,  the old age provision and the prosperity of the people in our country. How insane are you, actually? Had you simply let just the last three nuclear power plants continue to run, we would each year save double as much CO₂ as through your entire heating hammer. 

Heating law becomes modernization law. Raider is now called Twix, but changes nix! 

            Lisa Badum (Greens): Children’s talk by the AfD!

  

[trans: tem]

 

Christine Anderson, May 19, 2026, EU Veto Right

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)05-19(2-0150-0000).

Mr. President, history teaches us something important: political systems tend to become more bureaucratic when confidence in their political leadership dwindles. Once democratic trust declines, institutions attempt to compensate through procedures, frameworks and mechanisms. Bureaucracy, however, must not ever replace legitimacy. As Hannah Arendt warned, bureaucracy easily becomes the rule of nobody, a system in which decisions are made everywhere, while responsibility is nowhere to be found.

An EU without the veto right of Member States would slide down a very dangerous slippery slope, which we are actually seeing already. A Union that struggles to build democratic consent falls back on permanent crisis, government governance and an ever-increasing institutional expansion, while gradually hacking away at the very roots on which it rests – the sovereignty of its Member States.

But Europe does not need a permanent machinery of governance, nor does it need a foreign policy detached from its nations and peoples. It needs democratic legitimacy, and it needs accountability, and it needs leaders capable of building consensus between sovereign nations. Because once unanimity disappears, the EU ceases to be a union of equal nations, cooperating freely. It becomes something fundamentally different, a union subjecting sovereign nations to its rule – a foreign rule. History has seen such systems before – Rome, the Soviet Union. Hit the books, read up on it and draw the lessons.

Christian Wirth, May 6, 2026, Immigration Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/76, pp. 9113-9114. 

Frau President. Valued colleagues. 

A nation consists of a citizenry [Staatsvolk], state borders [Staatsgrenzen] and state power [Staatsgewalt]. This has bestowed on us for decades security, prosperity and a solid sozial system and with which we improvise [damit wir die Notdürftigen auffangen]. This system since 2015 crumbles. It is characteristic that today two delegations, which are rather socialist oriented, put forward respective motions as if to say: All may enter, none need go. 

You have at least acknowledged that, according to German asylum law, anyone can be turned back at the border who comes from a secure third state or an EU state. Yet let us consider the Dublin decree. What is in the Dublin decree? In article 1 of the Dublin decree is that a state is responsible for the examination of the asylum application. That makes sense. 

            Clara Bünger (Linke): The rest of the article you have not read?

Since the 1990s, since the first Dublin treaty, two things were important: For one, asylum shopping shall be abolished, thus no refugees in orbit: Which is to say: No asylum applicant shall be able to seek out a system, a country, in which he receives the highest sozial payments. For another, no situation shall be created where no state considers itself responsible. That is the expression of article 3, paragraph 1, of the Dublin III decree whereby only one state is responsible for the examination and the execution of the asylum application. 

Who is responsible? That is in article 13 of the Dublin III decree. Responsible primarily is the state in which the member of the third state for the first time enters the EU. There are exceptions which are to be examined; for example, in regards family members in another state. 

How do we examine this? In article 20, paragraph 4, of the Dublin III decree is expressly provided that, for this, there can be at most two states: The state into which the third state member enters the EU, and, when he arrives in a further state, the state which then has to examine which state is responsible. That is in the rule of the first state, i.e., for Germany, when family members are there. 

Now comes the decisive sentence. In article 3, paragraph 2, is provided that every EU state is justified to then turn back at the border when it is clear that the processing of a member of a third state, of a migrant, is to be carried out by another state. That is nothing other than what is provided for in article 18, paragraph 2, of the Dublin III decree. And there provides: When another state is responsible for the execution of the asylum procedure, every EU state can turn back the refugee. That is precisely what German asylum law also says. 

            Clara Bünger (Linke): A proceeding is required! 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): We need do that once!

You demand the observance of EU law. I think, we are agreed: EU law is contract law. We have a contract between EU states and the EU. Everyone needs adhere to contracts – pacta sunt servanda – regulated in the Vienna convention on the law of international contracts. 

Now there is article 3, paragraph 2, of the EU Treaty which also applies to Schengen and to  asylum: There is provided: 

           "The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum and immigration and the prevention and combating of crime."

What did the EU do? It fulfilled none of these treaty requirements. We indeed have, in article 23 of the Basic Law, given over in part our sovereign rights to the EU. Nevertheless, the EU has obligations, and when it cannot fulfill these obligations there is, according to article 23, paragraph 1, of the Basic Law a regualtion – a subsidiarity principle – which says: We need to concern ourselves with our own affairs. That is to say: If we want to have security, order and an asylum system which function, then we ourselves need to regulate that, because, for that, the EU is not in position. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Sell, May 19, 2026, Germany and the U.S. Military

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)05-19(2-0375-0000). 

Frau President. 

Angela Merkel has today here received a service order. She did almost everything wrong, yet in one matter she was right: Friedrich Merz can’t do it. 

Germany does not come out of the crisis: Industry emigrates, unemployment rises, the infrastructure crumbles, the sickness accounts are bankrupt, domestic security is lost and the special funds for the German Bundeswehr have fizzled out without effect. Yet instead of concerning himself with these problems, the Chancellor preferably plays the world politician: In front of schoolchildren in Sauerland, he declared that the U.S.A. had been humiliated in Iran. Trump consequently was so sour that he announced the withdrawal of 5,000 American soldiers from the Oberpfalz.   

German is not capable of defense – we want to change that! Yet we do not achieve that while we ignore our own problems and instead explain the world to the Americans. We first need to mind our own business. We need to deport illegal migrants so as to save our sozial system. We need to reactivate our nuclear power plants so that we do not lose our industry. And we need to better equip the Bundeswehr so that we are able, without American help, to defend ourselves. That would be the duties for Friedrich Merz. He wants that, yet we see: He can’t do it. 

 

[trans: tem]

Martin Sichert, May 7, 2026, Healthcare and the German Left

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/77, pp. 9168-9171. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

It is madness that, for the CDU, SPD and Greens, the migration lobby, the trans NGOs and the foreign family members are more important than their own fellow citizens. It is madness that doctors and care-givers are knowingly driven out by CDU, SPD and Greens so people may be persuaded that additional immigration is required. It is madness that cancer care, dental restoration and orthodontics will no longer be paid for, yet for sickening hormone therapies for children and youths. It is madness that German married couples shall pay thousands of euros more while parents and wives in Turkey will continue to be insured without cost. An end to this madness! 

The SPD’s and CDU’s clear-cutting in healthcare is catastrophic and is here outdone by the Greens. You want to implement all sixty-six proposals of the lobbyists commission. The Greens want an absolute clear-cutting in the health sector and present themselves as the grave-diggers of healthcare. 

On the theme of hospitals, for example, the Greens move – cite: “By the consistent deconstruction of occasional care […] to push back […] uneconomic parallel structures”. “Deconstruction of occasional care” is a harmless sounding euphemism for the death of hospitals in the country. 

Clinics which make no profit, according to the will of the Greens, shall be flattened. If it is up to them, three of four clinics in my constituency need to close. An absolute catastrophe for the healthcare of people which in my constituency alone each year could cost hundreds of human lives.

            Christos Pantazis (SPD): Wicked insinuation!

Besides the clinics, CDU, SPD and Greens also want to save on the remuneration of doctors. As a result, still more highly qualified medical and care forces will leave the profession or indeed the country. Thereby still further increases the burden for those who remain, and as a result of the increasing stress still more people go abroad. As a consequence, the care becomes ever worse, and the waiting times become ever longer. 

The citizens suffer ever more because their sicknesses are no longer dealt with promptly. And then come CDU, SPD and Greens and propagandize that we need additional immigration because we have too little skilled labor in the country. In truth, it is the policy of CDU, SPD and Greens which drives skilled labor abroad. 

You knowingly manage the exodus of capable Germans so that you and your NGOs can call for the next migration wave into the country. CDU, SPD and Greens are quite knowingly destroying the German health sector so as to carry out their mass migration agenda. You leave the sick to suffer and force the last cent from the citizens only to thereby be able to further manage your propaganda of how urgently we need to bring more foreigners into the country. 

If these parties are allowed, the waiting time for a doctor’s appointment may on average no longer be 42 days but 42 weeks. CDU, SPD and Greens trample on the employees in the health sector. There needs finally be an end to that. It is highest time for a policy which values the work of this important occupational group. 

It is a lie that we need immigration into the labor market. As in the 60s guest workers were taken in, we had full employment. Meanwhile, we have over 5 million people in Bügergeld, and we have millions of unemployed. Before we take foreigners into the country and educate them here  in this country, we first need to bring into work our own unemployed. We need to retain in the country the good skilled labor in the health sector. And for that, create the correct parameters. 

Yet the Greens want to implement all imputations which have occurred to the CDU and SPD lobbyist commission. Care examinations like skin cancer screenings shall be completely eliminated. The co-payments for medicines, for dental restoration and in hospices shall rise massively. Orthodontics for children shall be paid for only on a limited basis. Health becomes a luxury good which only a few can still afford. Yet the life-long debilitating hormone treatments for children and youth who have been persuaded that it is “in” to be trans, these will be further paid for, exactly so as wigs for trans-sexuals. 

The people can no longer afford necessary dental treatments. Yet the accounts continue to pay for trans wigs? Life-saving cancer care is eliminated. Yet the accounts pay for life-long, psychological and physical debilitating hormone treatments for children? 

            Janosch Dahmen (Greens): My goodness!

Kids from poor families shall in the future run around with bad jawbones? Yet you destroy the innocent souls of children with massive hormone doses? That, the account shall continue to pay. For every halfway normal thinking person, that is completely wrong. Yet Greens, CDU and SPD  want this so as to further feed their trans NGOs. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Fake news, and contempt for people! That is what                               you bring here!

It really is madness where you set your priorities and what you line up for Germany. It is highest time for an alternative to this madness. 

            Luigi Pantisano (Linke): That is nauseating!

– Yes, I find your Politik nauseating. 

            Luigi Pantisano (Linke): Nauseating!

The Greens want to end the contribution-free co-insurance of married couples in Germany. Exactly so, according to the wishes of the coalition, shall wives and parents in Turkey remain co-insured at no cost. Yet, German married couples shall pay almost 3,000 euros more. 

Quite especially important in the Greens’ motion is introducing new taxes or increasing existing taxes. You write, cite: 

            “[...] heavier taxation of high percentage alcohol, a manufacturing duty for                               strong sugar content drinks, as well as an increase [..] in the taxes on                                      tobacco and nicotine products [...]”

I seldom experience in my speeches applause from the Greens; yet that is no wonder. You certainly cannot clap; since you always have both hands deep in the pockets of the taxpayers. It really appears schizophrenic that the Greens want to introduce more taxes and in the same breath write – cite: “Not […] the citizens are the problem – but the costs in the system.” Ja, if you recognize this, then stop ever further burdening the citizens. Yet reforms were never your thing. For you, it’s ever only about having the citizens bled with taxes and duties, and spoiling for them the pleasure in life. 

            Christos Pantazis (SPD): That, the righteous says!

You destroy the health of an entire people, you intentionally destroy our sozial system; yet there, we do not cooperate! 

We of the AfD with our motion have shown how in the short-term 17 billion euros, and 40 billion euros in the mid-term, can be saved. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): You’ve shown nothing at all!

We do this alone through increase of efficiency in the system and through the removal of benefits foreign to insurance. We of the AfD stand on the side of the citizens, the patients and the employees in the health sector.

             Janosch Dahmen (Greens): You make things more expensive than they were!

You, on the contrary, want to load the contribution payer with parts of immense contribution increases. You want to destroy families, want to have the health sector bled. We do not cooperate. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): If it’s up to you, we here would have                                            no more doctors!

I can only call upon every citizen to defy this madness. 

Dear fellow citizens, help us to maintain our sozial state. Become a member of the AfD! Fight with us for a good healthcare system! For 10 euros per month, you can become a freedom fighter for Germany. Join us! 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): Ach, what for a level in the Bundestag!

– And your outcry shows how very right we are. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Arno Bausemer, April 30, 2026, Local Livestock Industry

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)04-30(4-0026-0000). 

Herr President. Herr Commissioner. Esteemed ladies and gentlemen. 

Over almost all of Europe, the temperatures in these days climb to over 20 degrees. And here many Europeans use the opportunity to begin grill season. The grill is hauled out of the garage, the charcoal is hauled out, packed into the grill, on the grate steak, bratwurst – and it gets going. This is for many years a good tradition and this should remain so. 

The green climate hysterics and chive proponents thereby of course break out into selective panic, tears or gasping. Coal, a dangerous climate killer! Happily gaseous stockyards also drive the CO₂ figure to the heights. And meat? Meat, unhealthy, dangerous. The Apocalypse is at hand. Nein, it is not so. On the contrary: Meat is healthy. To Europeans, meat is tasty. In Germany alone, the citizen last year consumed 55 kilograms of meat, tendency rising. And a guaranty for that are the functioning structures in our agriculture. 

I am very happy – out of personal experience – to read in the report of colleague Carlo Fidanza that the role of regional, local slaughterhouses was emphasized. This is of course important, and exactly such matters are produced to prevent animal transport and animal suffering when animals are kept and slaughtered locally. That is the future for Europe. And, if I may say a bit loosely, the only good wurst is a grilled wurst. 

 

[trans: tem]

Gerold Otten, April 17, 2026, Lebanon’s Sovereignty

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/72, pp. 8698-8699. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

With deep concern we look these days at the present developments in the Near East. While the reporting and the diplomatic attention is concentrated primarily on the situation in the Persian Gulf, the tragedy in Lebanon fades more and more from the field of vision. Yet a few days ago my last year’s IPS [International Parliamentary Scholarship] stipendiary wrote to me from the Lebanon – I cite:

"The last weeks in Beirut were simply a daily struggle for survival in war, especially after the 160 simultaneous attacks on the Lebanon last Wednesday. I was today at work, and the atmosphere was apocalyptic - the roar of the onslaught, the ambulances' sirens, the chaos in the streets. It felt as if one were in a very gloomy movie from which there is no escape, since the attacks hit so many of Beirut's civilian areas. This day alone claimed 375 dead and 1,223 wounded!"

Ladies and gentlemen, at this current affairs hour today, it is thus important to again focus on the situation in Lebanon, and certainly when a ten-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel was announced. Since the military operations of the U.S.A. and Israel against Iran and its leading persons at the end of February, and the massive escalation by the Hezbollah at the beginning of March, Lebanon is again in flames. The Israeli operation Eternal Darkness has the declared aim of destroying Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and leadership infrastructure in all Lebanon, and to so lastingly weaken this terror organization that it in the long view no longer presents a threat to Israel. 

It is clearly the legitimate obligation and international legal preserve of a sovereign state to protect the physical integrity of its citizens against a permanent terrorist threat. Israel however also reaps hefty criticism for its attacks in the Lebanon. According to international law, indeed as per the fundamental of military necessity in an armed conflict, all military measures are allowed and legitimate for the militarily necessary fight against opposing parties in a conflict, and are not forbidden by humanitarian international law. Yet UN Secretary-general Guterres, among others, is evidently most deeply alarmed over the rising number of civilian victims. We thus demand of all parties to the conflict to observe the precept in humanitarian international law of the minimization of violence and protection of the civilian populace. 

Nevertheless, so as to attain a strategic solution by intervention in the crisis, we need to analyze beyond simple narrative Lebanon’s complex interior structures. In the European debate is often underestimated that the Hezbollah acts as a classic hybrid agent, since it is more than just a terror militia. By means of the construction of para-state structures in education, healthcare and in the economy and finance sector, it has established a power monopoly in Lebanon. It has thereby filled every vacuum which has arisen through decades-long war and the chronic failure of state institutions. There is thus for the Lebanese government a strategic dilemma of existential degree. 

The repeated international demand for a disarmament of Hezbollah – here today again brought forward – impacts a state the regular armed forces of which are far inferior to the highly armed Iranian militia in terms of material, operations and logistics. A forced crackdown in Beirut, as a result of external pressure – often demanded – would nevertheless not lead to the disarmament of Hezbollah. It would on the contrary ultimately destroy the country’s already fragile stability, and massively increase the risk of a new civil war. Ladies and gentlemen, hereby the Lebanese dilemma becomes a geo-political problem; for a permanent regional peace is not imaginable without the complete disarmament of Hezbollah. 

The previous attempts of the United Nations as observer and counselor have nevertheless failed completely. The balance of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL for short, which will end this year after two decades more or less without result, is thus especially disillusioning. The United Nations presence on the scene could neither prevent the massive armament of Hezbollah, certainly not guarantee the control of ocean transport in the Lebanon, nor strengthen the state sovereignty in southern Lebanon. 

Thus, for the future, forceful consequences need be drawn. A new UN mission, currently in talks, needs to pursue a clear goal to actively strengthen the power structures of the legitimate Lebanese government, and to purposely diminish Hezbollah’s ability to act. These military and security components need be accompanied by compulsory policy. In the current negotiations in Washington, there needs be at the center the linkage of security guarantees for the Lebanon and a robust build-up of the state. 

Security for Israel and the reconstruction of the Lebanese sovereignty are not competing goals. They are two sides of the same coin. Only a sovereign Lebanon, which is in position to exercise the monopoly of force in its entire state territory, can be a reliable guarantor for a stable peace in the region and so also increase Israel’s security. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tomasz Froehlich, April 29, 2026, Russian Athletes Ban

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)04-29(3-0414-0000). 

Frau President. 

You want to exclude Russian citizens from large sporting events. That disgusts me. That disgusts me because it is small-minded, dishonest and, at its core, totalitarian. Yes, Russia has attacked the Ukraine and, yes, we condemn that most sharply. Yet what can the Russian athletes do? You ascribe to the innocent a collective guilt, you take the innocent into a guilt by association. And it is pure civilizational regression. For, was the exclusion of the American athletes demanded as the U.S.A. marched into Vietnam? Or into Guatemala? Or into Cambodia? Or into Nicaragua? Or into Panama? Or into Somalia? Or into Yugoslavia? Or into Afghanistan? Or into Iraq? Or into  Libya? Or into Iran? Where was your guilt by association there? Where was your collective guilt thesis there? Where was the outrage? Nothing, null, nada! According to your logic, the U.S.A. would have been allowed to take part not a single time in the Olympic Games in regards all the wars which it has conducted. And no, please do not mis-understand, that would be wrong. Since American athletes can do exactly as little for the Politik of their government as do the Russians. 

Sport should unify peoples, yet you abuse sport for dividing. Your entire indignation is pure hypocrisy. It is a sign of weakness. In the Ukraine, you have achieved nothing. You pump billions into a corrupt leadership in Kiev, while our people are ever more impoverished. You torpedo peace efforts of others, yet yourselves renounce peace diplomacy, Frau Strack-Zimmermann. You impose sanctions which harm us more than Russia. You prolong by all that only the war. Internationally, no one takes you seriously. Generally, Brussels is left out. This, what you are here managing, is a hateful symbol Politik at the cost of the innocent.  More, you cannot do. Diplomatic failure paired with geo-political meaninglessness. A pity that Europe has sunk so low. 

 

[trans: tem]