Dirk Brandes, October 8, 2026, Wind Power and CDU

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/99, pp. 12463-12464.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Herr Rowher, I am amazed. Your reaction to failed offshore 
write-offs, climbing costs and growing risks is neither a 
reconsideration nor a self-criticism. Your answer continues 
to run: Still more state hedging [Absicherung]. 

Lars Rowher (CDU/CSU): That, I never said! A 
re-interpretation!

You thereby bestir yourself directly into the fast lane with 
drumbeats and trumpets to a purgatory for our country. And 
our country is called Deutschland.

Steffen Janich (AfD): Can one again applaud, or?

You hold fast to a construction goal of 70 gigawatts of offshore 
performance up to 2045. You prolong the regular run time of 
new wind parks from 25 to 35 years. And if you find no investor 
who himself wants to carry the business risk, a state-secured 
difference contract shall be tendered.

Karsten Hilse (AfD): What nonsense! Socialism pure!

What you designate as “planning realism” I call an admission. 
That your hitherto planning doesn’t work, ladies and gentlemen, 
look into it: Your entire energy transition has failed. 

Dunja Kreiser (SPD): Do you know how many 
workplaces participate in that?

You can write 70 gigawatts into the statute; the wind definitely
does not read the Federal statute register.

Alan Alhamwi (Greens): Still!

For years, citizens were told wind electricity will always be 
more favorable.

Dunja Kreiser (SPD): 120,000 workplaces!

Now suddenly this allegedly so propitious future requires 
a state price guaranty. That is certainly remarkable. The investors 
receive planning security, the Federal budget – and thereby the 
taxpayer – receives the price risk, ladies and gentlemen. I 
personally find that dishonest.

If the market price of the offshore electricity is above the 
guaranteed value, the return will be skimmed off. If it is below, 
the market premium applies. And how electricity prices and 
the costs thereof develop over decades, no one can seriously 
predict. Your own draft law expressly concedes this 
insecurity. Add the network to that. For offshore connecting 
lines, your draft names investments in the sum of 5 to 10 billion 
euros. These costs of the offshore network levy will be borne 
by the electricity customers.  

Dunja Kreiser (SPD): Nicely read! But still: 
120,000 workplaces!

Yet that is not enough. Network construction, storage, reserve 
power plants and measures for network stability belong to the 
total consideration. Naturally can a better network utilization 
reduce costs. Yet even the most efficient network connection 
does not solve one, simple problem. During doldrums even a 
perfectly connected wind park produces no electricity, ladies 
and gentlemen. A primary school student knows this.

The OECD nuclear energy agency therefore correctly indicates 
not only the generation costs of individual facilities be looked 
at. Decisive are the costs of the entire electricity system, 
including networks, flexibility, balance and supply security. 
Precisely these total costs need finally be at mid-point. 

Therefore, we say: First. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Atomic power! 

End EEG promotion. Second. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Atomic power!

– No, that is point three. – Feasible, controllable power plant 
performance, maintain or re-construct. Third. The re-entry into 
nuclear energy, test technically and economically, and that 
including newer reactor technologies. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Na, klar! From Russia!

Supply security, economy and system costs need decide, not 
politically defined construction numbers, certainly not when 
these are based on ideology. 

Alaa Alhamwi (Greens): Those are the renewables!

The people need affordable electricity, and our industry needs 
reliable energy. Germany needs an energy policy again oriented 
on physics and economy and not on wishes from cloud cuckoo 
land.

In conclusion, yet a couple of words to the members of the 
Union. If you do not want to sit here in the future with half 
a team, I recommend to you: Come to your senses! Free 
yourselves of Friedrich Merz and these cloud cuckoo land 
developers!

Dunja Kreiser (SPD): What?

Jens Behrens (SPD): Please? So!

Alaa Alhamwi (Greens): What has that to do 
with clouds?

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Cloud cuckoo land?

Sören Pellman (Linke): What then does that 
have to do with clouds?

Nadine Heselhaus (SPD): Can you repeat that?

Dunja Kreiser (SPD): Again, without a recitation!

Use the conservative majority with those to the left of you. 
Your children will thank you later. 

I thank you not for your good Politik but for your attention.

I wish you all a pleasant good morning!

[trans: tem]

Dirk Brandes, December 5, 2024, Aviation and CDU

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/203, p. 26322. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

This motion rather impressively shows what kind of green child the Union has become. The CDU is not only the party of the bungled energy transition, of the ban on combustion engines, and of illegal migration; the CDU as of now is also responsible for the decline of the aviation branch in Germany. 

            Björn Simon (CDU/CSU): That is just nonsense! You propose nothing!                                Zero!

In your motion, you demand more strongly promoting climate-neutral flying. What is climate-neutral flying? I fear some soon fly out of the parliament climate-neutral. Yet we do not thereby bring forward the aviation branch. Your 15 point motion reads like a position paper of the Greens. With money from the aviation tax and the CO₂ pricing, you want to drive forward the de-carbonization. Yet a few weeks ago, you complained that German aviation finds itself in the worst crisis, and now you want to redistribute still more money in climate projects. 

We now have a brief window of time so as to reduce with parliamentary majorities the costs for aviation. 

            Michael Donth (CDU/CSU): For that, there is no majority!

Yet what does the CDU/CSU do out of fear that the AfD could put this thing to a vote? I say to you: Out of pure panic, you form a backroom coalition with the SPD and Greens. 

            Stefan Gelbhaar (Greens): Boring!

You paralyze this parliament and stuff the daily order with alibi motions! 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Right! Well reckoned!

With your firewall, you continue to prevent a policy for the future. You are not part of the solution for this country but, with your Habeck friend Merz, you are presently the biggest problem for Germany. 

We want no aviation tax, no kerosene tax, and no CO₂ pricing. If you want to ruin the CDU and CSU traditional parties, that is your matter. Nevertheless, stop mimicking the innovation driver. You have already with your e-mobility led the automobile branch into crisis. I believe that suffices. 

The AfD would now drive forward innovation and progress. We Germans were once the pioneers of aviation and automobiles. With you, we are just pioneers of bureaucracy and ideology. That will change, ladies and gentlemen; that, I promise you. The voters will decide wisely. 

I wish you a good night. 

 

[trans: tem]

Dirk Brandes, April 27, 2023, Trucking Regulations

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/100, p. 12114.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Who hoped in regards the draft law put forward that the Federal government finally more resolutely defends German logistics companies from the price and wage dumping, he is bitterly disillusioned. 

Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): You yourself do that in part by means of mail box firms. Do not forget!

The backdoors for sozial dumping by means of foreign transportation companies continue to remain open because there is neither control nor a concrete applications area for the new dispatch regulations.

Despite various hearings with those affected, you have still not recognized why our transportation businesses throw in the towel and many livelihoods are threatened and why 80,000 professional truckers are lacking in Germany, a growing tendency, even though it is thus actually logical: The pay of our freight drivers is exactly as bad as the hygiene and supply situation at many autobahn rest stations.

A German freight driver in the 90s could still earn 5,000 marks net and thereon feed a family; the pay today is scarcely sufficient to live on. That is a shame! Due to your energy and tax policy and your trucking fee increase, German transport costs are at a record level! At the same time, you foist aggressive wage and price dumping from eastern Europe on our truckers.

The mobility package’s amendment of the dispatch regulations is in fact a correct step, yet remains ineffective when regulation violations are not effectively prosecuted and punished as my preceding speaker has also plainly stated. Only 2.6 percent of domestic hauls [Kabotage-Fahrten] in German territory are in any way controlled. The police confirm: Our control authorities are not noticeable on our autobahns.

German money fines for illegal conduct of foreign shippers are laughable in comparison with other European countries. At the same time, the BALM [Federal Logistics and Mobility Office] guarantees large-scale rebates for eastern European domestic haul violators and indeed up to 50 percent according to the Deutschen Verkehrs-Zeitung. An insanity, ladies and gentlemen! Exactly that leads to that foreign firms become ever more blatant and ever more shamelessly exploit their drivers.

For fair competition conditions, we simply need more control. In our motion [Drucksache 20/6534], we make quite concrete proposals for that:

First. The BALM needs to be outfitted with additional positions in the roads control service.

Second. Money fine provisions need to be sharpened. That also means not to shrink from expelling for a time foreign transportation firms notable for unfair competition.

Third. Rebates of money fines for foreign shippers are no more to be allowed.

And fourth – the most important which needs to be implemented: The fees data need to be finally made available to our regulatory authorities, ladies and gentlemen. Thereby only do we effectively thwart fraud in regards domestic haul and sozial provisions.

Let us therefore concern ourselves that German shippers do not stand there with empty pockets and German professional drivers without a pay check. With our motion, you receive a tool that gives German logistics a future. Vote in favor of our motion, or no longer discuss with logisticians and drivers at the next hearings!

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]