Markus Buchheit, March 26, 2024, Compulsory Refurbishment of EU Buildings

EU Parliament, Written Question to the Commission, E-000948/2024. 

The Commission has ordered the compulsory refurbishment of all public buildings in the EU. 

Can it therefore say which of its own or rented buildings in Brussels and Luxembourg, and those of its delegations and agencies, meet which energy standards? 

How much will refurbishment cost until single-glazed glass fronts, revolving doors, open garage entrances and draughty gaps between window panes and frames all meet the highest level of insulation it has prescribed?

Christine Anderson, March 20, 2024, Democracy Promotion Act

EU Parliament, Written Question to EU Commission E-000861/2024. 

Germany is in the process of bringing in a ‘Democracy Promotion Act’ designed to establish additional tools for promoting democracy. There are considerable concerns, however, as regards the act’s constitutionality and whether or not it runs counter to the EU’s core values. The criticism centres around potential government overreach and the creation of structures that threaten to curtail the freedom and independence of civil society in breach of the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). 

1. What is the Commission’s assessment of the compatibility of Germany’s Democracy Promotion Act with the EU Treaties, particularly in view of the reservations raised by the Bundestag’s parliamentary research service concerning its potential unconstitutionality and violations of the EU’s core values laid down in Article 2 TEU? 

2. Does it consider there to be a risk that the Democracy Promotion Act would quieten or silence opposition voices and critical civil society representatives? How does this square with the principles of freedom of expression and democratic pluralism enshrined in the EU Treaties? 

Gunnar Beck, March 11, 2024, Climate Excommunication

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV(2024)03-11(1-242-0000). 

In 1633, the Inquisition excommunicated Galileo for helio-centrism – that is to say, for his renunciation of a Church dogma that the Sun circles around the Earth. Last month, ECB director Elderson threatened all co-workers with discharge who – cite – “deny the reality of solely man-made climate change, or that the climate change endangers the price stability.” 

Now, as a conservative, I rejoice over anyone who believes that earlier was much better. However, the ECB should preferably exchange its climate inquisitors for good economic historians, who know that not the climate change but the expansion of the money supply accelerates the inflation, just as Hans de Witte and Wallenstein managed it without limit in Galileo’s time. For its climate dogma and monetary policy are the greatest hocus-pocus in Europe since the geo-centric world view. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Alice Weidel, March 20, 2024, War and Peace

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/159, pp. 20331-20332. 

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

The omens under which you set out for this European Council are dark. The Ukraine war is already in a third year. Serious efforts to end the fateful bloodletting in the midst of Europe are  not in sight. Warmongering and war rhetoric determine the tone in Brussels as well as in Berlin. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Not in Moscow?

Michel, the President of the European Council, demands: Europe needs to prepare itself for war and change over to a war economy. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): In which world do you live, actually?

The French state President Macron speaks of the mission of NATO troops in the Ukraine theater  of war, and boasts that France would be in the position for that. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): What you say, Putin could not say better!

In the ranks of the Union, in a remarkable historical amnesia, –  Herr Merz, because you the entire time interrupt – 

            Till Steffen (Greens): That’s in your manuscript, but he didn’t do that!

one dreams of carrying the war to Russia. The Union stands for that. In lock-step with the FDP armaments lobbyist Strack-Zimmermann forms a black-green coalition of warmongers which flatters itself with martial rhetoric – even you, Herr Chancellor; a shame that you are not here – and accuses others of defeatism. 

            Till Steffen (Greens): I believe that was a failure of translation from the Russian.

The bellicose over-bidding competition rings the more absurd against the background of the desolate state of our own armed forces. The Bundeswehr has at its disposal, as before, not one, single mission-ready army brigade. Nevertheless, the debate revolves steadfastly around new weapons deliveries and financial aid in the billions to Kiev, while the reconstruction of our own army and the recovery of capability for our own national defense is here obviously of no priority. It was right, Herr Chancellor, that you spoke against the delivery of the Taurus cruise missile to the Ukraine. 

Dorothee Bär (CDU/CSU): Yes, praise from the AfD! That is super for the SPD! Madness!

It would not be in the German security interest to strip our armed forces of an additional important weapons system. In that regard, the Bundeswehr does not even have at its disposal a sufficient number of these cruise missiles so as to fulfill its obligations vis-à-vis NATO. The delivery of this system, which as an offensive weapon may have effect far into Russia and can even reach the Kremlin, would be a quite clear participation in the war. The commitment of German soldiers for servicing would necessarily follow after it and thereby dramatically increase the potential of escalation. 

And even you, Herr Scholz, have ever again fallen down and have let yourself be forced into escalation. First should German armored howitzers bring the war’s turning point, then German defensive panzers and finally German combat panzers. None of that fulfilled the ratcheted-up expectations. Now the escalationists extol the Taurus as a game-changer or wonder weapon. Even with the Taurus, the Ukraine has not the faintest breath of a chance to achieve its war aims. The truth is needed for that. 

Even if this time you remain steadfast, the Nein to Taurus does not suffice. Germany is acting de facto as a war party. Germany participates by means of the sanctions in an economic war against Russia. Germany delivers weapons to the Ukraine. Germany gives to considerable extent financial assistance, 

            Christoph Meyer (FDP): Has the Kremlin written down all of that for you?

and Europe expropriates capital income on Russian reserve deposits – from my viewpoint, that is forbidden. 

Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Russia Today speaks! Here is the latest news from Russia Today!

Instead of driving forward the escalation with warmongering and weapons deliveries, the German policy needs to call to mind its strengths. That means: It needs to venture all to step forward as a mediator and get negotiations underway. To that, we are besides also obligated by the peace precept in the German Basic Law. 

Without question is Russia’s war in the Ukraine an attack contrary to international law. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Ach ja? 

            Christian Dürr (FDP): Ah!

Just so without question has the Ukraine the right to self defense. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Aha!

The decision in that regard to support it does not however release us from the obligation to rational policy in the well understood interests of our own country and our own people. 

German interests are represented and defined in Berlin, not by chance in Kiev or in Washington. Even in the U.S.A. are there long since signs of an exit [Ausstieg]. To believe the Europeans could alone continue to conduct the U.S.A.’s proxy war against Russia would be folly and hubris in one. 

            Kordula Schulz-Asche (Greens): Proxy war?

The Ukraine war has long since run aground. It devours month by month billions in money and material and countless soldiers’ lives. The talk of victory and endurance from Kiev is unrealistic. This war must not be frozen in, it must be ended. 

            Katja Mast (SPD): Putin can pull out!

A Ukraine as a theater of war, de-populated and devastated for years, helplessly dependent on foreign payments and under the continual danger of the escalation to a Third World War, is neither in the German nor European interest. It can also ultimately not be in the interest of the Ukrainian nation. 

Germany’s interest is peace in Europe, the normalization of economic relations with all countries, Russia also, and the ending of the sanctions war which most harms us alone. The way there leads through negotiations. You cannot execute this charge, in that you glorify one of the war’s opponents and demonize the other. Realistic foreign policy has the duty, in the propaganda thunder of the war parties which we here everyday hear, 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Just from you!

to find the contact points for a durable exchange of interests. Certainly, when the weapons speak, diplomacy is not allowed to be silent. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your time is expired, Frau Weidel.

Act for the best of one’s own people and the peoples of Europe. Seek the way to peace 

Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Frau Weidel. 

so as to prevent a major European war.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

 

 

Sylvia Limmer, March 13, 2024, EU and Combustion Engine

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV (2024)03-13(3-264-0000). 

Herr President. 

It is delightful that majorities across delegations could be repeatedly formed for the Euro 7 norm which, instead of green ideology and visions, could at least partially maintain measure and mean for the auto industry, and are thereby ultimately consumer-friendly, since it would have been autos in the low price segment which, with the EU Commission’s original draft, would have experienced a massive price increase. 

And that we could enforce with the stronger requirements the stability of drive batteries is in any case a success, and we are thereby a bit closer to the goal of ending the regulatory preference for e-autos. 

Obligatory on-board surveillance systems and stronger limit values for trucks and buses we definitely reject, yet it is of course a fact that it is basically not really about reducing harmful emissions, since these in regards nitrogen oxides have been reduced about 70% in the last 30 years, even though the permitted vehicles have doubled. The goal of the implementation of the so-called mobility transition of the Green Deal was always an accelerated end of the combustion engine. 

Thus in regards this vote out-weighs the fact that, with this vote for this Euro 7 compromise, the EU Commission’s fully unrealistic limit values are off the table, and we will vote for this proposal. 

 

[trans: tem]

Guido Reil, February 26, 2024, Food Prices

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV (2024)02-26(1-150-0000). 

Herr President. Dear colleagues. 

We speak today on the fight against inflation, on foodstuff prices and their consequences and basic origins. Foodstuff prices have in fact in the last two years dramatically risen by 29 percent. Blatant examples: Sugar, 74 percent; wheat flour, 69 percent; margarine, 50 percent. 

What does this mean? People are driven into poverty. Poor people starve. Especially severely affected: Our pensioners, the people who have worked for the prosperity in our country. Those who create the relief are in Germany besides honorary members at the German Tafeln [food banks]. We meanwhile have 1,000 Tafeln and these care for almost two million people in need. The Tafeln need to alleviate the greatest emergency, an emergency which the politicians have provided. 

Since what are the actual origins? Interesting is: The foodstuff prices decline globally, they rise only in Europe. Globally, they are meanwhile again at the condition of 2021. A study of the American agriculture ministry from 2020 forecast: If Europe implements the Green Deal, the per capita cost of foodstuffs increases around 150 dollars. They forecast that in 2020. Who wants to lower foodstuff prices needs to toss the Green Deal onto the trash heap of history. 

 

[trans: tem]

Joachim Kuhs, February 27, 2024, EU Finance and Ukraine War

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV (2024)02-27(2-025-0000). 

Herr President, esteemed Commissioner Han, valued colleagues, Herr State Secretary. 

Even this laboriously negotiated and stripped down revision of the seven year financial framework will fail. Whereon do I fix this? Now, if Herr Orban needs be sent to drink coffee so that all negotiation leaders thus agree, then everyone recognizes: Here, something is not in order. Is this a rotten compromise? 

When in the second round, two-thirds of the 50 billion euros for the Ukraine facility is financed by debt, and it is supposed this would not burden the EU budget, then, valued colleagues, one is self-deceived. Do you really believe that the Ukraine following this frightful war will be in a position to service the interest payments, to say nothing of the paying back the principal debt? 

When a third of 21 billion euros is scraped together from all sides and new gaps are thereby everywhere opened up, then every Schwabisch Hausfrau knows: That can only cause discord and irritation. 

Yet what most depresses me personally, and this I’ve said already in committee: Have you, honored colleagues, even once asked the people in the Ukraine what they really want? Do they really want more money? That, I do not believe. These people want peace for their country. If we here in plenary session – just recently, Herr Gahler, you said it – continue to promote the war with weapons deliveries, and not work towards peace, then we thus make ourselves culpable for the people in the Ukraine, and also for the soldiers, who daily die or are crippled by the hundreds. Dear colleagues, let us finally stop this war! 

 

[trans: tem]

Bernhard Zimniok, February 7, 2024, Digital Services Act

European Parliament, Straßburg, P9 CRE PROV (2024) 02-07(3-183-0000). 

Herr President. 

During Corona we clearly saw how divergent opinions were defamed by the mainstream as hate and incitement and were rigorously censored in the social media. That these opinions then later proved in large part to be correct – one need only think of the ostensible protection of the vaccination or the ostensible utility of masks – clearly shows that for the state it is only about the prerogative of interpretation [Deutungshoheit], about being able to justify the inhuman Covid preventive measures. 

The lesson should be to strengthen freedom of opinion, to prevent censorship and to oppose state fake news campaigns. Yet the present situation in Germany now indicates exactly the other direction. The anti-democratic strivings of the government are even intensified: Government demonstrations against the opposition on the basis of a fake news campaign stimulated by the government – as there is only in totalitarian systems. 

This is supported by the government broadcasters ARD and ZDF which at these demonstrations more than 100 times interviewed ostensibly random demonstration participants who then were revealed as representatives of the governing parties. These anti-democratic proceedings once again prove how important social media is at the present time, where citizens can independently inform themselves. And precisely on that account, the Commission opposes freedom of opinion on the platforms by means of the Digital Services Act. The Digital Services Act therefore ought to be just so comprehensively abolished as the public broadcasting in Germany. 

 

[trans: tem]

Sylvia Limmer, February 7, 2024, Farmers

European Parliament, Straßburg, P9 CRE-PROV(2024)02-07(3-040-0000). 

Herr President. 

And again this week outraged farmers stand in front of the the European Parliament in Straßburg, just as last week in Brussels. Do eggs, liquid manure and burning hay actually need to just blow up in your faces? 

It’s not only about the suspension of the idled acreage, not only about the stifling bureaucracy created by you, about Mercosur and unfair competition; it is not only about bio-quotas fixed by statute, bans on animal husbandry and care of wolves, the revisions of means of crop protection, and so forth and so on. 

Farmers plainly suffer from impractical political charlatans with their Green Deal and its hand-outs, and they do not want to let themselves be involved in the course of a fully confused climate rescue and to be degraded to CO₂ gardeners. 

Perhaps business wanders away without a sound, the farmers however are bound up with their land, and they will not weaken. And they now no longer allow themselves to be ignored. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Gottfried Curio, December 15, 2023, Artificial Forced Migration

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/145, pp. 18457-18458. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

These days the EU negotiates a new version of the Common European Asylum System. Prominently discussed are external borders procedures for migrants from countries of origin with low recognition rates – not the largest group, which makes the measure little effective –, as well as a “solidarity mechanism” penalty payment for countries which do not participate in the acceptance of illegal migrants, the well-known Brussels Unkultur of presumption. Yet we need discussion neither of micro set screws nor of the EU’s encroachments. What we need is an end to this quite artificial forced migration of peoples, ladies and gentlemen. 

In the Dublin III system, the respective state of first entry was responsible for the asylum application – a regulation which the Union under Merkel destroyed in a striking breach of law,  with the catastrophic consequences of open borders. Since then, migrants set out aimed at Germany. Italy and Greece equally alike omit the registration and refuse the return transfer. And Germany bears the principal burden of this entire madness with its continually further strengthened tendency by means of additional family reunification for those already landed here. In that regard, the war in Syria in the peripheral areas has been ended for years. Required now is the return of one million Syrians, and not their naturalization. 

Julian Pahlke (Green): Have you inquired of Putin? You have good connections in the Kremlin! 

            Tobias B. Bacherle (Greens): The butcher Assad still commands in Syria! 

Stop with the continued misleading pretense [Vorgaukelung] of a need for protection – unconcerned with the consequences for our destroyed education system, the disaster of domestic security with over-propotional immigrant criminality in regards violent offenses, unconcerned with the 50 billion euros per year thereby squandered, the collapsing housing market, and even with the cultural identity of our homeland! Anyone who still intends well with Germany needs to end this artificial forced mass immigration, ladies and gentlemen. 

The new regulations foreseen in Brussels however do nothing for the necessary reduction of the influx. We therefore demand: Preventing the European internal migration, excluding multiple asylum applications, fundamentally ending a transfer of competence to Germany following the time period expiration – in the first half of the year alone, 15,000 cases; that asylum applicants from Asia and Africa be able to obtain their protection requirement preferably fulfilled in a region near to home and akin to culture, in any case, in secure countries on their continent which they certainly do numerously cross on their way to far distant Deutschland; 

            Julian Pahlke (Green): Aha! The China connection! 

further, the conclusive end of residency by cessation of possible reasons for refuge – Syrian – or by the abuse of “homeland vacations” which unmasks an ostensible necessity of refuge. Only a fundamental re-direction will stop the unfortunately willed migration storm, and only with the AfD is there a parliamentary majority for that, ladies and gentlemen. 

For all of that is also required an end to the false focusings in the migration debate.   

First, it is often not a question of seeking refuge – after crossing secure third countries, certainly not – often not even about leaving the country of origin. Many migrants themselves openly declare the wealth disparity as a reason. 

Second, the fairy tales of the good rescuers at sea. The foreign traffickers are service providers to their deliberately negotiating customers who, for a life-long full provision, slip a couple of thousand. 

            Michael Sacher (Greens): Hopefully, you never need to flee in your life! 

The German trafficking fleet operates no rescue at sea. That would be a bringing to the nearest safe harbor a few kilometers distant on the coast of Africa, instead of to Lampedusa at a distance of hundreds of kilometers. 

End also the lie of a lifetime of the “ability to produce integration” [Herstellbarkeit von Integration]! 

Julian Pahlke (Green): Na ja, your lifetime reality is the surveillance by the Constitution Defense, Herr Curio! Quite lovely greetings from Herr Haldenwang! 

Tobias B. Bacherle (Greens): That again shows where you have remained hanging, in which era, from which you yell out! 

The codification of standards of conduct – as in the Basic Law – is always a durable summary of matching realities [nachträgliche Zusammenfassung von gewachsenen Realitäten]. The idea of being able to successfully lead to its adherence in a brief time anyone from another culture is a failure of categories. Such culture codes will in the long term be accepted by means of an unconscious assumption of relations from the social surroundings – by no means through a merely rational acknowledgement of their codified form. The idea that contempt for women, an excessive male sense of honor, or a positive connotation of a lived-out propensity to violence, are to be corrected by a Basic Law presentation [Grundgesetzüberreichung], or an integration course, is at an absurd distance from life, ladies and gentlemen. 

Julian Pahlke (Green): “To present the Basic Law” [„Grundgesetz überreichen”] is a good keyword, Herr Curio! 

Filiz Polat (Greens): You need an integration course, a values course! You should here make transparent in which networks you act in your constituency. That would interest us!

And surely it may not ever again be only about how illegal masses of immigrants by unfortunate organization are allowed to run through the system, be it with debt money or mis-purposed gymnasiums and hotels!  Nein, the stream itself is to be prevented. For that, is required the elimination of all incentives here in this country, a most concentrated as possible action in Europe. Ever more states understand this. 

Julian Pahlke (Green): What do you actually know of the China connection in your delegation? 

Only Germany is the wrong way driver, which thinks all others should convert to its wrong way. 

Therefore is required a decisive re-direction that really represents the interests of our citizens. These threatened interests have found their asylum with the AfD. 

I thank you.           

Tobias B. Bacherle (Greens): How long did you require for the witticism? The entire legislative period, or longer? 

 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Alice Weidel, October 24, 2023, Deportation

AfD Kompakt, October 24, 2023. 

It apparently required two crushing election defeats and massive, anti-semitic migrant rioting for Olaf Scholz and Nancy Faeser to at all take notice of the continual failure of the state in regards the deportation of rejected asylum applicants and the return of migrants with no right of residence. Without a fundamental migration change, which comes to grips with the roots of the problem and also has acts follow the announcements, their emphatic words are nevertheless to remain patchwork. 

Chancellor and Interior Minister want to tread lightly [einen schlanken Fuss machen] while they guide the attention on the deportation deficit so as to be able to shove off a large part of the responsibility onto the States. Yet as before, the Federal government, with eased residence and naturalization regulations, high social benefits and open borders, entices illegal migrants to immigration into the German social system. 

As long as the Federal government does not close the German borders and consistently sends back illegal migrants, refuses an effective securing of the EU external borders, and isolates itself in a Europe in which it wants to require of other EU countries the acceptance of undesired migrants, the announcements of Scholz and Faeser are to remain pure alibi politics. Germany needs a unified [aus einem Guss] remigration policy, and not just declarations of intention which will foreseeably remain without consequence. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Peter Boehringer, September 22, 2023, EU Finance

AfD Kompakt, September 22, 2023. 

The EU parliamentarians have ever more obviously lost every contact to the situation in their homelands. Already, the Commission’s demand for an increase of the multi-year financing is completely overdrawn and inappropriate. The financing is fixed at seven years, for which the present budget, with over 1.8 trillion euros, is more than sufficiently provided. Nothing which is planned in Brussels might not be financed from this budget. If additional needs arise, the EU plainly must save in other places. 

That the EU Parliament now readies itself to simply raise the contribution named by the Commission without a conclusive needs analysis verifies the aloofness of the Brussels elites who, solely and alone, draw to themselves yet ever more resources so as to build up their power and to further pursue their ideological goals in the areas of climate and migration. The AfD has good reasons for wanting to end the pseudo-democratic behavior in Brussels and Strasbourg. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Stefan Keuter, September 6, 2023, Foreign Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/118, pp. 14594-14595. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests in the gallery. 

The party is over. This drunkenness, this intoxication of the left-green money squandering is over. The accounts are empty. We are in the middle of a recession let loose by means of an utterly failed energy transition, the cutting off of Russian gas, the de-industrialization of our homeland and completely nonsensical heating insulation provisions which will bring the construction industry almost completely to ruin. The concerns emigrate to foreign countries, the tax revenues shrink. Here, climate and gender nonsense and a feminist and values-guided foreign policy are certainly of no moment. 

We trace the compulsory savings in this budget: Language promotion of German minorities in eastern Europe, arms control, German cultural work, financial support of the Goethe Institute – here, the red pencil will be applied. Where more money will be expended, it is for the care and feeding of your own, Frau Baerbock; the personnel costs increase and your administrative costs. For that, you spend money. 

This country has brought forward foreign ministers of the likes of a Willy Brandt and a Hans-Dietrich Genscher. For these, the achievement counted; for you, Frau Baerbock, the narrative obviously suffices, and that often badly told. As for example in your biography – correct me – which has arrived at its ninth version. Know, Frau Baerbock, that dissimilar to you, I indeed am not come from international law. Yet I have actually lived in Great Britain and am to some degree competent in the language of that place. I say to you: Please save on the tax-financed make-up artists, and preferably invest in English instruction. Otherwise, we will soon have “more beef” with our neighbors, which we all do not want, if you understand what I mean. 

I am grateful to the Russians in that they have not taken seriously your declaration of war, “We are in war with Russia”. We of course are not. This is not our war. 

And now once for all for those taking notes: In the Bundestag election campaign of 1957, Chancellor Adenauer attacked the SPD with the words: “The policy which the social-democratic leadership wants makes Germany into a Russian satellite.” And today: We are defenseless and dependent. Angela Merkel, zu Guttenberg, Steinmeier, Gabriel, Schwesig and many others from your ranks have driven this country into dependencies and for more than 16 long years brought it to economic ruin. 

Apart from a Bohemian corporal, no one has ever brought so much misfortune upon Germany like this former Federal Chancellor. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Now, that’s enough!

From 2016 to 2020, there were a total of around 2,000 fatal crimes in Germany in which at least one immigrant was questioned as a suspect, to say nothing at all of the appalling thousands of those wounded and raped. Not even the SED had so many people killed at the Wall, the successor party of which today sits here among us and projects itself as flawless democrats. 

In a few weeks we will celebrate the 33^rd anniversary of German unity. 33 years later, Germany in a Europe of upheaval has developed itself from a refuge of stability into the sick man of Europe, indeed into a problem child. For a relatively long period of time the re-unified Germany, as once the old Federal Republic, found its place in Europe in harmony with its neighbors and to the satisfaction of its partners from Lisbon to Warsaw. For Paris and Warsaw, we as a neighbor stood quite high. This was unique in our long history, ladies and gentlemen. Here, steadily decisive were our credibility and our reliability. 

            Michael Brand (CSD/CSU-Fulda): Not yours!

What in more than 60 years Germany acquired in trust with our neighbors was our most valuable foreign policy good. 

What were the bases for that? I say it to you: First, the German anchoring in Europe; second, the partnership tie to Russia; and third, the maintenance of the historic bridge across the Atlantic. And today? In Europe, we are isolated. For Paris, we are the problem on the eastern border, and for Poland the problem on its western border – borders besides which your cabinet colleagues, who now already are gone again, do not want to defend. Konrad Adenauer’s tenet, whereby the best foreign policy is the protection of one’s own interests, is our incentive [Ansporn]. German interests, Frau Baerbock, you have never yet defended – quite the opposite. 

In conclusion, I want to here indicate that you routinely violate our right of parliamentary inquiry. We have in committee and in plenary session asked you in writing when you learned that your house issued an instruction to endorse falsified Afghan passports, and who was authorized to name persons from Afghanistan who were to be flown into Germany for a roundabout provision [Rundumversorgung]. You have prevented this. We have thereupon submitted a constitutional complaint. We remain on the ball. 

Frau Baerbock, in conclusion, I say to you: With this anti-democratic state of affairs, you would been thrown out of the polis of Pericles,           

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague, your speaking time                            is past.

the homeland of democracy. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague.

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Sylvia Limmer, July 12, 2023, EU Climate Decree and Agriculture

AfD Kompakt, July 12, 2023. 

By means of an intentional, massive recession of agricultural area, this decree endangers our food security, threatens the livelihoods of farmers and grape growers and is a further step into an EU climate museum. Its basic premise, according to which species variety on idled acres is generally greater than on acres in operation, is moreover to be questioned. 

Had the CDU/CSU members as a part of the EVP delegation on the Environment Committee proclaimed themselves for the rejection of the proposed decree, and thereby discreetly talked over the tacit cooperation with the AfD, they might now seemingly act quietly. The revolt contrived by Manfred Weber against the EU Commission President with a CDU party book has failed. 

All the same, this sudden change of mind was politically dishonorable. Even in October 2019, the “From Farm to Table Strategy” was enthusiastically agreed to in a resolution; a strategy which propagated, besides the reconstruction of nature, the wholesale reduction and in part the complete ban of pesticides. To that pertains the recent statement of Peter Liese, the EVP’s environmental spokesman, that the Green Deal would be “energetically” supported by the EVP. And who frankly admitted that with the Green Deal and the nature reconstruction decree, and the associated expropriations and interdictions of the citizens in reference to nutrition, one needs to apply more slowly. Thus increasingly in Germany, evidently “politically disturbed” citizens need to be “cooked green” more slowly so that they, like the proverbial frog in the pot, do not before time take flight. Thus one does not act out of factual and substantial conviction but merely on the basis of political calculation. 

The AfD on that account from the beginning has represented a clear line which makes a theme of and categorically rejects the abolition of agriculture associated with the green-red strategy papers. Since the farmers need our support, for it is they who safeguard our food. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Marcus Buchheit, July 11, 2023, European Semiconductor Industry

AfD Kompakt, July 11, 2023. 

So that the European Chips Law does not become the next flop of megalomaniac EU policy, the EU should respect the subsidiarity principle and leave industrial policy in the hands of the national states. Semiconductor manufacturing is a key industry. Yet the promotion of same is empirically far better boosted by the member states than in an EU competence. EU projects are often announced with great tam-tam so to be subsequently buried the more secretively, silently and gently. The EU member states can do industrial policy better, more successfully and more profitably. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Kay Gottschalk, June 23, 2023, Local Banking and Banking Union

German Bundestag, June 23, 2023, Plenarprotokoll 20/113, p. 13908. 

Right honorable President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

Right honorable colleague Müller, we here in fact are in conformity in many things – that is good so. Yet I cannot here understand the optimism of colleague Oehl in so far as on the delegation trip – on May 31, I saw no one from the SPD there – your colleagues in the European Parliament said something entirely different.   

I believe, we all here have learned, that on the altar of political desire lofty principles have quite often been sacrificed. On that account, it is good that we with you submit a motion [Drucksache 20/7355] – our motion is of course better than that of the CDU/CSU, yet not a word was mentioned. Savings accounts in fact provide for the Mittelstand and for the regional economy at hand. Yet there exists in the area – and that is good so – relatively strong, affiliated networks so that you, ladies and gentlemen in the galleries, certainly still have corresponding, interested partners on site in credit matters, yet also in other financial business.    

The savings bank association, the public and Raffeisen banks as well as the cooperative banks, distinguish themselves throughout – that is little mentioned here – in that they have at their disposal paid-up deposit guaranty funds beyond that of the so-called institute guaranty system, IPS, so that in fact all deposits, ladies and gentlemen in the galleries, even the deposits not legally covered, have been insured, and that is a distinct difference to many other European financial centers. 

The EU Commission now puts forward the so-called CMDI statutory initiative with which they pursue many sub-topics. In the system proposed by the statutory initiative, it would thereby lead to that there would be an accelerated liquidation [beschleunigte Abwicklung] of the banks – as it is now – and thereby the IPS, the institutions’ internal guaranty, would no longer take effect, ladies and gentlemen. We therefore demand of you, like the banking associations – the Italian, the Polish and also the Spanish associations do so – to take up a clear positioning so as to maintain this functional capability.   

Right honorable colleagues of the CDU, well meant – and what you pass over in silence here – is frequently badly done, especially when it comes from the Commission. The question thus presents itself, how well is meant the financial center of Germany by the Commission President by the name of Frau von der Leyen who comes from the CDU? It was also mentioned in this place; since by means of the existing proposal – I have plainly said it – the well-earned strengths of our guaranty network, certainly for the small and mid-sized banks and at the cost of the regional financial economic stability – it needs be said so brutally – would be flattened to a European level [europäisch eingeebnet], ladies and gentlemen. 

Here one may in fact – in so far as both our motions are reasonable – overhear that the EU Commission directly and obtrusively points to that, even if the statutory proposal does not contain it, it is held to be urgently necessary and considered as a best solution, that the deposit guaranty funds, which plainly by all standards have been well fulfilled, which for our savers and investors is good, are to be communitarized [zu vergemeinschaften] and thereby is finally to be completed the banking union. In this purpose, ladies and gentlemen of the debts coalition, you are now for once united, and you should show your colors. 

To communitarize the deposit guaranty system at this moment, as is gladly desired by the Commission, – permit the comparison – would be like enrolling in a fire insurance which is on the brink of bankruptcy – for some states, that is certainly so – because, in regards other customers, uncontrolled smolderings already burn in the balances and the central fire department – here, the ECB – we have again and again spoken of the European Budget Authority’s report – refuses to introduce measures to extinguish.     

            Filiz Polat (Greens): How can one as a Social Democrat change to the AfD?

That is of course concretely the other background why we need to speak of this motion. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Come please to an end. 

I come to a conclusion. The AfD delegation therefore demands of Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner – he is unfortunately not here – to let acts follow his words and to secure the functional capability of the IPS 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague.

and to prevent the communitarization of the deposit guaranty funds. 

Many thanks.

  

[trans: tem]

Gottfried Curio, June 9, 2023, EU Immigration Regulations

AfD Kompakt, June 9, 2023.

The regulations will not solve the problems. If now some countries in fact buy their way out of a new “reception obligation”, in the end a considerable portion might again remain attached to Germany. And with the keyword “distribution” [Verteilung], the Merkel-ish subversion of Dublin III will now be set: The secure knowledge that from southern Europe one cannot further migrate under a declaration of an ostensible need to flee would thereby have led to a considerable relief, particularly in this country. In the end: Who comes from a secure country actually need simply not be tested; in other cases, the principle of secure states is ultimately reduced to an absurdity.

Even in the specifics, the regulations are highly ineffective: To be able to continue – under pressure of the Federal government – to simply pass through unaccompanied minors, without a stop at the external border with fast track procedures, even so entire families from Syria. And the problem that 80 percent of those coming to Germany could previously pass through the EU unregistered is not addressed: They indeed should be registered – yet this “should” is again plainly only a pure declaration of intentions and in the negotiations was not in the least operationally secured. Just so, again under pressure of the Ampel, was hindered a “Rwanda solution”, as aimed at in Great Britain. And why countries should at all participate in a distribution, why they should otherwise at all pay money, is not really established. One then may also not be surprised by a rejection.

In sum: For the main flow from countries where there is now already some acknowledgements, that is perhaps Syria and Afghanistan and various interior African countries, nothing really changes; thus here also, no relief in sight. And even in regards the planned rejections, the actual return is, as before, completely unclear. Without a return, even according to the new regulations, an appeal to the EU will then again soon be possible, with then a new asylum application. Even after a distribution within the EU, naturally will happily continue further secondary migration to Germany, as long as in this country the will and the structures are not created for an effective rejection and deportation mechanism. And important relief measures, as demanded by the AfD, plainly now simply do not arrive: Neither an alignment of the national refugee and/or social benefits, nor a conversion to primarily benefits in kind. Instead, false principles are perpetuated, such as one can be a refugee by a trespass in the EU, even if one already has come through ten secure third countries. An opportunity to perceptibly confront [begegnen] the dramatic overburdening in Germany was given away. The decisive problems were certainly not approached, primarily because, for that, any political will is lacking in Germany.  

 

[trans: tem]

 

Jochen Haug, May 25, 2023, EU Election Law

 

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/106, pp. 12811-12812.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The EU Parliament’s proposal debated today for a change of the EU election law is an attack on the national states of Europe. The planned changes are alien to the citizens and fundamentally undemocratic.

Of this are first of all the trans-national lists which certainly have been often spoken of. The EU parliament shall be further enlarged, initially by 28 seats. These shall then be filled by the  European parties instead of by the national lists of the recognized parties. This is a particular act of alienation of the citizens. The European parties are largely unknown in Germany and in other member states. Their positions on concrete political questions are unknown. The citizen shall vote for persons whom he does not know and of whom he in many cases simply cannot inform himself; since there is no EU-wide media public. Information is here not routinely available in each man’s mother tongue. Yet that fits the picture. You want uninformed voters who simply nod to your personnel and positions. You want an EU central state with politicians who owe accountability to no one. Transnational lists are in this way a momentous step which we of the AfD oppose.

            Christian Petry (SPD): What nonsense!

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Super speech! Listen to what you can learn!

            Jörg Nürnberger (SPD): No idea of Europe!

No less do we oppose the attempt to introduce compulsory gender quotas for election lists. The EU Parliament’s proposal foresees precisely this in the form of a zipper procedure [Reissvershclussverfahren]. That means that men and women are to be alternatively installed. This is obviously unconstitutional. The Constitutional Courts in Brandenburg and Thüringen have already decided corresponding regulations. Among others, here is put forward a violation of the fundamental principles of the freedom and equality of the vote.

            Götz Frömming (AfD): The SPD is not interested.

To what unbelievable bleeding such gender quotas can lead may be observed in regards, among others, the Greens of NRW [Nordrhein-Westfalen] who in their statutes have consequently further developed the zipper procedure and call it a “minimum quota”.

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): And now?

I cite with permission of the President from §1 of the Women’s Status of the NRW Greens:         

Election lists fundamentally are to be filled by at least half women whereby the odd places are reserved for women. The election procedures are to be so arranged that, separated, positions for women and positions for all candidates will be elected. All women lists are possible.

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Well cited!

This needs to be looked at clearly: With the Greens, for odd places may only women be candidates, for the even, everyone.

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): With you, even fascists can be candidates!

If this should be democratic, then democracy in our country is truly at an end.

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Discrimination against men!

Not least is there today a restrictive clause in regards the suffrage for the European election. What you here propose – the introduction of a two percent hurdle – is a shameless circumvention of the legal ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court. This had twice, in 2011 and 2014, declared restrictive clauses for the European election to be unconstitutional. Now shall one such be introduced by the avoidance of EU law. There is no sustainable foundation for it. It is solely about building up the large parties’ sinecures at the cost of the small parties. It is simply the arrogance of power.

In conclusion, we maintain: The plans of the EU election law reform are undemocratic and in part violate the German constitutional law. It remains to hope – it was certainly already pointed out – that across Europe considerable resistance arises against it. It remains to hope that it never becomes reality.

Thank you.

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Very good speech! 

 

[trans: tem]