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]

René Aust, March 25, 2026, Fuel Prices

EU Parliament, Brussels, P10 CRE-REV(2026)03-25(1-0141-0000). 

Frau President. 

Benzine and diesel over 2 euros, here and today. All say: On account of the Iran war. That’s partially right. Yet it is only half the truth. What no one says to them: Brussels has already concluded – in black on white – that the CO₂ price from 2028 will further rise. Citizens and business will need to grasp still deeper in the pocket for energy. Experts then figure 40 cents on top per liter – in addition. 3 euros per liter for fuel is then soon in range – 3 euros per liter for diesel and benzine [$13.29 per gallon, approx.]! 

And which does not fall from heaven! That is politically made and desired by the mainstream parties. All speak of Iran, while von der Leyen, the Greens, the SPD, the CDU, quiet and gentle, prepare the next price explosion. We say: Nein, the citizens have paid enough. Any CO₂ pricing needs to be abolished, and indeed now. That needed to be a theme at the European Council. Not the flight into world Politik, but the citizens’ everyday concerns need finally to be at the center. 

 

[trans: tem]

Paul Schmidt, March 19, 2026, New Nuclear Power Plants

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/65, pp. 7820-7821. 

Right honorable Herr President. Dear colleagues. 

The withdrawal from nuclear power was “a strategic mistake”, said Ursula von der Leyen as President of the European Commission. And Chancellor Friedrich Merz had previously on January 14 designated the withdrawal from nuclear power a great mistake.  Now he says, the withdrawal is irreversible. Yet that in fact is false, and we demonstrate that with our motion [Drucksache 21/4749]. 

We want that our nuclear power stations be examined, just as the CDU/CSU demanded in the Bundestag election campaign and in the coalition negotiations. The last three nuclear power plants disconnected in April 2023, Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim II, we want in any case to again be put into operation, and also Brokdorf because there the dismantling has scarcely ensued. Measured by the branch association KernD, that is possible anytime within three years for one to three billion euros. 

In regards other stations, there are for us two different categories: For one, those which in view of their restart of operation need to be examined, and for the others, those where the construction of a new nuclear power plant is sensible. Of the latter, in our view, are two nuclear power stations in the east, namely Greifswald/Lumin and Stendal/Arneburg, and in the west, Obrigheim, Philippsburg 1, Neckarwestheim I, Isar 1, Stade, Würgassen, Unterweser and Gundremmingen B and Mülheim-Kärlich. 

Nuclear power plants which we want to newly build would be, for example, the European Evolutionary Pressurized-water Reactor EPR, 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Yes, exactly.

a German-French development which has already been built in many countries, as in Great Britain, France, Finland and also China, or the American reactor AP 1000, which will be built in Poland directly on the German border in three blocks and permitted according to German safety guidelines. Both of these types are of relatively simple availability. There are however additional which may come into question. 

We need nuclear energy not 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): “We need nuclear energy not”, that’s right!

only because it is advantageous, robust and reliable, and makes unnecessary the further completion of the energy transition, for which we are certainly not paid, but also because it makes us independent of foreign countries. 

            Alaa Alhamwi (Greens): From Russia, yes!

 – Now listen! – Uranium we receive from Canada, Africa, Australia and Kazachstan. Yet in case of emergency, we still have it available in our own country as raw material, for example, in the Erzgebirge or in Schwarzwald. 

Following the oil crisis of 1973-1974, it was the government of Helmut Schmidt which quite decisively drove forward the build up of nuclear power in Germany: Nuclear power as freedom’s energy! 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): The renewables are the energies of freedom!

You should reflect on that, on Helmut Schmidt and his political reason. 

And please, Frau Scheer, do not come to me again with your “alternative facts”. You are the SPD’s energy policy spokesman, and with your “alternative facts” you have already two weeks ago in the debate in the professional world made a furor; that, I can say to you.   

In fact, our nuclear power plants can be daily reduced in performance by a third, and again ramped up, and that for months. Worldwide, in fact 66 nuclear power works plants will be built. We have produced the electricity in our blocks for 2.5 to 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): 80 to 40 cents per kilowatt-hour!

And a basic load from nuclear power which is always available cannot be compared with photo-voltaic, which is available only 2,000 to 3,000 hours per year, and in autumn and winter as good as not. You can believe me. I myself have worked as plant physicist in steam reactors and pressurized-water reactors.  

Dear SPD, finally give up your blockade stance, since it is you who are permanently blocking the re-entry into the nuclear power. Vote for our motion! 

 

[trans: tem]

Marc Jongen, March 26, 2026, Global Gateway

EU Parliament, Brussels, P10 CRE-REV(2026)03-26(2-0059-0000). 

Frau President. 

In the multi-polar world order, influence, raw material and energy will be fought over in the Ukraine, in the Near East, or in competition with China in the developing countries – precisely for this, the Global Gateway program was created: As a European answer to China’s New Silk Road, as a geo-strategic instrument of the EU in global competition. 

Yet instead of a pragmatic interests Politik, the Commission continues the worldwide enforcement of climate goals, Herr Sikela, the export of woke values and the exclusive cooperation with like-minded partners. Energy and raw material projects are set in motion in the narrow framework of the Green Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. Over 300 billion was so far expended for that. Frau Bentele of the CDU, you have rightly criticized that, yet some good critical approaches are unfortunately ruined in that you also want to export into the world the climate ideology which evidently furthers the downfall of Europe. No geo-political influence can thus be gained! 

Listen, if not to me, then to the German Industry and Commerce Chamber which just last year said to you that the Global Gateway does not work for German business. That, we can no longer afford. 

[trans: tem]

 

Peter Boehringer, March 18, 2026, German Gold Reserves

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/64, pp. 7742-7743. 

Frau President. 

The German gold reserves [Staatsgold] originate from the foreign trade surpluses of the early Federal Republic. The Bundesbank as trustee administered these gold assets for their producer, the German citizens. The book value of our 3,350 tons increases for decades, and has since 2024 alone doubled to 450 billion euros. 

Gold is an important psychological and material guaranty of stability for our currency. Its revaluation gain [Aufwertungsgewinn] alone amounts to more than 150 times the capital equity of the German Bundesbank. Gold is the sole substantial position in the balance. Without it, the Bundesbank would be over-indebted by ten times its capital equity. 

Following a successful citizens initiative and repatriation of a large part of our foreign gold, today 51 percent is stored in the Frankfurt area. Nevertheless, a stock worth over 220 billion euros is ever still found in foreign countries. For 60 years already, we have borne this risk of foreign location. Since the end of the Cold War at the latest, there is no more reason for this, and none military. 

            Frauke Heiligenstadt (CDU/CSU): Listen to the Bundesbank president!

In these 60 years, the price has risen around 15,000 percent. 

We nevertheless bring in our motion [Drucksache 21/4739] not because gold is the class of investment with the best return, and we also do not advise the motion because Donald Trump in matters of fidelity to contract and the honoring of property and international law in fact exhibits no good balance. In part, that is right throughout. 

This, colleagues of the other delegations have acknowledged: By chance, Stephan Mayer of the CSU: “The finance minister needs to answer the question of Germans whether our gold in the USA is…still…secure.” Yes, Herr Mayer, this question is justified and has been presented for 15 years, yet from the Union’s view, by the wrong ones. 

Even the Greens’ finance policy spokesman meanwhile demands a gold standard currency in Germany. Please show that you seriously mean that, colleague Beck! 

Trump is thus indeed not the primary problem – that exists independent of him – yet we rejoice in every case when the colleagues now finally come to the right conclusion. 

For centuries, gold establishes sovereignty. It is free from the risk of a debts default, and cannot be politically devalued. It is an instrument of strategic security [Absicherung] to protect oneself against debt, inflation and systemic risk, which are often, as presently, still united with geopolitical crises. 

Almost every second state presently increases its gold reserves. Ever more central banks fear that they may not recover their foreign deposits of precious metal. The location of gold currency reserves in foreign countries is not to be justified. 

The Bundesbank’s long-term counter-argument, whereby in a crisis situation the metal, as it happens in New York or London, needs be converted into foreign exchange, is for years absurd. Certainly in case of a global currency crisis, no one wants to have paper money. Certainly then market participants strive for what is physically tangible, as is seen presently almost daily in the gold and silver market. 

And the Bundesbank? It, as it happens, wants in a serious case to exchange the only asset position without third-party risk for demand paper, thus precisely into such paper which in regard world currency turbulences every other party wants to get rid of. No one understands that. It is ahistorical and irrational. 

In addition, gold would also besides be tradable in Frankfurt if in a crisis it really were seriously desired to sell the state gold, which of course no one should seriously want. 

And the Bundesbank’s concerns about a – cite – “Psychological harm for the German-American relationship” in case of a repatriation are absurd! We speak of German property over which we need to have complete power of disposal. 

Unfortunately, the Bundesbank thereby stands in a bad tradition. In 1928, Reichsbank president Schacht, in regards a futile attempt to find the Weimar gold in the treasury of the US Fed, suddenly no longer wanted to see this, and freed Fed chief Strong of proof of this gold, without any emergency. 100 years later, we are not one millimeter further. 

And the actually thorough estimate of the Federal Audit Authority needs in one place to be criticized when it suggested to the Bild newspaper an examination of the gold in 2025 has not ensued. Nein, a complete examination of the German gold in foreign countries has never occurred since 1951! 

            Frauke Heiligenstadt (CDU/CSU): That’s just not right! Is completely wrong!

Gladly put an interim question, Frau colleague! Then can I expressly answer it! 

            Mechthilde Wittmann (CDU/CSU): Ja, so far as it comes!

The Bundesbank loses itself in inventory data from foreign countries, in minimal spot checks. Smelting charges and inventory numbers replace no bar numbers. Abbreviated numbers contradict orderly bookkeeping. Double counting of bar numbers cannot be excluded, complete examinations were never carried out. In short, there are no clean bar lists. 

The Bundesbank continually emphasizes they have complete trust in the foreign banks. Blind trust is however no examination strategy. In crises of an instance of tension, the right of ownership without simultaneous possession is not guaranteed. 

Trust also replaces no sovereignty. Gold is a strategic anchor of value. Its availability at home is a prerequisite for our country remaining, in regards international instability of a systemic crisis, able to act in matters of currency. 

All of this is an awareness of responsibility. It is no fear-mongering, as in recent days was dictated by you in the press. 

Many states since 2013 want to repatriate their gold holdings from New York and London. Blind trust, in times of dwindling certainty in international and financial law, is today no longer appropriate. The AfD therefore welcomes that this ancient debate on the overdue repatriation of the gold is now resurrected, even if in part for a false reason. 

No fear-mongering – awareness of responsibility! Thus strike the same out of your script where you probably again have the word “fear-mongering”. 

            Frauke Heiligenstadt (CDU/CSU): Exactly!

Strike it out! Dear viewers, it’s not true. Only that which we are doing is responsible.

Show today that your concern about gold, which you in recent months in the bloc have dictated,  is authentic, and was no crocodile tears. Vote for our motion! And in case your firewall fetish forbids that, then simply bring in one of your own! 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, March 18, 2026, War, Migration, Budget

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/64, pp. 7667-7668. 

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

Our position on the new war in the Near East has proved to be right. Ever more politicians at home and abroad share our concern, among others the Chancellor. The aim is to protect the population and civil institutions, as well as to end the war as quickly as possible. 

Herr Merz, from this place I have thanked your predecessor in office, Herr Scholz, for that he delivered no Taurus cruise missiles to the Ukraine. I see hope in that you follow him in this regard and avert harm from the German people. Since on one thing all here in the German Bundestag need to unconditionally agree: Only one commitment [Bekenntnis] is required which we as parliamentarians and politicians give to everyone: That is the commitment to our country and to our citizens. 

            Till Steffen (SPD): For you, that turns out to be, ja, difficult!

By these were we elected, and in the interest of these we need to make Politik. Germany was not defended in the Hindukush, nor is it defended in the Strait of Hormuz. 

            Helge Limburg (Green): And should not be governed from Russia!

Those who begin wars need to submit themselves to questions as to their goals and exit strategies. Just so should those who begin continuing wars be able to put forward evidence even for these. The same standards and rules apply for all. Herr Merz, you have said it: Only so can the trust of the world’s people be maintained. These, to a large extent, in this case have been shocked. 

Ladies and gentlemen, for us it must now first of all be about guaranteeing the security within the German borders. To that belongs consistently meeting the Islamism ever again flaming up here in Germany. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Yet that is a contradiction which you’ve noted,                                nicht wahr?

The demands of my party in that regard are to apply the pertinent law to full extent and, before all, to implement it. Stop the proactive migration of potential criminals, and finally deport the foreign citizens become criminals to their own countries! Asylum is residency for a time, and needs to be thus managed. These measures do not contradict human dignity, and do not condemn wholesale one or another of the groups. They are much more covered by applicable law in Germany. 

You see that the discussion at the European level has long since proceeded. The demand for asylum centers outside the European borders is meanwhile one common to the Union and to the Alternative für Deutschland. And, Herr Merz, who is needed – and at the European level – that, you do not decide. That, the people decide. 

Herr Chancellor, in this regard, exert pressure on our neighbors, particularly in eastern Europe. The Dublin agreement is not just understandings, but finally needs to be followed. We require reliable partners in all questions, and in the migration debate. 

Ladies and gentlemen, if we as Germans have learned something, then it is that for no war in the world should we let ourselves be yoked to the cart of others, by no one and for no interests which are not ours. We know better how a country destroyed by war is to be reconstructed. It was our forefathers and we ourselves who will forever bear that scar. That, we will and cannot expect of no other country. For that, German Politik in the year 2026 should stand. To that, quite clearly does not belong prolonging conflicts and wars by money and material benefits at the cost of the German taxpayers. 

            Metin Hakverdi (SPD): „Deutsche“! „National“!

The Ukraine war is just so little our war as the one in the Near East. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): You need a couple of history courses!

Therefore needs finally be an end to financial packages and military support! For certainly in this new, dangerous world situation, we need the well-being and the problems here in Germany to be back at the center of our Politik. 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Yes, then you do that on a lonely island!

I have enlarged on domestic security. Certainly in regards this and all proposals which are in Germany’s interest, you can count on the support of the Alternative für Deutschland. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Which we can well do without!

Where you need to figure with opposition is in regards your special debts or, as you call them, special funds. Not only do these massively burden the future of our children and grandchildren, no, it has happened exactly as what we here in many debates for a year have prophesied: This Federal government flogs ever more special funds through the German Bundestag because the basic expenditures need to be secured. You, Herr Merz, and your social democratic Finance Minister Klingbeil, have not managed to keep house with billions in tax intake. On that account, you need the expensive special debts so as to secure the core budget. That is neither sozial nor just. Not a cent can thereby flow into the decaying infrastructure of streets, railways, education or health. Not one euro do you invest long-term in the well-being of the German citizens. 

For you, time is running out. Instead of constantly building walls and losing yourself in partisan politics, you need now to finally be ready to make an audit, to prioritize your expenditures, and so far relieve the German economy, the Mittelstand, and the local trades that these do not run away from us, as we are seeing every day. Finally apply the red pencil and strike out superfluous taxes and guidelines which burden everything! I demand of you no world miracle, but a speedy action in regards the high energy and fuel prices. 

And, yes, we need to make it a theme, since these more strongly increase in Germany than in neighboring foreign countries. Yet the citizens and business now require, here and today, a relief. Therefore, away with the CO₂ duty! This decision can be implemented relatively quickly. 

Thus, Herr Chancellor, show that you are open to proposals. You have already in your position on the Near East drawn near to us. Now take care for peace in Europe and go to Russia. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Those are delusions!

In the purchase of Russian oil and gas can also again lie our competitive advantage. 

I thank you for the attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

Anna Rathert, January 29, 2026, Strength – German and American

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/56, pp. 6715-6716. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The Greens lay before us today an interesting motion – not interesting because it offers solutions, but because it reveals their worldview. The text reads like a cry for help. You note that with President Trump, an administration has entered Washington which openly says: “America First”, and no longer manages an international Politik supposedly based on rules, but is again lead by interests. 

Behind that stands a democratic reality; the majority of the Americans have voted for this course. Who finds that unbearable, he needs to learn to deal with it, not to moralize. In your motion, you fear crises and conflicts are intensified when protection and support structures erode. The entire German Politik is fixated on an international protection and support system because it is not dared to stand up for our German fatherland which itself, from itself, can bring forth strength. It is still plainly here, and it is everywhere, even in this house: The old fear of a strong Germany. That is a fallacy [Denkfehler] in which Germany sickens. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): With you, there can be no talk of thought [Denken]!

Departure is taken from material substance in the form of nuclear power, strong industry and economic performance, and one is lost in a system of international organizations like, for example, the EU. Of course, one needs also to affirm protective, rules-based orders without which one fears not to be able to assert oneself against a stronger partner. These orders should guarantee against crises. Yet crises and conflicts do not escalate because somewhere an assistance fund is lacking, or one international resolution too few was issued. Crises escalate because strength is lacking, which is needed for a natural balance of power between states: Economic strength, technological and energy policy strength, a functioning infrastructure: Deutsche Bahn, electricity supply, deterrence and defense capability, and a resilient inner order which is supported socially and culturally. 

You say the Federal government may not continue to belittle itself and needs to self-consciously formulate and represent our interests and values. Ja, nothing would be better than that. We need finally to begin to formulate national German interests, and indeed such which makes us strong and independent; yet that does not go with the self-overestimate put forward here by you. You do not seriously want to explain to the Americans how democracy and economy work 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): It would be sufficient if you would grasp it!

when you here in this country observe the opposition, and are just about de-industrializing Germany. 

            Deborah Düring (Greens): We are, besides, no longer in the government!                                                 A little side note.

Your approach for negotiations as equals is completely wrong. For you are evident the motion’s achievements which, as it happens, are what just forced Germany to its knees: Verbote, de-industrialization by energy policy, supply chain law, over-regulation, the forest protection decree – all of which weaken performance and international commerce. 

Who wants to understand America needs to grasp a historic fact: The United States generally first originated and later became a world power because it has economically and militarily asserted itself. And precisely this ability to succeed [Durchsetzungsfähigkeit] they also expect from their counterparts. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): That is just an intellectual solar eclipse!

There is respect in Washington not for appeals, but for strength and self-responsibility. 

Germany on the other hand acts like a late-stage teenager: Making claims and preaching morality, yet little readiness to take up the responsibility for its own sovereignty. As equals  plainly means first build up one’s own strength, and then talk. 

            Vincenz Glaser (Linke): What is your strength? Contact with Russia?

Who only makes demands, and at the same time makes prescriptions, will not be taken seriously. 

And still one thing: If you really find so unbearable a relationship as that of Trump, as you here argue, then you would especially need to make Germany strong and independent, as you were in government responsibility. Yet that you did not do. That, the present Federal government also  does not do – and now you live stuck with the consequences. 

We as the Alternative für Deutschland stand for the antithesis: To again make Germany capable by use of nuclear power, to be reliable, and then negotiate, sovereign, as equals – not to lecture, but to achieve. That goes only with us, and thus our time is just beginning. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Markus Frohnmaier, January 29, 2026, Germany, Ukraine, Nordstream

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/56, pp. 6745-6746. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Chancellor Merz speaks of an age of “Great Power Politics”. The truth is: The power Politik was never gone. That, we see in the Ukraine, in Venezuela, in Greenland. New is not the reality of the power Politik. New is a persistent, chronic weakness of Germany which encounters an increasingly multipolar world in which the interests are again openly carried out. In such a world, Germany then is only capable of acting when it combines its powers, sets priorities, and finally learns to stand up for itself. 

Before all is the CDU responsible, through decades of government failures, for almost all major political mistaken decisions which have made our country vulnerable. The completely wrong mass migration, a threat to security since 2015, the anti-economic [Wirtschaftfeindliche] withdrawal from nuclear and coal energy which drove us to dependency on gas imports and de-industrialized Germany, with dramatic consequences for welfare, public finances and sozial peace. Germany cannot afford to give away its resources to the Ukraine while we here at home are vulnerable. 

Our capitol city Berlin has just experienced how vulnerable critical infrastructure is, and can be quickly omitted by sabotage. Tens of thousands of households, following a leftist extremist attack, sat in darkness and in cold. Diesel generators were lacking, diesel generators which were in the Ukraine. 

            Claudia Roth (Greens): Oh nee! 

            Kay Gottschalk (AfD): Listen!

Germany shall pay in the next ten years for the reconstruction of the Ukraine with sums which lie beyond any serious ability to plan. 

            Claudia Roth (Greens): Ja, serious!

The CDU combines that with the formula: “So long it is necessary”. Ladies and gentlemen, that is a blank check, and blank checks are in the Politik always the beginning of the end of any control. 

Every cent of the so far around 1,000 billion euros of the Ukraine aid is debt-financed – financed with debts which in the form of principal and interest cost will afflict all future Federal budget charges. 

            Stefan Keuter (AfD): The next generations!

Debts are tomorrow’s taxes, ladies and gentlemen. We forfeit the future of our children for a country the hand of which is outstretched for our money, and to thank us apparently blows up our own German infrastructure. 

            Knut Abraham (CDU/CSU): That is shabby!

Shabby is that you of the CDU permit such a thing. Shabby is that to this day you have not sought to clarify the Nordstream explosion, Herr colleague of the CDU. 

            Thomas Rachel (CDU/CSU): Shabby is that you still haven’t said a word                                         for the civilian population in the Ukraine which is attacked daily from                                      Russia!

What do we want to actually have happen? 

First: Corruption and lack of transparency. A corruption scandal again shakes the Ukraine up to the highest circles, with effects on the energy and defense infrastructure. When a state is at war, and at the same time billions seep away, then that is not only morally unbearable but is also extremely dangerous for security policy. Since money, weapons and material do not simply disappear. They again emerge elsewhere, in dark channels, in black markets, in criminal networks. 

            Stefan Keuter (AfD): Darknets! 

            Robin Wagener (CDU/CSU): Those are the things with which you are familiar.

Second: Demands without end. It is always the same process – more weapons, more money, more guaranties, more appeals. Yet where actually is the clear accounting, what happened with the donated benefits? 

Third: We as Germans can no longer afford this. While our local governments are at limit, while families and Mittelstand note every month how expensive everything has become, while the Bundeswehr cannot even secure it own basic equipment, we shall play the role of long-term paymaster in a foreign conflict thanks to the CDU Politik. 

            Claudia Roth (Greens): Thank Putin!

Ladies and gentlemen, there needs finally be an end to that! 

            Thomas Rachel (CDU/CSU): For that, the Russian Putin is responsible.

            What do you then say to a war of aggression counter to international law?

            What do you say to Russia’s aggressive war counter to international law? 

Listen for once! You are elected as a representative of the German people, and not as a member of the Ukrainian Rada! This, the CDU’s Politik needs finally to understand. 

            Thomas Rachel (CDU/CSU): That is,  ja, embarrassing!

Fourth, and this is the point which altered everything: How do we deal with the apparent  Ukrainian attack on our infrastructure, on the sovereignty of Germany? The Federal Court of Justice in its ruling of December 10, 2025, on the Nordstream sabotage, proceeded on the basis that the attacks on the Nordstream pipelines resulted from a “highly likely […] foreign state order”. It was accepted that the act was initiated and controlled by a foreign state. The defense of the Ukrainian suspects wanted to attain immunity for these, in which – listen well, dear colleagues of the CDU – it is argued the act is a part of the war between the Ukraine and Russia. 

            Knut Abraham (CDU/CSU): Who gave the order?

Everything, really everything indicates that this attack was ordered with knowledge of the Ukrainian government. The Federal government cannot simply so continue as if this was not acknowledged. I today quite clearly demand of you: Finally examine this! 

            Knut Abraham (CDU/CSU): Yes, yes! For months!

Billions of German tax money were invested in this infrastructure project, and you did not attempt to manage a clarification. That is harmful for Germany and our citizens. 

We therefore want that now an investigative and tracking staff for the clarification of corruption, money laundering, arms trafficking, and finance of terrorism be established [Drucksache 21/3839]. We also want that complete transparency be established vis-à-vis Bundestag and public by a website following the model of the American Ukraine oversight structures. One matter needs finally be clarified: Who expends the taxpayers’ money, he has no right to non-transparency. 

            Claudia Roth (Green): The AfD says that!

That, the CDU needs finally learn and understand, ladies and gentlemen. 

We say today quite clearly: No more weapons deliveries, no additional armaments. Yes, humanitarian aid is possible. But all that effects a prolongation of the war, we no longer want. 

            Stefan Schmidt (Greens):  Putin has written that for you, or?

We want that German tax money finally remains here in Germany, and does not flow to whichever oligarchs. We want to take care that this money benefits our schools, our streets, our German infrastructure, our citizens – something which these gentlemen have long since forgotten. For that, we were elected to make Politik for German citizens – and not for the Ukraine! 

            Thomas Rachel (CSU/CSU): We make Politik for all peoples. That is the distinction. 

 

[trans: tem]

Thomas Fetsch, January 15, 2026, Rental Housing

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/53, pp. 6355-6356. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

“To Better Protect Renters”, so is the undertitle of the called-for motion. The here presented demands from the Linke party for a supposed rescue of an, in part, no longer functioning rental market which is unfortunately covered to a not insignificant degree with similarly knitted regulatory aims of the governing coalition – we have just now heard a bit of it – are all too well known, in a longer view massively detrimental, and stamped with a fundamental scepticism vis-à-vis owners of real property and the functionings of market forces: A sharp rental price brake, a limitation of existing rental increases, a more temporary rental freeze [Mietenstopp], a substantial restriction or indeed abolition of indexed rentals, a regulation or a ban on furnishing supplements [Möbilierungszuschlagen], a strong regulation of short-term rentals, a massive restriction of owner use terminations [Eigenbedarfskündigungen], expansion of grace period payments, an introduction of agreement and transparency obligations, etc. etc. The supposedly all-knowing state – instead of market reason and realism – shall thus set it right. Ladies and gentlemen, this false, as even so hostile to freedom, spirit with which the presented motion breathes, we reject outright. 

Instead of creating the statutory and economic conditions so that business builds new housing, and owners of housing space are not, with all force, more or less deterred from renting, socialization [Vergesellschaftung] fantasies are spread – by means of expropriation and by means of ever additional shackles laid upon the owners – and become salonfähig in bürgerliche milieux. Thereby is private rental law reconstructed into an additional sozial right, instead of finally, vigorously addressing the actual problems of the present housing market misery. 

In fact – this proceeds from a current, representative Civey survey – it is expected that the regulation of indexed rents, planned by the Federal government, as it happens threatens to become a veritable housing construction brake. Since by the long-term value guaranty of inflation protection, building projects often only become more calculable and feasible. The additional statutory guidelines – be it here in excessive form of the Linke motion, or in form of the declared views of the governing coalition – only expand and deepen this problematic still further.    

In the end, still fewer rentable dwellings are available, and the stock worsens ever further because renovation and reconstruction measures will simply be omitted due to a lack of sufficient return on rentals. That could well enough be seen, for example, in the DDR, and that, we no more want here, ladies and gentlemen. 

What have Bund, States and local governments under leadership of the old parties – including the Linke, for example, in Thüringen – done for an improvement? Nothing, with penetrating effectiveness. They much more withdraw, by plan and incisively, from the rental market and sell their stock. In climate madness, they make massively more expensive the energy and construction costs. In the bureaucracy madness active in recent decades, every construction contract means an incalculable time risk for builders of every kind. You raise, in combination with the States and local governments, striking taxes like the real estate transfer tax [Grunderwerbsteuer] and the property tax [Grundsteuer]. And thus it plainly comes to, besides the actual rent, additional, sprawling rental side-costs which have long since attained the level of a second rent. It is thus primarily your false, anti-renter and anti-landlord policy which has created the dilemma of the high rents. 

An additional, essential price-driving aspect was in any case recently named by the German Renters Union. The number of renters has risen in the past five years by around 3 million people, which has naturally, additionally and clearly intensified the dwellings supply situation. And if you all do not want to hear it: Behind that is the unplanned, uncontrolled and overwhelming migration which we self-evidently reject. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): I thought you had forgotten something!

The means of the Linke as also of the coalition – still more regulation and still deeper intervention – further does not help here, but even intensifies the situation. From this muddled situation, only a great new start helps, and which is only possible with the AfD. 

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

Siegbert Droese, February 9, 2026, Digital Euro and Inflation

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2026)02-09(1-0107/0115-0000). 

Frau President. Frau President Lagarde. Honored colleagues. 

We debate today the year’s report of the European Central Bank. This report shows primarily one thing: A central bank which is ever further removed from its actual mandate. The monetary policy of the last years has led to noticeable inflation. Millions of citizens, savers, pensioners daily lose purchasing power. Instead of clearly reappraising these failures, the ECB already plans the next profound intervention – the digital euro. 

The digital euro was sold to us all as a harmless modernization project. In truth, it is a political project which deeply intervenes into the citizens’ financial freedom. The digital euro solves no real problem, nevertheless creates numerous new risks. It is a great experiment. A digital euro creates the very concrete danger of step by step driving out cash. It makes possible the state tracking of payments, and opens the long-term possibility of taking influence in how and for what citizens may use their money. Who believes this instrument would never be politically mis-used ignores the experience of history. 

Yes, President Lagarde, you seek to pacify us today, in which you announce the third series of euro banknotes. Yet: The Alternative für Deutschland, the ESN delegation, demand a clear return of the ECB to price stability, transparency, and adherence to mandate. No digital euro without unlimited preservation of cash, no further power increase for an institution without democratic control. Stable money and freedom go together. Both today are on the daily order, both today are in play. 

[…] Herr colleague, many thanks for your speech. You speak of the ECB’s duty: Currency stability, price stability. The ECB president today here admitted in parliament there supposedly had been in the past only 10.8 percent inflation. Now the inflation is again at a normal level. The question to you: Do you believe that the ECB heads, Frau Lagarde is here present, that the ECB heads realistically estimate the social consequences of inflation? 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, December 17, 2025, German Security and the U.S.A.

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/49, pp. 5757-5759. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen. 

Initially I want to remember the dead and wounded of the terror attack in Australia. We stand against this brutalization of and the growing violence against the vulnerable. It makes me speechless with which means throughout the world the struggle of the religions is ever still on the daily order, be it in the Near East, at attacks on German Christmas markets, or now in Sydney where a Jewish community wanted to celebrate the festival of lights. All of these incidents are to be condemned and political consequences need to be drawn, and precisely for that reason we as parliament need decide to speak out against religious fanaticism, extremism and terrorism. It is therefore only fitting when we as the Alternative für Deustschland demand consistently deporting perpetrators without German citizenship to their home countries, since these present a danger for all Germans, with or without a migration background. In that regard, in the various religions there should certainly exist a consensus, and which should enjoin peace. 

It is precisely these negotiations for peace which we since 2022 ever again demand for the Ukraine and Russia. The German governments under Olaf Scholz and Friedrich Merz have allowed themselves a long time for this. In the meantime, the re-elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, seizes the initiative and mediates between the parties to the conflict. The goal needs be ending the senseless death on both sides. I for years have said: The Ukraine will not be able to win this war. 

And what were the political consequences? Herr Merz burdens the German taxpayers with 70 billion euros of debt for weapons deliveries and military assistance to the Ukraine – and here we do not know to this day into which channels it in part trickles away – and with an additional 11.5 billion euros in the next budget. In addition comes the Bürgergeld payments in a sum of 6 billion euros per year to Ukrainians. 

Before which challenges do we now stand? After almost four years of war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers have fallen or been wounded; in addition, comes the civilian victims and a destroyed land. The United States for months have clearly signaled it will withdraw from the circle of supporters of the war. Yet that also means that the billions required for additional weapons purchases, for example in the U.S.A., now need to be paid for by Europe alone – thus, new debts for Germany and precisely that is completely unacceptable. 

I thus insist: It was and is not our war. At the beginning of the destruction was clear that here much money will be required for the reconstruction, that however also much more can be earned. Precisely there has Friedrich Merz been able to gather his best experiences in his mother house, BlackRock. Quite according to the motto: “Good business with other people’s money” [Mit fremdem Geld lässt sich gut wirtschaften], the Chancellor proceeds with his over-reaching plan to illegally expropriate Russian state assets and to give it to the Ukraine. This announcement alone pours additional oil on the fire of this war. Beyond that, the Chancellor promises that Germany self-evidently is readily available for an eventual default of payments. As has been said, Herr Merz: Other people’s money – the money of the Germans – is plainly easier given than one’s own. 

In common with your Union comrades in Brussels, you impose one sanction after another which should be directed against Russia, yet which primarily harm Germany. The energy prices burden the private budgets even so heavily as those of business. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Do you make a memorial of Putin, who has bombed                                       every week, every day? 

You are responsible for the death of the German economy, and there, Frau Haßelmann, the tears come to me. We in Germany in the year 2025 have lost almost 1,000 industrial workplaces per day; 60 bankruptcies per day. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Are you already through with the Ukraine?

It affects the automobile industry, its suppliers and thereby the skilled trades and the Mittelstand.  And “gone” means gone. You need be politically responsible for that, yet our children and grandchildren need to solve this dilemma. 

            Vice-president Omid Nouripour: Herr Chrupalla, do you allow an                                             interim question from member Hoffmann? 

No, later please. 

            Vice-president Omid Nouripour: Then continue readily.

And these need already today shoulder the financing of your credits. You make debts so as to be able to cope with the basic expenditures of the social system. The pensioners you fob off in the future with 48 percent of the last years of service. You drive those who create value, after at least 45 years of work, into old age poverty. Yet you want, ja, to bring precisely the pensioners again into an occupation and then call that an active pension [Aktivrente]. Know, Herr Merz, one as Chancellor can scarcely more dismissively deal with these who keep the social state running with their work. 

At the same time you drive forward the de-industrialization, willfully bring us into conflict with Russia and support a corrupt system around the still president Zelenskyi. Your colleagues of the Union delegation emphasize to the press the German Bundestag should be tied up in the use of the frozen Russian assets, and that shows us two things: First, you want to have your perfidious plan provided with a parliamentary majority. And second, we as members should agree to the almost certainly arising contributions of billions to the further support of the Ukraine. That is a deceit scarcely to be surpassed! 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): Hä? Why then should the Bundestag occupy itself                                           with it?

You travel today and tomorrow for the EU summit. Should you there make good on precisely these commitments, with your solo you act completely against the interests of the German citizens. And I may therein remind you: In Germany are lacking investment means for the vital infrastrucure, for streets, bridges, railways, schools, hospitals and kindergartens. 

We are all elected by the German people so as to bring forward our country, Germany. Besides, with Victor Orbàn, Andrej Babis and Robert Fico, three EU countries have already indicated the rejection of using the Russian assets, or giving financial guaranties for the Ukraine. So much for your European unity. And those in the Union who still some weeks ago made themselves advocates of the transatlantic relations, now slowly note that there are no more guaranties and no hegemon. The United States’ new security strategy shows us quite clearly: In the center stands the U.S.A. – and only the U.S.A. – and which already has written off the partnership with the old Europe. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): And therefore your young people make a pilgrimage                                           to America!

Simply nothing is understood of how one can bring balance to the continent and Europe’s interior security with a failed migration policy and lacking a relationship to Russia. 

And once again our Chancellor appears to falsely analyze this announcement. Driven by his old Federal Republic antipathy against the east, he drives forward strategies which let the graves become ever deeper, in foreign lands even so at home. At the CDU party day in Magdeburg, Herr Merz once again showed his quite charming side as he said he had the good fortune to have grown up in the west. And here you once again have misunderstood something: It is we eastern Germans who have given ourselves to the long way of integration in a unified Germany. We do not want to return to the old Federal Republic. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): You’ve still not arrived!

In that you give citizens in the east the feeling that, for you, they are of less value, you again prove your incapacity for dealing with people. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): That is simply just nonsense, what you are telling here!

And therefore, Herr Chancellor, I am happy that you grew up in the west. You would have failed us in the east! 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Oje, deeper is does not get!

Allow me in conclusion just briefly go into the Chancellor’s announcement to set up a multinational troop for the Ukraine. You thereby show not only that you continue to want to spin the escalation spiral in Europe. You speak of securities for the Ukraine, but mean armament and the construction of new scenarios of intimidation in Europe. 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): That is bad for your Russian friends!

For me and us, you however also show that we, with our positioning for peace and against the reinstatement of conscription at the present point in time, stand exactly on the right side. Since this reinstatement indeed later becomes what you here today and also what you yesterday announced, and is in a later future only to be rejected. You said yesterday we would need to respond to a Russian attack. Meanwhile now, not unjustly, the German press also asks: Do you know what you actually said there? Do you actually know what that means, Herr Merz? – We cannot trust you. For you, it is not about the defense of the country. It is to be feared that you with your policy, in view of a loss of tension, initiate or want to initiate deploying conscripts in the Ukraine. 

            Lisa Badum (Greens): You are a problem for the defense of the country!

We do not trust you with our children! 

And in regards the present negotiations with the Ukraine has become very clear that it will be no part of NATO and thereby is excluded a possible alliance. You however attempt with all means to create options for yourself and the Ukraine to prolong the war. To that are we quite clearly opposed. 

The President of the United States had begun the negotiations with Russia as equals [auf Augenhöhe]. Your attempt, Herr Merz, to make clientele policy for Herr Zelenskyi will not be crowned with success. With your kind of policy-making, you were and remain at the children’s table. Herr Chancellor, a state is no international finance concern. Leave therefore the foreign policy to the foreign policy makers, and finally concern yourself over how you may relieve the German economy, the Mittelstand and the skilled trades, in west as in east. For that, you wanted to become Chancellor. Finally trouble yourself for Germany! 

Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to have left the east-west conflict behind us. With an international troop, you again conjure this up, Herr Merz. You, on that account, are and remain a diehard of the old FRG. You do not consider the future of our country or our children; you as Chancellor are already history. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Who actually wrote that for you?

I wish you and your families a peaceful Christmas and hope for a peaceful year in 2026. 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): For the Ukraine, too!

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Anja Arndt, December 16, 2025, Automobile CO2 Limits

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)12-16(2-0472-0000). 

Frau President. 

Our automobile branch finds itself, due to technically unfulfillable CO₂ limit values which were decided here in parliament, in this dramatic situation. For this year were around 15 billion in penalties imposed. How absurd and cynical is all of that actually? The EU decrees are the origin and ought to be immediately lifted. They are politically negligent incompetence [Pfusch]. And now we see the consequences. 

I now want today for once to turn the tables. You as Commission, due to the EU Decree 2023/851, are obligated to put forward by December 31, 2025, the long overdue method for measuring the CO₂ emissions over the entire life-cycle of e-autos and combustion engines. Why do you withhold this report? I can well imagine and hereby propose that against the Commission a penalty be imposed if this report by December 31… 

(The President withdraws the word from the speaker.) 

 

[trans: tem]