Götz Frömming, July 8, 2022, Biotechnology Subvention

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/48, pp. 5115-5116.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Frau Werner, I really must say: That was just a typical political speech. One hears, everything rushes past, and afterwards one asks:  What then did she actually say? Since what therein was concrete?

            Lena Werner (SPD): Then you need to listen!

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Yet that can lie with you!

So there was nothing concrete there. To that extent, colleague Jarzombek is quite right: We urgently need a new start. The government – we have heard it today – has here apparently done no forward thinking.

Ladies and gentlemen, it has already been said: Germany formerly was the world’s pharmacy. It could be re-filled with Nobel prizes. Not far from here at the Humboldt Universität – formerly called the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität – it rained Nobel prizes. Today, the Humboldt Universität shines – “shines’ in quotes – in left-wing organizations’ hindering of natural science lectures. You for once need to clarify that, ladies and gentlemen. And that is only the tip of the iceberg. We unfortunately need to confirm: In Germany, there no longer prevails a good climate for free science and research.

Now to the CDU/CSU’s motion. You have, ja, many times said what we also find to be correct, that we need to strengthen Germany as a venue. The instrument which you now put forward is however a special European one which is not only for the areas of biotechnology or health research but with which we have already had experience in other areas. Perhaps you have also taken note of the criticism made of this European distribution mechanism. For example, the German chamber of industry and commerce warns of – I cite – a “subventions squandering”. In that regard, we should reconsider when tax money should flow into an area in which in a previous time gigantic profits were nevertheless made.

Nevertheless, let us take a look: You have just now rightly made mention of the firm BioNTech – which belongs to Pfizer. How then does it look? In 2021 for BioNTech alone, the net profit was 10.3 billion euros. Ladies and gentlemen, was that not also money which should flow into research? It also needs to be asked: Can it be right that the taxpayer steadily promotes such businesses when they are in formation, yet then will forget to conclude the corresponding contract so something of this risk capital also again flows back? No private risk capital investor would do that. Unfortunately, with our tax money it will so proceed. This is precisely a form of subvention which cannot be right, ladies and gentlemen.

Thomas Jarzombek (CDU/CSU): That’s not right! We have participated in venture   capital. Herr colleague, in the Lufthansa we have earned one billion for the taxpayer!

Let us also cast a glance at the German promotion practice. I sometime ago placed an inquiry and the result was interesting. The Federal government confirmed and conceded that 90 percent of research money levied from the German taxpayer flows to foreign or international firms and projects. Those are mostly larger firms. The smaller, here nationally anchored firms, the KMU, generally go away empty-handed. For them, the application procedure alone is too complicated. Here also we urgently need to reconsider our promotion practice so as to only promote that which needs a promotion, ladies and gentlemen.

Let me in concluding say one thing: Certainly the pandemic has shown that, when it becomes serious, each is closest to himself. We have seen that in regards the masks. We have seen that in regards the vaccine distribution. One thing I believe is also important for us in times which perhaps are somewhat relaxed: We need to again learn to think and to act nationally. All other countries do that, and we also should do that, ladies and gentlemen.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Kristin Brinker, January 27, 2022, Berlin - Part II

Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus, Plenarprotokoll 19/5, pp. 226-227.

Here I ask you, Frau Giffey, in all frankness: What is it now with the referendum? Should large real estate concerns be expropriated or not? I know what you also said here today; you cannot answer because the coalition is not united and must now establish a working circle, a so-called experts committee, which shall examine how an expropriation

            Sebastian Schlüsselberg (Linke): Socialization [Vergesellschaftung]!

of real estate owners is compatible with the Basic Law. For builders and investors, this is a fatal signal. Who then still wants to build housing in Berlin when it is not clear whether an expropriation threatens?

            Tobias Schulze (Linke): Everyone wants to build here!

That not only sometimes affects the large concerns but also the small housing provider. And they meantime have developed fears due to this fatal policy which has governed in the past five years.

We therefore demand of the Senate to immediately examine the constitutionality and the feasibility of the the referendum.

            Anne Helm (Linke): We are doing it!

The voters need to be informed of the results, not following three experts committees, but most quickly. There is to be allowed no year-long suspension since the consequences for the housing market would be fatal.

Yet we also need to ask ourselves why the situation in the Berlin housing market is so strained. Why is there so little housing in Berlin? Quite simply: The rents rise because there is more demand, yet no more supply. There was too little housing built, yet there were hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants hauled into the country. And even if you are not happy to hear it: This uncontrolled, great mass migration

            Jian Omar (Greens): Shame on you!

is naturally also one of the origins of the housing emergency in Berlin. This needs to be seen realistically and for once acknowledged. This Senate also knows that.

            Silke Gebel (Greens): Do not spread such things!

Frau Giffey also knows that. Yet the Berliners are not your priority. The Senate prefers to procure a dwelling for all migrants, even the illegal. You even write it in your government declaration. It is there, vebatim: The WBS housing authorization will be made possible for all those living in Berlin without housing, independent of reception status.

            Ronald Glaser (AfD): Inconceivable!

That is, ja, prima.

            Gunnar Lindemann (AfD): That is, ja, super!

We however do not have so much social housing. We have here in this city over 1 million authorized for WBS. Where then shall they all find shelter? How much housing do you then want to build? It simply does not function.

            Gunnar Lindemann (AfD): Unsozial!

That is your left, unsozial politics. While families, pensioners, students or single parents find no housing in Berlin, illegal immigrants receive access to publicly promoted housing space. That really is unsozial.

That is not enough. Social Senator Kipping wants to shelter refugees in hotels.

            Senator Kipping: Nein, rubbish!

It is in the newspaper.

            Carsten Schatz (Linke): It is in the newspaper. Well, then!

You yourself have said it: Hotels, hostels, dwellings – all.

            Ronald Glaser (AfD): It already was all!

You have also brought a proposal into the main committee with a quasi blank full powers which you wanted for rental objectives. Yet the taxpayer must pay for it. Berlin families can only dream of so much public solicitude.

            Anne Helm (Linke): This is just unbelievable!

That is no fair policy, with permission.

If we want to relieve the Berlin housing market, we need to build and we must before all consistently deport criminal and illegal migrants. You want to hear nothing of this.

            Harald Latsch (AfD): Deportation makes dwelling space!

Let us come to the fourth imposition, which was the theme here today, the catastrophic state of the Berlin education system.

            Antje Kapek (Greens): Och!

Our students routinely show up the worst in a national performance comparison. It is no wonder, since performance plays no role in the education policy of this Senate.

            Roman-Francesco Rogat (FDP): That is noted!

Instead, we find in the government declaration the usual leftist phrases: Diversity, inclusion, variety and so forth. The result is catastrophic. A third of those in the Berlin Grundschulen can scarcely read and write. Those leaving school lacking in basic numeracy are scarcely to be trained. Every tenth student leaves school without a graduation. What do you do, what does the Senate do?

            Jeannette Auricht (AfD): Gender!

Ja, it genders. It deceives the parents of school-age children, and really so. Berlin parents have trouble finding a good school for their children. An important criterion for this decision is the portion of German-speaking students in a school. That is logical. If in a class, half of the students speak little or no German, a reasonable instruction according to the teaching plan is scarcely possible. A lack of fluency in German in Berlin schools is a problem.

Many parents have acknowledged this problem. In the past school year, something like a third of parents decided against the area school [Einzugsschule] and the Senate knows of the problem. Yet instead of solving it, it is concealed. The portion of students who speak no German at home shall in the future no longer be counted. There is no information. Why? The parents thereby no longer have the opportunity to completely inform themselves on the future school of their children. The result is that he who is able to do so will preferably send his child to a private school. Parents who can finance no private school lose out. That is today’s leftist education policy. Also here, fairness appears otherwise.

We therefore demand full transparency in regards school performance data. The teaching plans need to ensure the students training and study ability according to individual capabilities. We need to strengthen the Gymnasien and the promotion of the highly gifted. School should again become a place of learning and achievement, not an experimental field for leftist ideologies.

Let us come to the fifth imposition, the absolute trivialization of extreme leftist violence in our city. According to criminal statistics, leftist violence in Berlin has lately increased significantly. In one year, 2019, it almost doubled and violence against police, firemen, sanitation workers ever more increases. On that, Frau Giffey lets slip not a word, no a single one, and no word for the arson attacks on autos. Believe it or not, extremists and criminals have in the year 2021 torched over 700 autos in Berlin.

The Senate wants to fight rightist extremism. That is correct. We also want that. Yet we ought not to be blind in the left eye. 

All forms of political and religious extremism are dangerous and must correspondingly be combated. Violence is never allowed to become a means of political  argument, no matter from whom it proceeds.

An additional blindspot in the Senate’s Interior policy is the theme of clan criminality. Colleague Wegner has already addressed it. In the past year, Berlin State prosecutor Knipsel has written a book on it. He writes, verbatim: “In Berlin, criminal clans control entire city sectors.” 15 to 20 criminal clans with many hundreds of members are responsible for a quarter of the cases of organized crime. It is about drugs and human trafficking, murder and manslaughter, extortion, forced prostitution, social fraud. What is terrifying is, on account of the over-burdening of the Berlin courts, many urgent suspects, major dealers, even murderers and rapists, need to be released on account of, for example, infringement of the time period by investigators. To the Senate, this theme is not worth a syllable. That is a scandal. Why do you not openly name it? Organized criminality is clan criminality. Yet you close your eyes to it.

 

[to be continued; trans: tem]