Alice Weidel, January 29, 2026, Merz Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/56, pp. 6651-6653. 

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

You assert in your speech you would strengthen our ability to compete. Yet of that, our economy still has noted nothing. The bankruptcy tsunami sweeps unbraked over our country, and will in this year, on the basis of chain insolvencies, exceed a record mark of 30,000. The Mittelstand suffers the worst. The backbone of our prosperity is breaking. Our economy is threatened with collapse. 

Your self-praise in matters of tax reduction sounds like bare-faced scorn for citizens and businesses. In fact, your coalition, driven by the SPD hostile to performance, discusses a confiscatory and anti-Mittelstand intensification of the inheritance tax. You thereby want to conclusively cash-out the Mittelstand.   

And you have just hiked yet again the taxes for all by means of the rise of the CO₂ duty by a full 20 percent. You have thus already in past years with this special cost fleeced citizens and businesses of 22 billion euros. That is a pillaging of our economy. 

You spoke at Davos. You boast of the modernization of the decaying infrastructure. Of that is true only that you have agreed to a gigantic mountain of special debts which you here disguise as special funds. Half of these infrastructure special debts flow illegally into consumption spending. Your transportation minister on the other hand now again lacks the money for the construction start of urgent railway projects. 

A similar load of hot air is your bureaucracy deconstruction. So far, you’ve only built up new bureaucracy 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CSU/CSU): You actually always make the same speech.                                        Can that be?

as through the supply chain law and a massive growth of positions in the public sector. 

And as to the reform of the social system which you ever again have promised and announced to the citizens, you have there so far in any case only further raised the costs, and shamefully caved in to the demands of your 14 percent coalition partner, enacting still more tax- and debt-financed redistribution. That which you needed to do – namely, to lower the expenditures and put a stop to the abuse – you will never manage with the SPD. 

The labor minister’s Sozialstaat concept even wants to simplify the access to social benefits; savings in regards the benefits are expressly excluded. All of this will cost the taxpayer still more. 

            Sepp Müller (SPD): Rubbish! 

It shall thus simply so continue with the exploding rise of the Kindergeld transfer payments to foreign countries. Over 5 billion euros since 2010, a half billion euros in last year alone. The social duties reach a record value. 

You plunder the working people, rob their willingness to work, the future, and the trust in the Sozialstaat, and still say to them they should work longer. That is an infamy. 

Yet that unfortunately also shows that you have certainly not understood the actual problems in this country. It lies not in the working time, but in the politically fashioned, much too high costs due to the green energy transition which you continue to manage, in the much too high taxes and duties for business, and in the excessive bureaucracy. 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Exactly!

You yourself designate the nuclear power withdrawal as a mistake, yet all the same blow up nuclear power plants, as in CSU-governed Bavaria last October. Thus appears double morality. You lie to your voters. That shows that you bend before the Diktat of the SPD and Greens. There is a majority for the re-entry into the nuclear power – in the society and, if you want it, also in this house, in this parliament. Yet you do not want it. 

You explain windpower as a transition technology; yet at the same time, you want to complete Habeck’s green madness plan, to continue to sink billions in subventions for wind parks in the North Sea without a return, and, after the home forests, to seriously damage this susceptible eco-system. 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Schweinerei!

As a last rescue anchor, you cling to new gas power plants. With what do you want to operate them? And how do you explain to the people that at the same time the German gas network should be destroyed and they should tear out their gas heating? You want to wreck and destroy an infrastructure which was erected by an immense expenditure of earlier generations. That can be explained by no one with a healthy, human understanding. 

Your government supports the fateful EU decision to forbid imports of advantageous natural gas from Russia and for the future. The new, one-sided dependency on expensive American liquified gas proves to be extremely inefficient and dangerous. 

            Frauke Heiligenstadt (SPD): Here is what is quite differently dangerous!

And without additional gas power, the storage certainly runs empty. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Your intellectual storage runs quite empty!

A gas shortage with grave, compulsory shut-offs threatens. 

All of these grotesque contradictions, false assertions and fantasies are responsible for that Germany and this Federal government are no longer taken seriously in the world. And that is fatal, certainly in this geo-political situation. 

The U.S.A. is an important ally; yet they represent their own interests. And we need to finally define and self-consciously represent our own national, German interests, certainly when they diverge from those of our allies and partners. To send a dozen soldiers to Greenland, and next day order them back is – with permission – a hullabaloo, and no serious, solution-oriented foreign policy guided by interests. 

            Franziska Kersten (SPD): What?

It is a mistake that you reject the peace council initiated by Donald Trump. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Rip off a couple of billion dollars, ne? 

            Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens): You yourself need laugh!

The board is an opportunity to unravel the multiple blockades of an ineffective UN. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): That is ridiculous!

It lies on the other hand in the German interest to quickly end the Ukraine war. Germany needs to cooperate in the peace process and realize its own interests. To that belongs averting an EU and NATO membership of the Ukraine, and further transfer payments from Germany. Much more, we require compensation for the state terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipeline infrastructure, vital for Germany, for which Kiev is obviously co-responsible. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Do so further peacefully!

The EU, the cohesion of which you stereotypically swear by, also here is part of the problem, and not of the solution. 

For Germany to win back its economic strength and its political weight, we need to set aside the mistaken developments which weaken us. 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): Kremlin or MAGA? 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): It’s difficult to have to decide between                                                           Kremlin or MAGA!

We need to end the mass migration and, as far as it goes, reverse it. This way requires a restrictive immigration policy, with invariable border controls, rejections, and rigorous deportations, 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Perhaps you should remain in Switzerland.

as well as a shut-off of the social and financial migration magnets, and we in addition require an immigration and naturalization moratorium. 

            Frauke Heiligenstadt (SPD): And you also want to have ICE, ne?

We need to rescind the ruinous energy transition and climb up out of the climate protection policy. 

            Katrin Fey (Linke): My goodness!

It is a German and EU solo approach [Alleingang] which destroys our economy. 

Only when we depart from this wrong way can we deconstruct the financial excess cost, and overcome the paralyzing bureaucratic manipulation and over-regulation. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): That is the result of your irradiation [Verstrahlung]!

The way to the resurgence leads through the re-entry into the nuclear power, the abolition of the CO₂ duties, and the immediate elimination of the combustion engine ban and heating law. An AfD government will get these reforms underway, for which this government is not ready and in position. 

I am grateful. 

            Jens Spahn (CSU/CSU): That was all? That was just nothing!

 

[trans: tem]

Leif-Erik Holm, November 13, 2025, De-industrialization and Energy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/40, pp. 4554-4555. 

Frau President. Right honorable citizens. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Yesterday, the new economic opinion of the experts council came out. The council expects a growth of 0.9 percent in the coming year; once again a shrunken prognosis; initially, it was 1.3 percent. If we then adjust the whole for the holidays – in the next year, many holidays unfortunately fall on the weekends – then we are at only 0.6 percent. Thus sick man Germany slogs further on. Yet you here now want with this present hour to celebrate yourselves for your economic success. This success simply does not exist. 

I was this morning with the expert, Frau Professor Grimm. She put the naked numbers on the wall: The industrial production breaks down, and indeed on a broad front. In all sectors, it recedes. There is no reason to celebrate anything. Germany unfortunately is abolishing itself as an industrial country if it so continues. And you present no solutions. You only daub a bit of plaster, and administer the downfall – nothing more. 

            Nicklas Kappe (CDU/CSU): Which solutions do you have?

You want to speak in this present hour on your reliefs: On the lowering of the grid fees and the introduction of an industrial electricity price. Yes, in the near term we need to do something to get away from the dramatically high electricity prices. Only, why then don’t you do what benefits all businesses and budgets? Where remains the reduction of the electricity tax for all? That would be a correct step. 

This, what you are doing – I already said it last week – is “left pocket, right pocket”. I want to tell it again: The surcharge for the grid fees, 6.5 million euros, the taxpayer now pays; the costs of the industrial electricity prices, 1.5 billion euros, the taxpayer now pays; the costs for the EEG assessment, 16 billion euros, the taxpayer already pays; the electricity price compensation, 3 billion euros, will be paid by the taxpayer; and the gas storage assessment, 3 billion euros, the taxpayer pays. That is 30 billion euros. You hide the costs of the dead energy transition in the budget. It’s simply not noted that the entire climate racket doesn’t work. 

Without these billions in subventions, nothing more would be left of this seemingly pretty fairy tale castle. The budget meanwhile also correspondingly appears. Only by your special indebtedness can you still camouflage something. The problem remains: Energy is scarce and is much too expensive. Only an expansion of the supply and a reduction of the state impact on the energy costs – for all, note well – can change something therein. We require secure power plant performance. We allow no demolition of cooling towers. Much more, we need to re-activate nuclear power plants and build anew.   

            Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens): And which cost nothing, or what?

As long as you don’t pick up and as long as you don’t prepare a lower energy price in the market, and in fact without subventions, so is there here, God knows, nothing to celebrate. 

Frau Minister – she is unfortunately gone –

            Catharina dos Santos-Wintz (CDU/CSU): She is at the Budget Committee.                                               You know that!

it is nice that the bust of Ludwig Erhard is again in the Ministry. That is good. Yet I also want to say, Frau Reiche: If you really want to be the government’s ordnungspolitische wise man, then more than an overcoming of symptoms, more than short-term plaster, is required. Your draft budget laws, which now come in series to the plenary session, are basically, as before, Habeck laws. Here and there, a bit was slimmed down, yet where are the promised changes in policy? They occur only after the comma. Your subventions orgy which now continues through the budget will soon no longer function. The cost of debts rises dramatically, and of that also the economic wise man Veronika Grimm has written to you in a register – cite: 

            “From 2029, we expend the entire intake of the state for Soziales, defense and                                           interest payments.”

End citation. And – another cite: 

            “This finance planning is a declaration of bankruptcy.”

Frau Grimm is right. Herr Finance Minister, since you speak similarly – he is now here – say readily something on that. This finance planning is a declaration of bankruptcy. Truly! 

2029 is for us also as the AfD an important year’s number. Then we will here in this sovereign house be the governing delegation. 

            Sandra Stein (Green): Do we perhaps still have elections, or what?

We will form the government. We will then need to regulate that. That will become a show of strength. Yet I promise: We will take care that this expensive wrong way ends. It does not work. 

One thing still to promise: First we start in the States. It begins in 2026 in Sachsen-Anhalt and in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. I therein rejoice. 

Thank you. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, November 26, 2025, Deutschland Plan

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/43, pp. 4947-4951. 

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

This end-stage coalition ever more recalls the bridge of the Titanic: Germany lists, the bulkheads break open. Yet you have the ship’s band play on with the same soothing melodies. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): The country is thus bad-mouthed!

The Captain has nothing more to say and simply looks on because the First Mate has snatched from him the Captain’s cap. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): And the ordinary seaman stands at the speaker’s podium.

Germany can no longer continue to afford this clowns theater which you here allow for half a year. The crisis is here and it is not only one iceberg, it is at least five which rip open the hull of our ship of state. 

Crisis site number one: The social state. The social security system is out of control and becomes unaffordable. A third of the Bund’s total tax income in the coming year alone will need to be expended for stabilizing the pension account. In that regard, the demographic costs resulting from the retirement of the high birthrate cohorts have been acknowledged for decades. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Explain for once to the citizens how you want to                                          finance your pensions package! 70 percent!

42.3 percent of non-wage costs. That is a record and warning sign. Instead, when it is much too late to reform the system and form reserves for the future, you still pulverize the at hand financial scope of action so as to gain time. 

The social state crisis is inseparable from the migration crisis. Millions of people have in the last ten years streamed uncontrolled into the country. They have in large part immigrated directly into the social system. The consequent costs one-sidedly burden the working population – the tax-payers and those who pay contributions. They shall stabilize, with renunciation of benefits and higher contributions, the unaffordable healthcare system and they need bear the costs of the Bürgergeld, long since become migrant money which continues out of control. Every second recipient is a foreign citizen and is provided for without cost and contribution. What of that is sozial justice? 

Your SPD coalition partner braces itself against even symbolic policy corrections. To merely remove the Ukrainians sustained by the benefits terms in the last half-year is not even a drop on the hot stone. In Germany, there are one million rejected asylum applicants; yet of your grandiosely announced deportation offensive nothing continues to be seen. Despite receding asylum numbers, each year a large city immigrates by abuse of the asylum law, and an additional large city comes after by way of the family reunification. 

The citizens who need pay for this moreover lose their Heimat. In 275 Bavarian school classes sits not a single native German-speaking child. That is a declaration of bankruptcy. 

The migration crisis kills the right of entire generations to an orderly education. And while the borders remain open, our Christmas markets are transformed into fortresses or will even be entirely cancelled. 

Needing to bear these burdens is a country which for over three years is stuck deep in a recession. The industrial core erodes at a breath-taking speed. The German automobile industry has lost 50,000 jobs within one year. Down-sizing and exodus take hold of the entire production industry. 41 percent of the operations plan in 2026 a further down-sizing. A never before seen wave of bankruptcy sweeps across the country and decimates the Mittelstand. Credit insurers fear the number of insolvencies could climb in the coming year to 30,000. 

What drives the businesses and workplaces out of the country is primarily the homemade energy crisis; the industrial chiefs, who unfortunately were silent for much too long, now say this to you.

The artificially increased expense of energy by means of the so-called CO₂ pricing will still further accelerate the de-industrialization. You raise an arbitrarily imposed tax on the air, artificially drive it further to the heights, and still call that a market economy instrument, Herr Merz. The green nonsense can scarcely be further driven to the extreme. 

The dogmas of open borders and climate protection drive our country, our beloved Germany, to ruin. Instead of coming about, your coalition steps on the gas along this wrong way, and wants with a “new boost” for the international climate protection bless the entire world with the downfall. 

And because you do not want to acknowledge all of that, but toss around money which does not belong to you as if there was no tomorrow, Germany is also stuck in a binding finance and state indebtedness crisis. 

With the financial coup d’état, euphemistically called “special funds” [Sondervermögen], you have burdened Germany with the largest mountain of debt in post-war history. Of that will remain only the interest and tax costs for the tax and contribution payers. Every second euro of the special funds supposedly foreseen for investment will, according to your planning, be mis-appropriated for consumption expenditures. That quite clearly does not conform to the constitution. Your budget does not conform to the constitution. 

            Sven Lehmann (Green): Your party does not conform to the constitution!

Instead of, as promised, eliminating superfluous spending and consolidating the budget, you toss the money by the handful out the window. A billion for a dubious tropical forest, six billion  moreover for an international climate protection, 11.5 billion for the Ukraine without knowing whether or not the money yet again lands at corrupt war profiteers. Gott sei Dank – Gott sei Dank! – we have with Donald Trump a real chance of peace, to which you have contributed no part. Quite the contrary. 

The fivefold crisis is not a fatal destiny but a direct consequence of false political decisions. It cannot so continue; you also quite precisely know that, and I do not want to again do the math for you, for you of the SPD just so not. 

            Jürgen Cosse (SPD): You do the math!

You are stuck so deep in the morass of the socialist superstition of redistribution that you cannot grasp what you, with your ideological wrong way, have generally done to our country. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): What do you say of your members’ Russia travel?

Primitive Antifa screaming 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Which was good! 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CSU/CSU): Why? The Antifa is pleased to be in Russia!

and mindless, anti-democratic Verbot fantasies for you replace the competition of political ideas. The stereotypical cry for more and still higher taxes and for more and higher debt for you take the place of economic expertise. 

            President Julia Klöckner: Frau member, do you permit an interim question from                                        member Wiese of the SPD delegation?

No, that is unusual in the budget debate; you know that. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): That is not at all unusual. You simply do not dare! 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CSU/CSU): You are scared, Frau Weidel! You are scared!                                         Nothing other! You are scared of the interim question!

No, I am not scared, anyway of you. You are scared. Might I please continue? 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CSU/CSU): The answer is not in the speaking                                                         notes, ne?

             President Julia Klöckner: Excuse me. She or the member herself decides                                                whether he or she permits an interim question. 

            Sven Lehmann (Green): Yes, but not with the reasoning. 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): It is nevertheless possible for all to speak. What is this?

            President Julia Klöckner: We need not now comment on that here.                                        Please continue.

How you here smirk! That, the voters will exactly note before all things at the impending State legislative elections! 

            Frauke Heiligenstadt (SPD): You don’t smirk, ne? 

            Sören Pellmann (Green): That’s certainly a level in the early morning!

You, dear colleagues of the Union, know quite precisely what you do. Some of you even speak ever again of what actually needs to be done. Yet you do exactly the opposite. 

And you, Herr Merz, have in the election campaign announced and promised all possible things, what is of bitter necessity and needs be urgently done. You thereby grandiosely helped yourself to our election program. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CS): Oh mann, oh mann, oh mann!

Yet then – since otherwise Herr Merz would not be Herr Merz – you broke every single one of your election promises. You left the citizens in the lurch and wore yourself out with slander and insult of the opposition, instead of addressing the problems in our country. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Get a handkerchief!

You have thereby wasted valuable time and intensified the crisis, and all of that because you make yourself a prisoner of the leftist unity front as a result of your firewall. 

            Günter Krings (CDU/CSU): Do you come to the content?

 You let yourself be led about one time after another by the SPD. The SPD’s favor, upon which your chancellorship depends, is more important to you than the good of our country and of your own party. 

This tactic has failed. Germany requires an immediate program for reform of the state, economy and society. It is time for the Deutschland Plan of the Alternative für Deutschland. 

It is a twelve point plan to again get Germany on its feet. 

First, we require advantageous and secure energy. That is the basis for economic impetus and prosperity. We therefore need to immediately end the failed experiment of the energy transformation. We need to immediately end the destruction of nuclear power, the demolition of nuclear power plants, and push the re-entry into nuclear power and we need to buy natural gas and oil where it is most advantageous, and that is in Russia. 

            Reinhard Brandl (CDU/CSU): Now it comes out! 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CSU/CSU): Ah!

And that is in our national interest, and the Americans want that, too. And that is why there are these peace negotiations: Because the Americans represent their national interests, which you for Germany have forgotten, dear CDU. 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): Here, it’s about Russian interests! 

            Reinhard Brandl (CDU/CSU): Which interests do you represent?                                            The mask has fallen!

Second. We need to end the wind and solar electricity subventions and, without replacement, eliminate the ruinous CO₂ pricing and the emissions trade. And we need to immediately abolish  the unhappy heating law which cold expropriates countless owners of real property. 

Third. In economic policy, the fundamentals need again apply: Market economy Ordnungspolitik instead of eco-socialist planned economy. 

            Claudia Roth (Greens): Oah!

That means the abolition of the combustion engine Verbot and all supply chain laws at the national as well as the EU level. We will end the Politik of Verbot and manipulation. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): Because human rights for you simply play not role at all!

Fourth. Our economy requires an unleashing program for setting free market economic powers which liberate them from bureaucratic regulations and drastically lowers the cost of taxes and duties. 

Fifth. In Sozialpolitik, we need to return consistently to the solidarity principle. Full social benefits only for members of the solidarity community who also make their contributions to the social security systems. I certainly do not know what you have against the solidarity principle. That, I find interesting. 

            Jürgen Cosse (SPD): Do you actually pay taxes in Germany? 

            Sven Lehmann (Greens): Against you we have something.

In place of the unfortunately baptised by you Bürgergeld, an activating basic security needs to enter which in fact drastically sinks the costs. 

Sixth. So that the statutory Pension Insurance remains affordable, it needs to be completely relieved of all non-insurance benefits and be supported by means of additional funded pillars. 

            Ines Schwerdtner (Linke): Neo-liberal!

To that also belongs a pension state fund, a so-called equalization [Ausgleich] fund for a stabilization of the statutory pension of the first pillar. The officials pension needs to be reformed, the civil service status strictly limited to a few sovereign areas of responsibility. Politicians, officials and holders of mandates need to be included in the statutory Pensions Insurance. 

Seventh. The absent migration change needs to be introduced by a Politik of the closed door. That means in clear text: Seamless border controls, turning back all illegals without exception, finally a rigorous deportation which the law besides prescribes, and an end to the multi-million violations of the law. 

Eighth. The migration magnets will be turned off. For asylum applicants, there is only benefits in kind instead of cash. Naturalized will be only those who, according to strong criteria and at earliest after ten years, are standing on their feet and fully at work. Naturalization by claim will be abolished. 

Ninth. State spending needs to be decisively slashed. Instead of unlimited new indebtedness, the public hand needs to get by with the tax intake. The state needs to keep itself out of the economy and out of the private life of the citizens, and confine itself to its core duties: Domestic and external security, maintenance of the state of law and public order. 

Tenth. Clientele policy subventions will be eliminated. The public financing of pseudo non-political organizations will be forbidden. The Antifa as a terrorist organization will be forbidden. The public broadcasting fees will be abolished. The squandering of tax money in all the world  ends. We require our remaining resources for our own country, for our own citizens. 

Eleventh. Urgently necessary is a structural reform which deconstructs the bureaucracy, clears away the funding jungle and leaves tax money in economic circulation with the citizens and business. 

Twelfth and last. A Tax Reform 25 with uniformly lowered tax rates, family splitting and a high allowance relieves the large majority of citizens, families, and before all the middle class. The solidarity surcharge will finally be completely abolished. 

That is our Deutschland Plan, that is our immediate program for Germany. 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Bravo!

The most important and urgent measures to correct the damages we could in common immediately decide. Immediately! The majorities for that would be at hand in this house if the bürgerlichen powers of reason come together 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): You are not bürgerliche! 

            Derya Turk-Nachbaur (SPD): Extreme right is other than bürgerliche!

and finally fulfill the will of the voters, the majority of whom voted for a bürgerliche center-right Politik. 

            Michael Schrodi (SPD): Extreme right! 

            Claudia Roth (Greens): You are not bürgerliche!

It is thus about namely a center-right Politik, 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Extreme right!

a bürgerliche Politik and no progressive leftist-green Politik. You here have walled yourselves in. Make reasonable Politik for the citizens and business. 

It thus lies with you, right honorable colleagues of the Union, whether you want to continue to allow yourselves to be led by leftist apron strings and green losers, or 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): …whether you continue to surround yourself                                                 with right-wing extremists!

whether you are ready to place the good of the country above personal vanities and ideological prejudices. We are ready for that, out of love and responsibility for Germany. 

I am grateful. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): So simple-minded!

  

[trans: tem]

Bernd Schattner, October 16, 2025, Neff, Bosch, Lufthansa

German Bundestag, October 16, 2025, Plenarprotokoll 21/34, pp. 708-709. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

What is happening here in Germany is no structural transition, it is an economic mass death, unleashed by this government and its ideological nonsense. Germany, once a nation of industry, export world champion, technology leader, degenerates under your leadership into Europe’s industrial graveyard. 

A current example: Neff in Bretten, since 1877 a lighthouse of the German engineer’s art. Here, for decades were produced ovens and exhaust hoods “made in Germany”. And now, in the spring of 2028 is an end. Around 1,000 employees and their families lose their livelihood, their future, their home. The CDU Oberbürgermeister names that a slap in the face of the region. I say: That is a slap in the face of every German worker. Yet exactly these local politicians do not have the courage to finally say to their party superiors that only with the AfD can there be an authentic turn to a Politik for more workplaces in Germany. 

For long is the SPD no more a partner for a conservative economic policy. This SPD is no more the party of Helmut Schmidt, but of gender ga-ga, masquerade and climate craziness. Finance Minister Klingbeil professes himself preferably for an Antifa terrorist organization instead of for a free economy. That however does not surprise me personally: Of economy and finance, he has  not a clue. 

Meanwhile, you can daily read reports of insolvencies, factory closings, and work site re-locations. And the worst of it is: To the press, most of that is no longer news; since these reports meanwhile come daily over the wire. 

In 2024, the number of bankrupt firms was as high as it had not been in ten years, and in 2025 is expected a further increase. And what does the Union do? This eternal fellow-traveler party? 

            Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CSU/CSU): Na, na, na, na, na! Watch out!

Just nothing: No resistance, no backbone, no plan! Only the usual recipes: More debt, more bureaucracy, more unemployment, more bankruptcy! And that is no single instance! 

Bosch, the name once stood for German quality and technological excellence. 

            Andreas Lenz (CDU/CSU): Ever still!

Meanwhile, Bosch pulls the plug because your energy policy destroys everything, what here still  breathes. Over 20,000 workplaces in the next years to 2030 will be axed – our Economy Minister is not interested, she is today again not present – and thereby an entire stretch of land in Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz is de-industrialized. That is no longer an adaptation to the market, that is the result of your Politik hostile to economy. That is a clearing away in labor market policy. 

Next example: The Lufthansa, once pride of the nation, symbol of German reliability, today a business forced to its knees by you. You’ve plainly not rescued the Lufthansa in crisis, 

            Andreas Lenz (CSU/CSU): Oh, yes!

you’ve ruined it. And the consequence: Lay-offs, a strike, chaos – a symbol for all that goes awry  in this country, for what you get your hands on. You have, thanks to your Politik, achieved that we again have over 3 million unemployed in Germany. What a performance of your time in office so far! 

And do you know what the worst of it is? This catastrophe is no accident, it is intended. You sacrifice our industry, our workplaces on the the altar of your climate religion. While China builds factories, you here destroy entire branches of industry; while America promotes, here reigns a standstill; and while other countries invest, you force German business into insolvency. 

You speak of transformation, but what you really manage is destruction. You speak of sustainability, but the only things you sustainably create are unemployment and impoverishment. And while you in Berlin debate over gender questions, quotas and war rhetoric, millions of people out there need to witness their life’s work falls apart. The tradesman, the Mittelstandler, the worker who each day pay the price for your arrogance and your incompetence. 

Germany is losing its economic soul, ladies and gentlemen. And if we permit that, then we lose all that generations before us have built. Bosch, Neff, Lufthansa: Those are a warning signal, and if we continue to ignore it, then that is no longer a political failure, that is then the betrayal of the German people. Finally required is a 180 degree turnaround: Away from tutelage and the assistance swamp, towards performance, freedom and an authentic industrial policy – and that will only be with the AfD. We are the party of the Mittelstand, the worker, the German economy. We don’t invest in Brussels, not in Kiev, but here with us, in Germany. We do not distribute the taxpayers’ money in foreign lands, but to those who earned it, here with us in this country.  

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Arno Bausemer, October 22, 2025, Russian Energy Imports

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)10-22(3-0498-0000). 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

At a late hour I say welcome to you in the multi-colored, energy policy fantasy world of the green world-improvers. There one rejoices over the the sun which shines, the wind which blows and over the electricity from the socket which costs so little since the sun and wind, ja, present no bill. And so as to make the world still a little better, there the gas valve is turned off and one thereby takes care that Russia goes down before the European Union. 

Who follows our debate here, he needs think, in this parliament, the madness has broken out. Have you not understood, even after three years, that ever new sanctions packages harm our own national economies, and presently in Germany alone 10,000 industrial workplaces disappear every month? They are gone. Have you not understood that Russia simply seeks new customers? Through the new pipeline Siberia 2, 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas will yearly flow to China. 

Putin party, Russia friend, Moscow’s fifth column, you only ever continue to insult the critics of your failed policy. The new, old Europe of fatherlands again makes sense, and acts to the advantage of these fatherlands and their citizens, and to that then also again belongs economic relations with Russia. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, October 16, 2025, Merz Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/34, pp. 3648-3651. 

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

The last days have shown: A wise Politik contributes to a balance of interests and to a strengthening of the common interest in peace. Herr Chancellor, the strivings for peace in the Gaza war have hopefully brought home to you that it pays to invest in diplomacy and negotiation. Both in Germany and within the European Union is sought to implement the solution of conflicts and wars with sanctions, weapons deliveries and war rhetoric. 

In this regard, I need to tie in the war in the Ukraine. And here also there needs be rapid solutions sufficient for a peace in Europe. Why cannot it also be your duty, Herr Merz, to step forward as a mediator between the Ukraine and Russia? That would be suitable for the office of the German Chancellor. 

And you should finally stop continually formulating new threat situations, even so as colleague Hardt has done yesterday here in his speech, without being able to deliver sufficient evidence for that. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): Who then has again written that down for you? The Russian                    embassy, or what? You stand for capitulation! 

You are always quite sure that it must have been Russia, Herr Wiese, as in regards Nord Stream. I thereby recall just the drone debate. Friedrich Merz in a talkshow assumed [vermutete] drones in German air space. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): Help! That is transcribed just so!

Herr Chancellor, to this day you could put forward not a single proof or evidence.  

Putting citizens into a panic, you nevertheless have done. Precisely that, Herr Wiese and Herr Merz, is irresponsible. You polarize, and with your political discourse regress to the time of the Cold War. 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): Do you contest the drone over-flights? 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): You want to sell the country to Russia! That is what your                                            party does!

Success worthy of the name for peace and the German people, Herr Chancellor, you clearly do not have on your side. Otherwise, you perhaps might have sat according to protocol in the first row in Egypt. 

The current Federal government behaves with similar carelessness at home. Allow me as lobbyist of the skilled trades to here select one point from the sozial area. This, so it appears, is indeed less controversial, yet is an absolutely more destructive compromise from the government coalition, namely the active pension, as you name it. With the decision to take into consideration only those employees with social insurance mandates, numerous pensioners may not even participate. That is a clear violation of the equal treatment principle. 

I speak of many of thousands of self-employed, as for example the many tradesmen who have worked in individual or small firms, in family businesses. Precisely those who have pursued work with social insurance obligations should continue to pay social duties on the additional income. Since the tradesmen who were and are self-employed shall clearly not be able to earn 2,000 euros tax-free. That is unjust, that is shabby, and before all you divide the pensioners. 

You primarily confirm with these measures one picture: The pensions are plainly not sufficient. On cannot thus live from the pension in the twilight of life. Frau Bas, your request is on that account scarcely sozial or democratic. It is dishonest to again leave the pensioners alone to bear the cost for the political failures of the Federal government. Therefore: Were you to honestly mean it, you would demand of all of us to agree to the abolition of double taxation of old age pensions. 

Ladies and gentlemen, by whom have you in the Federal government actually been advised? Is there no one there who can comprehend the cares and wishes of the old and young? The pensioner should continue to work. The young are thereby allowed to bear still more costs and excessive debts. They also, with the obligatory service, shall be made into the combat-ready weapons while war still reigns in Europe. 

I hope that many citizens today have also heard the speech of Jens Spahn; since he made clear what the conscription for him is primarily about: For sending those obliged to serve against Russia to the front. 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Ach, rubbish, what you are telling! My                            goodness! 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): Of what are you speaking here actually? 

Precisely that, we do not want. That, we will never permit, Herr Hoffmann. 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): You are telling stories, Herr Chrupalla,                            stories!

Beyond that, our children need come to terms with increasing criminality in schools, on the streets. All of that is a situation which you expect of us after 35 years of German unity. You governed for so long, Herr Hoffmann. You are co-responsible for that. 

Valued colleagues of the Greens, you should so slowly make your appearance in your role in  the opposition. When I look at your resolution motion for today’s daily order, I note: You have still not understood the signs of the time. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): We require no tutoring from you!

You want to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent, standing there. Apparently you never really re-evaluated the botched government time of the Ampel with Herr Habeck or Frau Baerbock, otherwise it would have come even to you that the German citizens now really have enough of your Politik. Your Green trash was voted out, Frau Haßelmann. 

With your so-called climate neutrality, you really mean de-industrialization and loss of prosperity for the broad population – your consulting firms naturally excepted. To you, the energy security in Germany is all the same, like a concept of who should actually pay for the Green utopia. We too stand for the protection of nature, yet see humanity as a part of that. And for this part, we make Politik. 

Since to whom is it of use when Europe stands there as a climate-neutral yet economically weak continent? Precisely those who then can sell their technologies to us because we no longer have our own industrial and development venues. That is not in the German and also not in the European interest. 

We expect much more of Chancellor Merz, that he stands up for Made in Germany, has concepts developed which let us again become a strong and reliable partner in Europe and worldwide. For that, we require leg room and less regulation, an attractive infrastructure and, before all things, finally advantageous energy prices. 

Those are the priority duties with which the Politik has to concern itself, all of us here in common in the German Bundestag. Behind the interests for Germany and its citizens, all members need to be able to gather. Hide and seek behind the firewall does not belong to that. 

            President Julia Klöckner: Herr member, do you permit an interim question from                                        member Herr Wiese?

Please, Herr Wiese. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): Herr Chrupalla, many thanks that you permit the interim question.  You said that the Federal government needs to invest in the infrastructure, in the future of this country. Thus I ask you quite openly – I have a further question – : Why have you then rejected the investment in the future of the country, the 500 billion euros which we invest in the infrastructure, in the schools, in the education of the country, so that the next generation finds an intact infrastructure? I have a second question. You have just comprehensively philosophized on what your visions and goals are. Yet I want to say one thing: The success of the German economy in the past years, decades, is in fact based on         that we are embedded in the European Union, in the European internal market. The visions which you in your party program have mean to put the axe to the European unification, means the exit from the European Union. Do you agree with me: “If you do   that, you actually need to rename yourself: AfD is like Arbeitslosigkeit für Deutschland”?  

Herr Wiese, perhaps to begin with a remark on your last sentence. As to the AfD, we will and cannot agree with the SPD on many points – and certainly not with the previous one. And that we are thereby right is certainly also shown in the present election surveys. That is point one. 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CSU/CSU): Do you have an argument for that, Herr                            Chrupalla?

Point two. On the budget. We have put forward an alternative budget – and it certainly distinguishes us – which is plainly not based on debts, which plainly does not force the children and the grandchildren into the debts orgy so as to pay those debts. We want – and this is the distinction for the SPD – that from the regular budget – we have put forward a corresponding budget – precisely those measures which you cited be paid for, and for that not to take up debts of 500 billion euros 

            Alice Weidel (AfD): That certainly does not go to infrastructure; not                                        a cent goes to infrastructure!

and, in part, 850 billion euros until the year 2029. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): To invest in the future of the country! You want to throttle                        this country! Just say it!

That is unserious. That is before all things not sustainable. On this point, we differ massively. I am not yet done, Herr Wiese. I would gladly answer your second question which pertains to the economic situation. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): You’ve already said a sentence on that.

Your sanctions policy, before all things, in the last three, four, years has led to that the German economy in this country can scarcely do industry, which, before all things, requires large quantities of energy, like the chemical industry or the steel industry, which emigrate. Have you  actually been cognizant of what all is happening in this country? For that, you principally are responsible with your last Federal government and this Federal government. 

It is thus important that we have good contacts to all European countries. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): You want to get out of the European Union!                                                That is your goal! Say that for once to the citizens!

Yes, we also need Russian gas because it is advantageous, because with it we would again have a price of 4 or 5 cents per kilowatt-hour for our businesses. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): We do that, industrial electricity price!

Because energy is so expensive, on that account they emigrate. On that account, they go. 

            Dirk Wiese (SPD): You grind down employee rights! That it is, what you do!

And, for that, you are responsible. 

            President Julia Klöckner: I see the question as answered, and request you                                continue your speech.

Many thanks. I want to go into two points, Herr Merz, which you should thoroughly address at the European Council. I speak of the refusals of the Poles and Italians to deliver the presumed perpetrators who, with the assault on Nord Stream, have attacked our critical infrastructure. Again is thereby brought home to us that the Federal government was exactly so little aware of the seriousness of the situation as it is today; since the willingness for a clarification simply appears not to be at hand. 

Or why do you commit yourself, Herr Merz – also on this not a word from you today – neither at the national nor at the European level to that the investigations of our General Federal Prosecutor be brought forward and the responsible perpetrators be punished with the full harshness of the law? It cannot be, Herr Merz, that supposed friends protect terrorists in Europe. Yes, now come again all the reasons why it is no longer wanted to buy gas from Russia. Yet it is not alone about that in this debate, Herr Spahn. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Putin’s party!

It is about the interest of Germany – which has been mislaid by all of you – about the interests of individual citizens, of the Mittelstand and, before all things, of the industry. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): You should make a Russia insignia for yourself!

It is these which need pay the price for that through the high costs of energy, even so as for the cost of the inflation. German business invested 4 billion euros in the Nord Stream pipelines so they receive advantageous gas for our industry and the Mittelstand. You have destroyed all of that. 

For the emigration of those creating value, you have to take responsibility, Herr Chancellor. With all understanding that you have taken up a really heavy inheritance for that: You were cognizant and could know that your “autumn of reform”, as you announced it, will not be one. We have not even a mild puff of wind. The Mittelstand, of which here in this country much is always spoken, dies not easily, as I recently needed to read in a newspaper. This Mittelstand dies loud. If you by now still have not heard the shot, then I am really sorry for you. Then you are not the parties which make Politik for Germany. 

And still one sentence on Nord Stream. Here, it is also about namely the fundamentals. Should the presumed actors not be transferred, and you wait that out, you automatically invite an imitation. So far, by failure to implement applicable law were the domestic security and our social system endangered. Yet now here also the legal institutions are hindered. That needs to be solved politically.   

At the European Council, approach your Polish and Italian office partners. I still proceed on the basis that it is in the interest of the Poles and Italians to clarify this assault. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Sebastian Münzenmaier, July 8, 2025, Housing Ministry

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/16, p. 1506. 

Right honorable Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Brand new housing in record time, despite a shortage of construction land and tight funds, for 1,000 people is impossible? – Wrongly reasoned! In Berlin-Kreuzberg, our state shows what is possible; at least, if the renters are so-called refugees. Then an office complex will in short order be reconstructed into housing units – money plays no role, the rental cost of 1.2 million euros per month paid by the diligent German taxpayer. If, however, it’s about housing space for one’s own citizens, then the matter suddenly appears quite different. Then all is complicated, and unfortunately there is often no more money. 

Happily, we now have a new Housing Minister with whom all shall be better, quicker and, before all, cheaper. Everyone here in the house is, I believe, aware: Building costs must go down. And which ideas does Minster Hubertz present to us with Lanz on the television? In the future, in regards new construction, underground parking should be simply omitted, and the parking places instead be moved above near the housing. Thus would 20 percent of the costs be saved. Frau Hubertz, what an inane proposal! In big cities, there is simply no room for such parking places near high-rise housing, but only the possibilities of underground garages or just no parking space.  In rural areas, that could be done, but honestly I know of only a few of which under a single family house one may, for a heap of money, accommodate one’s own underground garage. 

This unworldly proposal is unfortunately typical of our new Housing Minister. You, Frau Hubertz, wrap yourself in marketing phraseology. Yet as soon as it becomes substantial, you ever again show that you unfortunately have no idea of the real life of people out there. If you really want to lower the construction costs, then you please need to begin with yourself; since more that a third of the construction costs – all of 37 percent – originates at the monent with the state by means of insulation prescripts, taxes and duties and regulations. Fewer underground garages are thus not the solution, but fewer environmental investments, less bureaucracy and fewer taxes, ladies and gentlemen. 

And quite besides that: If you want to make housing at least a bit cheaper, then you could do, ja, as the coalition in the coalition contract promised, to reduce the electricity tax for private households. Yet even this mini-relief you grant to our citizens out there not at all, and instead cheerfully continue to shut it off, and indeed not only in regards electricity, but also in regards heating. 

You have quite openly conceded this, Frau Minister, recently in the Bild newspaper. To the question of what you would advise someone whose heating has gone kaputt, and who needs to renew the heating, you said: “Thus in no case install gas heating; since that will be so expensive when now the CO₂ price further rises.”  Instead, one should preferably take a peek at district heating [Fernwärme]. – In most cities in Germany, district heating is not at all extensively available. There where district heating is available, the costs straightaway explode – the May numbers for Frankfurt: Up 36 percent. From where the district heating in small towns in the country should come, for example in regards to you, Herr Limbacher, would interest me. How that should work, no one here in the house can explain to me. 

In addressing these problems, the Minister shows her completely clueless side: One can lease or rent a heating system – thus for one to two years – until one knows where the communal heating plans were going. That is no joke – I wish it was – but the Minister actually proposed that. Frau Hubertz, I knew that you are utterly fact-free. Yet your statements show me that you are also utterly extraterrestrial. 

Your priorities are obviously not in housing construction, but elsewhere. As the Handelsblätt reported, in the last two weeks you heaved two of your representatives into well endowed jobs at a new ministerial office. One co-worker will be remunerated, non-pay-scale, according to the highest possible pay, and the other co-worker shall as an official ad interim receive a basic salary of more than 11,000 euros per month. You have thus set up not a single impulse for new housing. Yet the old-age provision for two additional comrades has been secured, ladies and gentlemen. 

Fact-free, unworldly nepotism – to that add a bit of PR blah-blah – that perhaps suffices to make a career in today’s SPD. But the Housing Ministry is for you two sizes too big. 

Hearty thanks for the attention. 

                  Esra Limbacher (SPD): Yet we have no priors! 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, June 24, 2025, Germany, the U.S.A. and Peace

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/12, pp. 986-988. 

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

Even following the ceasefire called for by U.S. President Donald Trump, the danger of an escalation of the Israeli-Iranian conflict into a wildfire is still not banished. In this situation, it is important to use all existing channels at one’s disposal so as to actually take leave from the dynamic of military escalation. A foundation for that is a realistic estimate of the situation. Israel’s right to exist thereby stands beyond any discussion. Israel has the legitimate right to a maintenance and guaranty of its security. An Iranian atomic bomb would not only be an existential threat to the State of Israel but also for stability and peace in the Near and Middle East and in the entire world. 

Iran, like every other country in the world, has the right to peaceful and exclusively civil use of nuclear power. It needs to not only acknowledge a renunciation of the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons, but also to open all facilities and establishments of nuclear development and research for independent international control. With the removal of Iranian nuclear capacity and rocket launch facilities by Israel and the U.S.A. lapses a central reason for the further pursuit of an exchange of military strikes. This opens the opportunity for a diplomatic solution which takes into account Israel’s security interests. The U.S. American Vice-president J. D. Vance has expressed himself in this sense and thereby indicated the way which now needs be taken. That will not be possible without the participation of world nuclear powers allied with Iran, especially Russia. The Israeli-Iranian war forcefully demonstrates how severely [bitter] necessary an American-Russian understanding for peace and security would be in this world.   

The EU states and Germany have needed to painfully experience that in this discussion also they  play no role. For mindless action for action’s sake, and embarrassing false estimates, the German Foreign Minister Wadephul, his European Office Minister and the overwhelmed EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner are thoroughly to blame. A European Union which is primarily occupied with itself can play no serious role in the world. Who harms himself with a ban on combustion engines and a climate planned economy, squanders his resources in the manipulation and restriction of citizens’ rights, and is grimly fixated on the prolongation of war in the Ukraine, takes himself out of the game. 

Still a word to you, Herr Chancellor: Unserious tough talk over supposed “dirty work” damages Germany’s image, primarily in international matters. I could not believe it as I heard it. 

Germany and the European nations need to find a way back to a realistic estimate of their own possibilities and limits so that they can credibly enter on the way of mediation; since it is most urgently in the German and European interest to quickly end the warfare in the Near East. It threatens commercial movement and supply of raw materials, and contains the danger of new migration flows which destabilize the European continent and especially Germany. 

Where we ourselves can act, we need to take the matter in hand. It is of concern to us to prevent, with robust border protection, a new wave of immigration of Islamists and those posing a danger into our country. It is within our power to put a stop to the import of conflicts and civil wars from other regions, in which we consistently deport foreign instigators and rigorously punish anti-semitic excesses. Therein ultimately depends the continuation of Germany as a democratic and freely constituted Republic of Germans. This existence right of Germany should be in the hearts of us all at least even so as the uncontested and legitimate existence right of Israel. 

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have already fallen in the Ukraine in this American-Russian proxy war. To quickly end it is in any case in the German and European interest. The key to peace lies in Moscow and Washington. That a new American leadership is ready in that regard signifies a grand opportunity. 

It is frankly absurd when, Herr Merz, in a grotesque self-overestimate, you believe you needed to take responsibility to continue the proxy war in which even the U.S.A. has for long lost interest. While you with martial rhetoric dig the graves ever deeper, the U.S. President long since sounds out the possibilities of future economic cooperation in Russia. 

You instead are enthusiastic that for the 17 EU sanctions packages against Russia an 18^th is to follow which will again harm the German economy. President Trump besides rejects new Russia sanctions because the U.S.A. would thereby – I cite – lose “billions of dollars”. The American President is right! 

            Markus Frohnmaier (AfD): German interests!

And on the other hand, your Foreign Minister as it happens says – I cite – “Of German claims there need be now no consideration taken”. This disdain for the interests of our country frankly appears to be the leitmotiv of your government. 

You are silent when the EU Commission plans, to Germany’s disadvantage, to completely forbid gas deliveries from Russia, and to thereby drive the energy prices still further to the heights, and you even signal agreement when the EU by law permanently prevents any restart of Nord Stream 

            Hendrik Hoppenstadt (CDU/CSU): Who turned it off?

and in this way wants to retroactively legitimate the criminal assault on Germany’s infrastructure. It would actually be a post facto witticism [Treppenwitz] if the exploded Nord Stream gas pipelines were restarted as it happens by a U.S. consortium. Advantageous pipeline natural gas from Russia is indispensable for the supply of Germany with secure and affordable energy. Expensive imports by sea of liquified gas are in the long-term no alternative. 

The foolish remark of your Foreign Minister Wadephul, Russia will ever remain our enemy, is revealing. The overcoming of the fatal hereditary foe thinking by the generation of Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle was once the foundation for peace and prosperity in Europe. And you regress [Sie fallen dahinter zurück]! Geography does not allow itself to be simply denied! Russia will in the future be our European neighbor. No way, short or long, leads past agreement with Russia and a new security architecture of all actors and their legitimate security interests. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Borders of 1937?

Now would be the point in time, Herr Chancellor, for a first step on this way to peace. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]