Fabian Jacobi, July 4, 2024, The German Language

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/181, pp. 23455-23456. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

With associations, it is so a matter: What in regards a new item of business comes to one spontaneously, often appears accidental and then proves to be of little help. In the case put forward, my thoughts certainly turn back more often in further course to the matter which this draft law for me initially called to mind. The famous sociologist and economist Max Weber expressed it in his entry speech at the University of Freiberg in the year 1895, and he said: 

“Big businesses which are only to be maintained at the cost of German nationality, from the standpoint of the nation are worthy of perishing…”

Now, the circumstance to which this matter referred – it was about the collapse of the noble estates in the Prussian agrarian areas – has well nigh sunk into the fogs of history. And the verbal characteristic of Weber’s speech for us today has become foreign. Yet it would be decadent arrogance to believe on that account alone we could easily do without the insights and thoughts of earlier generations. 

You, ladies and gentlemen, want by means of the law which you today are deciding “to strengthen Germany as a venue of justice [Justizstandort Deutschland]” The expression reveals the authors’ world view. It is a view which we do not share. 

The German state is no business firm which has to compete for a share of the market. The German state is, if so desired, the worldly form [weltliche Gestalt] of the German nation the continuation of which it has to serve. To this belongs that the language of this Republic is and remains the German language. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Exactly!

You want to strengthen the justice venue in which German courts further conduct proceedings in the English language, and no longer pronounce sentence in the name of the people in the language of the people. 

This shall initially apply only for a specific category of judicial procedures. It would  nevertheless be naïve to suppose the matter will thereby rest. The FDP, the minister of which is responsible for the law, demands introducing quite generally the English language as an official language of the German state. We recognize here the first step of a classic salami tactic: Once the salami begins to be cut, it is only a question of time until it is completely consumed. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we experience for long already the downfall of our language. The loss of its earlier importance beyond our borders needs not be mourned; yet it might be explained as a consequence of two destructive world wars. Meanwhile long since also occurs the decline in its own land. 

Martin Plum (CDU/CSU): In the Legal Affairs Committee, also with you!

Ever more often it happens that in businesses the staff are urged to communicate with one another not in German but in English. Universities hold teaching events in the English language, even if all participants are native German speakers or are fluent in German. 

Carsten Müller (CDU/CSU-Braunschweig): You as a member speak English in committee!

And now also shall a core area of our state, the justice, begin the process of the suppression of our language. If we open this door a crack, so will it tomorrow be completely pushed open. It should remain closed. This applies all the more as the implications disturb not only the national but also the democratic character of our polity. 

In the pre-democratic ages, the feudal ruling class spoke to one another in French, despised the German language as a language of farmers and domestics. This situation was overcome by the bürgerlichen and democratic revolution of the 19^th Century. The German national state which grew out of that revolution would be entirely perverted; in the 21^st Century, it wanted to set about abetting a revival of such a social division [Der deutsche Nationalstaat, der aus jener Revolution erwuchs, würde gänzlich pervertiert, wollte er sich im 21. Jahrhundert daranmachen, einem Wiederaufleben solcher gesellschaftlicher Spaltung Vorschub zu leisten]. I began this speech with a citation, and with a citation I also close: 

            Erhard Grundl (Greens): The main thing, to end! 

“We hope that what always distinguishes and will distinguish the nation from other nations…our beautiful language, will not become dry and common, but will renew its nobility, and with it all that finds its expression in words. If that not be done, what would all recovered great power and seeming power then help us?”

Golo Mann wrote that as a closing sentence of his Deutschen Geschichte. And if my speech will surely have no influence on today’s vote, may it still be taken to heart by one or another for his future work in this house. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Fabian Jacobi, January 12, 2022, Bundestag and Basic Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/12, pp. 522-523.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The Herr Justice Minister just three days ago wrote the sentence:

            Who lacks respect for the parliament, he also obviously lacks respect                                    for the people.

I today have the dubious pleasure for the first and foreseeably not for the last time as a member of giving a speech to the parliament yet not in the parliament.

            Florian Toncar (FDP): Yet you are in the parliament!

That earlier I sat up here was my free decision, a sign of solidarity with the people whom you ostracize, disenfranchise and degrade with your preventive measures.

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Oh my! Oh my!

Now the decision is taken from me. I am no longer allowed to set foot in parliament.

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Yet here you are!

The Bundestag members represent all the people, in any case according to the claim of the constitution. By dividing the parliament, your separation into clean and unclean made demonstratively visible, you negate the claim of the constitution in the parliament. Here, the Bundestag itself is lacking – in any case, its acting majority – in respect for the people. An evil omen for the new time which this new government, ja, has thought to introduce.

What now is to be expected of the coming new time from the Herr Minister’s department? The glance at the contract which you have concluded amply shows that we as the opposition will be very critically accompanied in the few things which could still be spoken of, and then there are the things in which no case will reality be allowed.   

Majorities come and go and laws which you conclude can later, when we stand before the ruins which this government will leave behind, also again be changed. It will really be dangerous when you begin to alter the constitution in the sense of your ideology. There were two plans for altering the Basic Law which already in the past legislative period were dealt with in the legal affairs committee, happily did not come to conclusion, yet will now again be pursued.

For one is the writing into the Basic Law of so-called children’s rights. It is now to be reckoned that it can be confidently excluded, after the author of the threatening dictum of the state command of the air above the children’s beds [staatlichen Lufthoheit über Kinderbetten] has become Chancellor, that something could thereby result other than an entry way for state encroachment upon the families.

The second is the plan to eliminate from the Basic Law the ban on racial discrimination. It shall, as you know, be replaced by a provision over discrimination on racist grounds. If it is now known that, according to the ideology of the presently ruling parties, racism is something which can be aimed exclusively against people of certain skin colors, yet never against people with other skin colors, then it is thereby clear to where this comes to: Human rights according to skin color. And with us, that is nothing doing.  

This will besides be the point with which the CDU, which according to the statements of many is on the path of rehabilitation and wants to again become a bürgerliche party, will find its touchstone. Against AfD and CDU/CSU, a change of the Basic Law is in any case not possible. We will see how the other opposition delegation aligns itself.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Fabian Jacobi, January 28, 2021, Tax and Insolvency Law

German Bundestag, January 28, 2021, Plenarprotokoll 19/206, pp. 25969-25970. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

As per the daily order, we are dealing with the draft for amending the introductory law of the tax code. It foresees an extension of the time period for delivery of tax declarations. Many tax consultants are presently over-burdened by attending to businesses shaken by Corona preventive measures. It is sensible to grant them more time for making out the tax declaration. We therefore actually want to vote for the draft law. 

Our motion [Drucksache 19/26233] for revising the legal interest rate level in the tax law continues to be in the daily order. In the tax code is still to be found a fixed, annual interest rate level of 6 percent on additional tax payments. The Federal Fiscal Court has made clear in many decisions that this interest rate level, against the background of many years of a solidified zero interest rate policy, may indeed be unconstitutional and that the legislature is required to remedy it. That this so far has not been done is referenced to the topic being pending before the Federal Constitutional Court. We however think it well becomes us, the legislator, to take up the Federal Fiscal Court’s warning not to wait until our inactivity betrays us in Karlsruhe. This is the aim of our motion which I readily commend to you for approval.  

It is seen that what is in the daily order is entirely unproblematic. Then we come to what is not there. Namely, you – by “you” is meant both of the present government delegations and the future government delegation of the Greens – 

            Manuela Rottmann (Greens): Now, don’t you give up, Herr Jacobi! 

have just yesterday in the Finance Committee hung something on this draft law on taxation, in fact already once again an extended suspension on insolvency applications obligations and the rules challenging insolvency. This is not even correct at the formal levels. According to our order of business, the Finance Committee might decide only on what the Bundestag has therein assigned – and that was the tax law, not the insolvency law.   

            Stefan Schmidt (Greens): Since you however had not paid attention! 

Exceptions are only permitted for questions which are in proximate connection with the assigned matters. This is, at the latest, no more the case when the subject is entered into by an entirely different committee. If you say that it is anyway all about Corona, then I believe you yourselves do not take that at all seriously. You have simply taken care of the orderly introduction, the first reading in plenary session, and spared the assignment to the standing committee. Ja, now. 

And in fact here we do not go along. You want again, this time until April, to suspend parts of the insolvency law for businesses which have presented or could present applications for state assistance. This is remarkable. First, business is hit with the clumsiest usable club, the so-called lockdown. Then it is noted: “Oops, we, ja, directly ruin tens of thousands of livelihoods”, extol rapid state assistance, and want to paste over the dished out damages with a lot of money at the pump. Then it does not organizationally happen that the corresponding applications are generally able to be presented. And when this again is realized, the club is again taken up and simply smashes a bit of our legal order. 

The insolvency application duty and the rules on challenging insolvency are not an end in themselves. The rules have a meaning. They defend the remaining economic commerce, as well as they can, from damages resulting from insolvent firms. With this law, for many creditors, especially for the treasury and the social funds, there is a motivation to make claims 

            Sebastian Brehm (CDU/CSU): Gott sei dank! 

in which these creditors are privileged in case the crisis nevertheless later ends in insolvency. You thereby perhaps obtain for an indebted firm alleviations for a brief time. What you do however is you shift the insolvency risks onto the remaining, non-privileged creditors who cannot at all defend themselves against that. That is the big gesture of the rescuers, but is at the cost of third parties. That is an ordnungspolitisch failure and on that account we reject this part of your law. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

             

Fabian Jacobi, November 18, 2020, Restructuring and Insolvency Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/191, pp. 24117-24118.

Many thanks. – Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The bill for the re-development of restructuring and insolvency law, the draft of which the Federal government presents here for a first reading, shall on one hand be the big shot which opens to us the entirely new universe of the pre-insolvency restructuring of businesses. On the other hand, everything having to do with this law shall once again proceed all too quickly. In the coming weeks, for all that, we will be able to conduct an experts hearing. For its evaluation there will nevertheless scarcely be time, since this law shall unquestionably be passed this year and enter into effect January 1.

Now then, what is in the draft? Essentially, an entirely new, creative bill for the stabilization and restructuring framework for businesses; in brief, StaRUG; besides which, however, is also the alteration of numerous other laws, not least of which is the order of insolvency. To be brief in regards the areas here put forward, I must limit myself to three short remarks: One on the fundamentals, one on the StaRUG and one on the order of insolvency.

On the fundamentals: Unfortunately, I must again this time come to speak of my Carthage which lies in Brussels. For this draft law contains, like so many, the note “Tina”: “There is no alternative”, or in German: “To the implementation of the guidelines’ requirements, there is no alternative.”

The material law of insolvency, which for long underlay our own legislation, has meanwhile been taken in by the EU – so far, only in the form of a guideline which still allows us some large-scale leeway for design. Yet the increase of the EU’s regulatory dicta, and thereby the shrinking of our self-determined legislation, is foreseeable.

If a criticism of the Herr Bundestag-president expressed here by one of the AfD members in the Bundestag was “destructive of the state”, as was recently advertised by the Federal Interior Minister, then it is no doubt a question of projection. Since the destruction of the state is not done by us of the AfD, but indeed rather by the majority delegations of this house who joyfully applaud any EU grab of the legislative competences of the German Bundestag and thereby transform the German Republic into a kind of Potemkinesque play parliament.

            Canan Bayram (Greens): This is a political insolvency which you put                                    forward here!

            Sebastian Steineke (CDU/CSU): It would have been better not to speak here!

So much for the fundamentals. What now shall the StaRUG produce? It shall furnish a framework for the attempt to refrain from initially commencing the insolvency of a business which is already in the preliminary stage of a restructuring of the business’s obligations. The aim is thus clearly a sensible one. Restructuring is thereby according to all precepts a re-writing [Umschreibung] so that the creditors renounce a portion of their demands. Where that is agreed to by all those affected, after a weighing of their interests, that is not problem. That, however, is not always the case and therefore shall only be possible by the majority acceptance of the creditors.

The rights of a single creditor…will thus be infringed. In certain cases, that might need to be justified. Yet at the least, it requires that the individual concerned be able to sensibly protect his rights in this procedure.

In regards, for example, the acceptance period in §21 of the StaRUG draft which at a minimum shall amount to only 14 days, there by all means can be doubt. To this and to additional points, the hearing will hopefully bring additional attention.   

On the insolvency order. The presented draft law shall not in fact, as was to be feared following remarks by the CDU/CSU delegation, entirely abolish the basis of insolvency of the over-indebted. Yet it still weakens it an additional time. We reject this. The avoidance of a business insolvency is – where possible – clearly desirable. It is not, on the other hand, sensible to only postpone it for as long as possible. By means of a further weakening of the insolvency basis of over-indebtedness, the number of zombie firms will only increase – which in the end, if the insolvency then finally occurs, only inflicts even so greater damages. Here, we should not pursue the previous mal-development, but instead take counter-measures.

Many thanks and until next week.

 

 

[trans: tem]