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]

Ruben Rupp, January 15, 2026, TTPA and Freedom’s Advocate

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/53, pp. 6312-6314. 

Right honorable President. Honored members. 

The CDU Minister-president Daniel Günther just a few days ago quite openly declared the press to be an enemy. He spoke of censorship, ja, even of a ban of free media – statements which, let us be honest, had they been used by an AfD minister-president 

            Bettina Hagedorn (SPD): Happily, there are none!

would have immediately led to demands for a party ban proceeding. They will now by the Union be relativized and applauded, dear colleagues of the CDU/CSU. If you have the decency, then distance yourself here and today from such authoritarian fantasies of the minister-president. 

            Maja Wallstein (SPD): You speak like the blind man of color. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Wow! Can the next speaker do the same?

Especially handy for Günther and his supporters is that the European Union meanwhile delivers precisely this tool suitable for his authoritarian dreams from the Digital Services Act, which the coordinating office for digital service in fact degrades to a censorship authority 

            Konrad Körner (CDU/CSU): That is false!

by the planned EU chat control which shall make possible an unfounded mass surveillance of citizens, up to a so-called decree on “transparency and targeting of political advertising”; in short: TTPA. And before you, as so often in these debates, respond to our motion [Drucksache 21/3609] with over-reaching allegations: 

            Ronja Kemmer (CDU/CSU): Mimimi!

Just because we want to cancel the TTPA is not to say we are against transparency or would tolerate foreign influence in elections. 

            Anna Luthmann (Greens): Ach so!

These fairy tales of the AfD as a supposed foreign marionette are simply untrue. Possibly you are simply envious because you yourselves scarcely still have international contacts. In short: This marionette card is in all cases the cheapest propaganda, and I am sure you will again today unpack this propaganda, because you have no arguments against the AfD and against this motion. 

            Sonja Lemke (Linke): We have quite good arguments against the AfD!

In fact, this decree is an attack on the opposition and freedom of the press. Yet in turn you come along. 

Ostensibly, the TTPA theme comes as so often with an apparently plausible reasoning: No influencing of elections! Yet it’s only about transparency. That this decree for transparency is not necessary is shown by the state of the social media prior to the introduction of this decree. 

I myself have connected digital advertising on Facebook. I needed to quite clearly specify who financed the advertisement, needed to authenticate it with the personal statement, and much more. That was transparent, that was sufficient. 

What now does the TTPA do beyond that? Expensive compliance, extremely difficult targeting, massive legal insecurity for platforms. What now exactly is political advertising? And at what point is it political advertising? – And a high risk of compensatory fines for the smallest mistakes! The result: The effective withdrawal of almost all large platforms – Meta with Facebook and Instagram, Google with YouTube. Since October 2025, political paid advertising in social media is de facto no longer possible. 

And whom does that harm? Not the governing parties, not the established media houses, 

            Johannes Schätzel (SPD): So far from the reality!

not ARD and ZDF. Harmed will be new parties, opposition forces, critical associations, candidates and think tanks. And yes, quite especially Germany’s strongest party, the AfD, will be harmed. Since we are present in the digital spectrum, because we enjoy no favorable, continual coverage by large publishing houses, or by public broadcasting media, like all of you here. 

What thus here is in fact happening is the targeted shutdown of a political competitor under the pretense of an ostensible transparency. I say: Away with this undemocratic, junk decree of the European Union! 

And if you now ask: Yes, AfD, what then is your solution for the influencing of elections? Quite simple: The fight against foreign influence is a duty of the security authorities, among others, the Federal intelligence service [BND, Bundesnachrichtendienst]. This ought to be strengthened. Since in the secret service work, we are meanwhile near completely dependent on the U.S.A. – and that because you in the area of security- and key-technologies have slumbered for years. That is your responsibility and your failure. 

Nevertheless, you are especially disillusioning in this debate – and this I cannot spare you, Herr Digital Minister Wildberger – with your cabinet draft law for political advertising transparency, the national ensuing legislation for the TTPA. This draft in regards so-called advertisers, thus parties, associations, business and political candidates, expressly enables house searches and seizures on account of ostensible violations of transparency. We are here quite quickly into criminal law. Who works politically needs in the future to thereby figure that he receives a house search. 

            Johannes Schätzel (SPD): Such rubbish!

And just retroactively can he defend himself against that. You thereby clearly create an intimidation effect. I ask you: Is that your idea of freedom of the press and fair, democratic competition? Ours is quite clearly not. 

And it becomes still worse. In regards danger in delay, house searches shall even be possible without legal writ. What may we then imagine of that? Does that mean that the successful pay videos, critical of the government, from Alice Weidel or from Nius chief Reichert are a danger in delay? The video is uploaded – danger in delay – and directly there are house searches on the initiative of the coordinating office for digital services which is controlled by the Digital Ministry? Need we imagine it? 

            Johannes Schätzel (SPD): Nein!

That something so is at all in a cabinet draft is incomprehensible. On this account, I say: Without delay, take back these regulations, Herr Digital Minister. 

If you do not believe me: It is in black and white in §6 and §7 of the cabinet draft. I myself have again taken a peek. I yesterday questioned the minister in committee. He disputed all of these problems which I listed here, designated the criticism – by analogy – as disinformation. 

            Konrad Körner (CDU/CSU): You too! 

            Johannes Schätzel (SPD): You too!

Herr Minister, here is the last opportunity to set it right. 

I expect here and today a clear statement of the Federal government. Take back this cabinet draft! Or do you adhere to seizures and house search even without a judicial decree? Yes or no? It cannot be so difficult to here clearly declare. 

Regardless of how the Digital Ministry positions itself, the AfD remains now and in the future the advocate for freedom. 

            Bettina Hagedorn (SPD): Hahaha!

You can be sure of it. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Christine Anderson, November 17, 2025, Digital Omnibus

EU Parliament, Brussels, November 17, 2025, P-004565/2025 Commission. 

Written Question. 

The Commission has signaled that the forthcoming Digital Omnibus may introduce changes to concepts of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) such as compatible use, purpose limitation and secondary processing. Since the GDPR forms the legal foundation for the European digital identity wallet, digital travel credentials (DTCs) and other identity and biometric systems, any modification of these concepts could materially affect the guarantees on which these systems were legislated. 

1. Will the Commission explicitly confirm that any expansion of ‘compatible use’ under the omnibus will not enable personal, identity-linked or biometric data collected under the revised Electronic Identification and Trust Services Regulation (eIDAS 2.0) or for DTCs to be repurposed for analytics, AI training, or security or intelligence objectives? 

2. How will the Commission ensure that identity or travel-related data cannot be further processed beyond the purposes that were originally authorised by sectoral legislation, even if the horizontal GDPR framework becomes more permissive? 

3. Does the Commission commit to maintaining strict purpose limitation for all identity and authentication systems irrespective of any omnibus-related GDPR adjustments?

Ruben Rupp, October 9, 2025, Chat Control and Child Abuse

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/31, pp. 3285-3286. 

Right honorable Frau President. Honorable members. 

I am proud of what we have done this week. 

            Konrad Körner (CSU/CSU): You have done nothing! 

For in common with the critics of the planned EU chat control, we have so built up a massive pressure that the Federal government has given way. They now want to vote no in Council at the vote for a possible baseless mass surveillance. I say one thing quite clearly: Yesterday was a great victory for the citizens, a great victory for the AfD, and a great victory for the freedom – You there laugh, I know. 

            Siegfried Walch (CDU/CSU): That is a joke!

The theater – and now listen closely, colleagues of the Union – up to this week on the theme of EU chat control is a disaster for the Federal government. It shows how disunited you are, as before, on the question of baseless mass surveillance. For long, the Federal government held itself to be covered on the theme of chat control so as to be able, in an expected clandestine ballot in the EU Council, to vote for chat control. 

            Siegfried Walch (CDU/CSU): What rubbish!

Otherwise, why for weeks have you not been concerned for clarification? You would have been able to do that. How so just now, shortly before the vote, a no of the Justice Minister? Where is the Chancellor’s no? That, I miss in place. 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): He’s not at all here!

No, you let it run, managed it up to the close in secrecy. And even in the Digital Committee yesterday, you refused to discuss this point publicly. We know quite precisely why: Because all the world would have seen how divided this Federal government is on this question. 

            Konrad Körner (CSU/CSU): That is just not right! 

            Armand Zorn (SPD): That is not at all right!

Since while the Justice Minister in council openly expressed herself for a no, Chancellor Merz clarified yesterday on X – I cite: 

            “The police protect us all. For that, they require the use of drones and a                              preventive telecommunications surveillance.” 

Quite obviously Chancellor Merz himself wants this mass surveillance of citizens, just so as the Interior Ministry. 

I say one thing to you: If it is not so as I here say, then position yourself here as Federal government – the Chancellor and his Vice-chancellor – and clearly declare that in the entire legislative period it will never come to a vote of this government on chat control!

If you want to do it honestly, do it now and here! We will therein measure you. And of course Chancellor Merz and the Vice-chancellor are again not in the hall. 

I say to you: It scares the citizens – me too – to know that the Chancellor personally and the Interior Ministry continue to want this chat control. 

            Konrad Körner (CSU/CSU): That’s not right!

And it is foreseeable that you will again start such an attempt when the time is ripe. Should you again take a run at this initiative – this I say to you – and dare the first great step for an authoritarian state which, utterly without basis, surveilles the citizens, then you will encounter bitter resistance from the side of the AfD delegation. We will exhaust to the maximum all political and judicial means so as to prevent the surveillance state. You can be sure of that. 

            Günter Kirings (CSU/CSU): Does Putin see it so? 

            Peter Boehringer (AfD): That is so embarrassing! Violations of basic rights!          

            Siegfried Walch (CDU/CSU, indicating speaker): He is embarrassing!

And no, the baseless mass surveillance does not effectively protect our children from disgusting pedophile perpetrators, from child pornography and child abuse. Since even the German child protection union rejects this EU madness as disproportionate and ineffective. And you quite precisely know: The AfD is sometimes the toughest when it is about the fight against child abuse. 

While the leftist bloc up to parts of the Union preferably wants to re-socialize the perpetrators, we want deterrence. 

            Siegfried Walch (CDU/CSU): Yes, madness!

We declare war on cuddling with the perpetrators, for our motto is “protection of victims, instead of protection of perpetrators.” 

Yet for you here in any case it is not about that. Since in regards the EU chat control, it is as with the Digital Services Act: As a reason advanced for a show window. You’ve even said: “We want to block illegal digital content” – okay – and: “The digital area is not allowed to be lawless” – okay. Yet then it was again expanded to disinformation, hate and agitation, and now the EU censors the free opinion. No, we want no state censorship apparat and no baseless surveillance. Exactly therefore needs be again abolished even so the Digital Services Act. The citizens’ freedom is not negotiable. 

 

[trans: tem]

Michael Kaufmann, September 11, 2025, Research and Economy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/21, p. 2096. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable Frau Minister. Honorable colleagues. 

I have the impression that the governing delegations have placed this extra theme on the daily order in the current hour because they have nothing else to present. But let us look more closely. In your Hightech Agenda is initially one positive thing: You finally admit that we in many areas of research and innovation no longer stand at the top of the world, and that we in many fields are in danger of losing the connection. That is honest, and that distinguishes you from earlier governments which ever only spread the rally cry of carry on. Only he who unsparingly describes the starting point can at all achieve improvements. 

But then: Much paper, little plan. Your Hightech Agenda is full of programs, roadmaps and hubs, yet without clear measurable goals. Who wants to, can lose himself in this wasteland, but it does not indicate the way to the future. Just quite at the end, there will be a few more concrete – for all that – yet too few. Explanations of intention are no strategy. 

I do not want to contest that you have good intentions. Yet your euphoria I share not at all; for all of your predecessors have promised one thing: Dismantlement of bureaucracy. And what has happened each time? The opposite. Each year new prescriptions, new formulas, more bureaucracy. You, Union and SPD, have shown in the last 20 years that you cannot do bureaucracy dismantlement. Why should it this time suddenly be different? And, hand on heart: Have you ever dared in Moloch Brussels to defy a new bureaucracy? 

            Holger Mann (SPD): Come still to the theme?

And in regards the financing, there remains disillusionment. The means in the core budget stagnate for years, and a couple of billion euros of special debts alter nothing of that. You speak of a “big heave”. Yet where is it? With the 2025 and 2026 budgets, half of the legislature is already committed. 

            Florian Müller (CDU/CSU): Ja!

Thus when does the game-changer come? In the second half, or not at all? 

You yourselves speak of deficits in regards transfer from research to the economy – fully right. Yet you conceal the origins: Research in Germany, yes; foundings, no. In Germany, research still pays, but foundings long since no longer pay. The highest taxes, ruinous energy costs, bureaucracy without end. So long as it remains so, value creation emigrates to foreign lands. So long as you change nothing of that, your technology transfer remains an illusion. 

The fact is: Our research landscape is exploited so as to create value elsewhere. This is no longer allowed to remain so. You talk of gigafactories in Germany. But you tell me: Where actually is the announced megaplant for chips in Magdeburg? Not even the sponsored 10 million euro subvention could move Intel to this investment. 

            Holger Mann (SPD): You wanted it just so not!

And now gigfactories for giga euros, only with billions from the pocket of the taxpayers. Under today’s conditions, no energy-intensive plant comes to Germany. 

Without fundamental reform, your promises remain illusions. A change of the economy with you, honored colleagues of the CDU/CSU, is not for the making. That, you showed yesterday as in regards TOP 5 – Economic Change for Germany – precisely five CDU/CSU members sat in the plenary session. The Hightech Agenda should be your business plan for the future. Yet quite frankly: Would you approach a bank for credit with this paper? Ich nicht; since explanations of intention replace no concrete measures; vague sketches are no strategy. We need no colorful roadmaps. You need an authentic plan, and which I do not see here. 

            Stephan Albani (CSU/CSU): You need only use the eyes!

You’ve recognized many problems. That is the first step. But now you need to deliver; otherwise, our country’s future is in danger. And, for that, you bear the responsibility. 

Thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Volker Schnurrbusch, October 8, 2025, EU Digital Rules

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)10-08(3-0217-0000). 

Frau President. Valued colleagues.

The core of the EU is the Common Market. Yet what does this Commission do? It builds one hurdle after another. It would be nice if we too had a Silicon Valley. Yet instead of complaining that a few U.S. firms dominate the tech market and the platforms, it would be the duty of the EU to promote the entrepreneurial spirit which first made this dominance possible. Why does the risk capital flow to California and Texas and not to Germany and France? Why do IT professionals emigrate from Asia to the U.S.A. and not here? Why do we experience the emigration of our programmers? 

Because this Commission is hostile to business and growth; because it constructs ever higher bureaucratic hurdles; because it understands the market not as the exchange of ideas but as something un-regulated which is to be surveilled. Thus it invents tools like the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act. The EU wants to control, it blocks entrepreneurial freedom, and it wants to censor freedom of opinion on the internet so that only its own propaganda will be spread, as in Roumania, as in Moldavia, as in Georgia, and lastly also in the Ukraine. We reject that. 

 

[trans: tem]

Sergej Minich, July 10, 2025, Digitalization and CDU

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/18, pp. 1807-1808. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

The Federal government has created a new ministry for digitalization and state modernization. The plans sound great: Less bureaucracy, more tempo, finally digital, the lean state as a goal. 

Yet how exactly should that be implemented? Citizens shall surrender their data just once, the so-called Once Only Principle. That means once I report my address or my income to the office, then the state itself should then pass it on – sounds logical, sounds good. The truth however is: The authorities have different standards. I still need to give it multiple times: Once for the taxes, once for parents funds and once for housing funds. That is no digitalization, that is data ping-pong. And it costs us, according to internal estimates, over one billion euros every year because everything runs in duplicate and triplicate. 

Digital administration – such a nice theme; it was mentioned – promised for years, that all can be settled on-line: Building permission, Kindergeld, re-registration. And what have we today? Instead of on-line service, many citizens receive a pdf for printing. That is like “say digital, but deliver by stagecoach.” Only around 100 of over 500 benefits are really digital. The goal was ruinously missed. And hundreds of millions of euros were put into advisors, platforms, projects which scarcely anyone uses. 

The same with bureaucracy deconstruction – it was mentioned today. The new Minister says: We make the administration simpler. How shall that go? New projects, new platforms, new rules, yet no real simplification. A start-up in Berlin requires 26 forms and five office visits. In Estonia: One click, 15 minutes, done. In Germany, one application lasts a week – with luck. 

And then there’s the matter of the money. The State Modernization branch has been approved for 150 new posts. 

            Ronja Kemmer (CDU/CSU): Those are not new!

Many of them are still unoccupied. And where positions are unoccupied, external consultants are retrieved for a lot of money. After months, there are also interim bureaus. By the time you become able to act, we have the next election, and you again have achieved nothing! 

            Ronja Kemmer (CDU/CSU): Such rubbish!

It was desired to set up a new IT concept. Cost: Over four million euros. Result: It is not practical. The consultancy firms rejoice; they earned four million – for nothing. That is not progress, that is a squandering. 

The fiberglass construction should by the end of the year, thus 2025, reach 50 percent. We can gladly wager on whether you still reach it. We have a Ministry which wants much, but does little; a Ministry which wants to save, yet incinerates money; and a Ministry which wants to modernize, yet remains clinging to an old bureaucracy. “State Modernization” is not allowed to remain a slogan. We require clear data standards, mandatory [verbindliche] goals and, before all, consequences if things don’t work. For the state belongs to the citizens – you are only service providers – and they deserve something better than your expensive promises without effect. 

Herr Wildberger, perhaps just a small tip: In this coalition, you simply have not a chance. Previously, all of this coalition’s election promises were broken. Why should it be different with you? 

Dear Union, you act as if you were for the first time in government. In that regard, you however are guilty: In the Merkel years, you turned Germany into a digital developing country. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Stephan Brandner, October 18, 2024, Internet Censorship

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/195, pp. 25551-25552. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Friday afternoon – important themes of freedom of opinion. The Federal Network Agency [Bundesnetzagentur] comes along with a modest name, scarcely anyone knows it, is thereby meanwhile in fact the commanding censorship authority in Germany. 

            Tobias B. Bacherle (Greens): That is just rubbish!

What is that for an agency? With the dissolution of the Postal Ministry, in 1998 founded as a regulatory authority for telephone and post, then also competent for gas and electric lines, later for the railway network. Meanwhile, it has almost 3,000 co-workers settled in the work area of green Economy Destruction Minister Habeck, and the chief is the Green party friend Klaus Müller who since 1990 is with the Greens, and since 2022 leads the Federal Network Agency, this censorship authority. He is now in fact the chief of the German commanding censors. He names so-called trusted flaggers. As a member of the German Language Union [Vereins Deutsche Sprache], it is clear to me: Who has something to hide, he speaks Denglish, or tries to with anglicisms, and precisely so is it here. 

Tobias B. Bacherle (Greens): As opposed to you, most people meanwhile understand that.

Trusted flagger is officially translated as trustworthy whistleblower [„vertrauenswürdige Hinweisgeber“]. At first, it sounds quite good. Yet for we citizens, they are plainly not trustworthy, but only for those rulers sensitive to criticism; wherefore in our view the better fitting translation is “digital block warden”, “thought police” or “government spy”; since that is what they are. 

Tobias B. Bacherle (Greens): You now again show that you do not manage the translations so good.

Here is driven another massive frontal assault on Article 5 of the Basic Law, the freedom of opinion, one of the most important basic rights, and core component of a living democracy. The idea of course is only illegal content shall be reported by internet spies and internet accusers equipped with exclusive access to the platforms. Yet the answer to the question, Who specifically shall that ultimately be?, leaves the worst to be feared. Who can become an internet accuser? Non-government organizations, civil society actors, religious pedagogues, trades union members, thus anyone who in fact emits the left-green thinking. 

And so no wonder that the first reporting office, in good Denglish manner, is named “REspect”, in which is sheltered one of the Islam teachers trained in the notorious and suspected Al Azhar University in Cairo. 

Tobias B. Bacherle (Greens): Herr Brandner, we’ve heard all that from Reichelt! What’s new?

The reporting office belongs to the Youth Foundation Baden Württemberg, is nursed with tax money and thus arises – we all know of it – from the left-green swamp. And this troop of, among others, religious pedagogues shall now be qualified to decide over which expressions of opinion are legitimate and which not. Actually inconceivable, or? 

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not believe to go too far when I say: If there had earlier been censorship authorities as presently – there were as is known some better – then would have been unthinkable showbiz greats like Thomas Gottschalk, Harald Schmidt or Rudi Carrell. 

            Beatrix von Storch (AfD): And Helmut Schmidt!

They would no longer be allowed on the screen. We of course live in an increasingly homogenized [gleichschalteten] television- and in an increasingly oppressed digital-world, which sets up instructions and limitations, instead of open, substantial discussions. Tutored thought everywhere from the public broadcasting. 

The internet was still a bit of a free space. It becomes ever more limited. The rulers are watching. All that is unsuitable is out. Thus alternative media in Germany will be blocked, oppressed and hindered. Trusted flaggers become still more active, and will judge whether something is hatred, fake news or illegal. The worst is to be feared. 

And the worst is: There is nothing in the Basic Law in this regard. The state precisely knows it may not censor. Yet so as to attain the opposite, it privatizes the censorship. It circumvents, so to say, the Basic Law’s command, and sets up a terror of unity opinion [Einheitsmeinung], instead  of variety of opinion. We of the AfD stand for the exact opposite. We stand for variety and for freedom of opinion, and not for the unity opinion terror. 

The FDP participates. It cannot be believed what the former free, liberal party is thus doing. Herr Kubicki, who as President sits behind me, distances himself a bit from that, yet in the end he will again be for it. We, ja, know him; he is something like the Rambo of the FDP, who now and then may blink right, but then is precisely in line. That does not make the matter better. 

Alone, the Alternative für Deutschland remains as before a guarantor for democracy, for law, for freedom and especially for freedom of opinion in Germany. 

            Stefan Gelbhaar (Greens): Blah, blah, blah!

We therefore demand with our motion [Drucksache 20/13364] – you’ve all read it – simply: The Federal government shall block financial grants to organizations which want to effect the deletion of user contributions which fall under the freedom of opinion. We want the Federal Cartel Office to be instructed to know, to look into: How do the arrangements for hate speech function? That would be a mission for the Federal Cartel Office. 

            Stefan Gelbhaar (Greens): The Federal Cartel Office should examine the AFD?

Herr President, I come to an end; I see it blinking here. – In addition, the censorship measures on the European level need to be abolished. 

            Vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki: Herr colleague, come to a conclusion.

And the trusted flaggers, the internet spies, may have no future in Germany. 

Many thanks. 

            Stefan Gelbhaar (Greens): On what censorship is, you need to read up again.

 

[trans: tem]

Barbara Benkstein, September 26, 2024, EU Data Act

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/188, pp. 24461-24462. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Valued colleagues. 

We debate today a Union delegation motion for implementation of the EU Data Act. For a clarifying debate, it is nevertheless important to come to speak once again of the Data Act itself. This must by September 2025 be converted into the national law of the EU member states. 

Valued colleagues of the Union delegation, Frau colleague Hoppermann, in regards your motion, I see light as well as shadow. How do I come to this evaluation? 

Let us first look at the EU Data Act. As so often, the EU Commission also with the Data Act intervenes in the business and everyday life of the people. With the decree, it wants to break up the existing data oligopoly of the large tech concerns and facilitate the access of KMUs and start-ups to valuable, machine-readable data. From that, the Mittelstand also should profit. A thoroughly good goal! It remains to await how that actually in practice is implemented. 

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, I want now to give attention to an important problem point of the EU Data Act. It remains unclear in regards the users’ right to the access of their data. Here should be distinguished between commercial and private users. Private users presumably rather have the interest that their data, when it is already uploaded, be stored only for a brief time. And thus the question occurs to me: Valued colleagues of the Union, will your motion, in view of these areas of tension, legislate the required implementation of the EU Data Act? 

Your motion for the implementation of the EU Data Act hides some of the Act’s deficiency; for example, the public emergency named in the text of the decree. By means of this, businesses can almost be compelled to make available their database to the pertinent authorities. 

Franziska Hoppermann (CDU/CSU): The Data Act has been decided. Nothing                       needs be hidden! 

I find this problematic in no place in your motion. 

The risk of an abusive data delivery in the name of a public emergency is not at all fabricated. Here is also required besides a clear definition of unmistakable enforcement regulations [Durchführungsbestimmungen]. 

Next critical point. Your demand to entrust the Federal Network Authority with the role of a data coordinator, we view critically. As a Federal supervisory authority, the Federal Network Agency belongs to the operating area of the Federal Ministry for the Economy and Climate Protection. Thus the independence is limited, despite all the bundled professional competence. We thus hold it better to create an autonomous office for data coordination, as for example is the case with the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. 

            Franziska Hoppermann (CDU/CSU): Who is meanwhile a woman!

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, a strengthening of the German digital economy’s innovation and competition capability is unquestionably important. This however is in direct relation with the performance capability of a modern society and also with the digital rights of the consumer. These are not appropriately valued by the Union’s motion, as well by the EU Commission. Valued colleagues of the Union, you in your motion thereby fritter away the possibility of at least partially removing the Data Act’s weaknesses by its implementation in national law. 

So far, I still see in your motion some shady sides which we in the digital committee can in common polish. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Barbara Benkstein, June 28, 2024, Artificial Intelligence

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/179, pp. 23264-23265. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Valued colleagues. 

After a good nine months, we here in plenary session again deliberate on the Union motion for a strengthening of Artificial Intelligence as a key technology for Germany. After nine months, it certainly can be expected that a new thought or a new idea will be born. Yet unfortunately, despite a thorough, orderly description of the problem: A zero return in your motion. 

Ladies and gentlemen, what becomes clear here, and what is it actually about? It’s about no more and yet no less than Germany’s role in the AI and data market. So as to bring it to three points: First, start-ups and KMU [Kleine und Mittlere Unternehmen, small and mid-sized business] require free development possibilities without sprawling bureaucratic impediments. Instead is required, second, more innovation and knowledge transfer, and with that, third, a durable business model with scaling perspectives. 

The 2024 Federal Research and Innovation Report, which here yesterday in plenary session was already presented, lays the finger in the wound. In regards the themes of data and AI, the Federal government neglects the necessary computing infrastructure. It does not do to rebuke the without question splendid achievements of German research institutions in the AI area. 

We in Germany have no recognition or knowledge problem when we speak of AI. Yet, right honorable ladies and gentlemen, what is lacking is a secure, stable computing infrastructure so as to train the algorithms of quite promising start-ups and KMU. For that, these so far need to use the services of large hyperscalers, with the real risks that their training data does not remain exclusively with them. The local supercomputers, for instance in Jülich, Garching or Stuttgart, are primarily computers for science which are only at limited disposal for young business customers. 

There continues to be lacking in Germany a securely financed AI infrastructure. The AI-Federal Association LEAM [large European AI models] initiative figures the construction costs of one such at around 300 million euros. The Federal government, which so gladly styles itself as progressive coalition, has so far kept from view this practical stimulus. To name this refusal is the duty of a constructive opposition. 

The coalition, continues to appear to be, ja, of good cheer to decide in the coming weeks in cabinet the draft budget for 2025. For the digital, data and AI policy, the budget is allowed to become a tragedy: Reductions here, eliminations there, minimal investments. How, with that, valued ladies and gentlemen, shall be strengthened Germany’s role in regards the key technology of AI, remains a secret. 

            Otto Fricke (FDP): The AfD wants to expend more money! Always good!

And the once loudly announced digital budget was in the meantime well buried. Or will the government still apply itself, valued Herr colleague Broadcasting Kaiser? 

As was already adhered to last autumn in this place: Your motion, valued colleagues of the Union, aims in the right direction. It nevertheless is lacking in exactitude and consistency. We therefore will abstain. Our offer, after the coming Bundestag election in a coalition of the reasonable to deal with the AI theme with corresponding priority, stands as before.

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Beatrix von Storch, March 21, 2024, Internet Censorship

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20448-20449. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The DDG [Digital-Dienste-Gestez] implements the EU’s Digital Services Act: EU-wide internet censorship. The Ampel has decided that for this censorship the Federal Network Agency is responsible and coordinates it. No joke: The officials, who hitherto have regulated the transmission and competition in the gas and electricity network, are also responsible for on-line censorship, 

            Tabea Rössner (Greens): A lie! Impudent! 

instead of, for example, the Federal Justice Ministry. 

At the top stands Klaus Müller, former Green minister from Schleswig-Holstein, exactly so as his Green chief, Robert Habeck. Green clique! Yet before the law is at all in effect, Herr Müller openly threatened in January 2024 – cite: 

“When I catch anyone the second or third time…then I need to say with all distinctness: The Digital Services Act then has very sharp teeth.” 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): That’s right!

The threat is not a fabrication. Herr Müller or the coordinating office at the Federal Network Agency can impose penalty payments against on-line platforms which do not sufficiently censure. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Are you nervous on that account?

Six percent of the worldwide daily revenue, millions of U.S. dollars in penalties – without being imposed by a court. Ergo: The platforms will censor, and the Green coordinating office will therein no doubt give rise to what is to be censured. 

             Tabea Rössner (Greens): Such idiocy I’ve never heard!

For a brutal deletion practice by the platforms suffices this danger of penalties in the millions. 

Yet the coordinating office may do much more than what a judiciary or police in a state of law may do: Conduct investigations, gather evidence, hear witnesses, examine witnesses, inspect places of business without a court order, seize property up to three days without court authorization. And for support, the coordinating office is allowed to name civil law organizations for so-called trustworthy whistle-blowers [Hinweisgebern] whose indications of censorship [Zensurhinweise] are to be preferably implemented. We all know who that is. Stasi Kahane for laughing no longer sleeps. This army of leftist on-line denouncers shall cull and report disliked opinions, and the data of people of wrong opinion will then be passed on to the BKA [Federal Criminal Office]. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): So that you cannot thereby spread all your hatred!

This law paves the way to a digital police state. 

            Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): No smaller does it get now!

For that, the Ampel now massively arms the BKA. Money is there, but not for the fight against organized criminality, clans or terrorism, but so as to persecute expressions of opinion on the internet. The number of officials in the reporting office shall be increased more than ten times from today’s 39 to 430. And the BKA states on page 64 of the proposal, Herr colleague Mordhorst, 

            Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP): Preamble, Frau von Storch! That is not the text                        of the law! 

that the test cases [Prüffälle] will increase by more than a hundred times, from 6,000 to around 720,000. The overwhelming majority of test cases will affect blameless citizens who have been denounced by the left-green on-line Stasi. 

Who on Facebook insults Habeck’s heat pump is – Schwupp – a test case for the BKA. Hundreds of BKA officials need to occupy themselves with that. 

You use this proposal from Brussels for your ideological fight against all and anyone who is not left. The more its backing in the population dwindles, the more the Ampel employs surveillance, intimidation and repression – see the Democracy Promotion Act. 

            Renate Künst (Greens): You need to pay attention that the features do not slip!

This state has lost every measure, writes the NZZ [Neue Zürcher Zeitung]. With this coordinating  office, it creates a Green species of directed censor officials; and proudly writes, they are completely independent. That means, they are without any democratic control. This censorship monster belongs in no democracy. On that account, all democrats will today reject this attack on our free democratic basic order. 

Many thanks. 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): What do you want then?

 

[trans: tem]

 

Bernhard Zimniok, February 7, 2024, Digital Services Act

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

Herr President. 

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

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

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

 

[trans: tem]

Tobias Peterka, December 15, 2023, EU Digital Services Act

AfD Kompakt, December 15, 2023. 

The AfD delegation in the German Bundestag is worried about the attempt of the EU Commission to still further restrict freedom of opinion and information in the social networks. Each citizen has the right to freely express and spread his opinion and, unhindered, to inform himself from generally accessible sources. This right is also part of the EU basic rights charter. The EU Commission’s attempt to intimidate the managers of the platform “X” (formerly Twitter) by means of unsubstantiated assertions and threats does not breathe of the free and constitutional spirit of this lofty obligation. The Commission therein aims to move the platform, in anticipated obedience [vorauseilendem Gehorsam], to the deletion of user contributions which fall under the freedom of opinion. The EU “Digital Services Act” unfortunately makes possible such interventions in the freedom of opinion protected by the basic rights. Who restricts the freedom of opinion and information nevertheless endangers the foundation of democracy. 

We demand of the Federal government to comprehensively commit itself at the European level to the abolition of the EU “Digital Services Act”. 

 

[trans: tem]

Barbara Lenk, July 6, 2023, Artificial Intelligence

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, p. 14257. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Valued colleagues. 

We today discuss a motion of the Linke delegation for the debate on the EU legislation for generative artificial intelligence. As usual, the Linke’s petitioners hunt after the phantom of an alleged discrimination by means of algorithms. As usual, they see the cure for saving the situation in an unbounded regulation of AI which is adapted to nip in the bud every creative impulse in regards start-ups as well as small and Mittlestand businesses. Their motion is thereby not approvable; since it prevents a future-oriented alignment of Germany’s policy with the goal of a digital sovereignty. 

As examples of generative AI, you name ChatGPT, Dall-E and Midjourney. These generators for pictures and text of U.S. American businesses determine the perception of larger AI models for the end user. 

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, we should not forget: There are also generative AI made in Germany; for instance, the open source software Stable Diffusion or the chatbot Luminous of Aleph Alpha. 

The demands in the motion put forward by the Linke delegation hide the danger of throttling the creative dynamic of the German AI landscape in research and business. It is senseless to categorize generative AI per se as high-risk and thereby force it under the yoke of examinations and obligations. An AI is a neutral tool. Its potential for use or harm evolves as a result of the intentions of its users. A drone-borne camera can, for example, take spectacular photos of climbers on a cliff. Yet such a camera can also pursue a citizen in a city and brand his behavior as “socially undesirable”. 

In brief: The motion put forward by the Linke delegation we can only reject. The actual risk which threatens Germany in the matter of AI is the growing economic divide between Germany and the U.S.A. or China. So that the digital divide does not deepen into an AI canyon, Germany needs to finally invest in AI suitable data centers. This should also be intelligible to the Herr Federal Finance Minister! The door of digital sovereignty in regards AI is still open. The Linke’s motion however leads into an impassable labyrinth without return. This way we do not follow. 

Many thanks for the attention. Shortly before the close, I wish all colleagues a nice time off. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Marcus Buchheit, July 11, 2023, European Semiconductor Industry

AfD Kompakt, July 11, 2023. 

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

 

[trans: tem]

 

Christian Wirth, June 22, 2023, Domestic Terrorism and Surveillance

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/112, pp. 13757-13758. 

Frau President. Valued colleagues. 

Herr Grötsch, I really almost thought I would be obliged to thank you as you had begun to say what is important: All here in house are against any kind of terrorism. I owed it to you. Unfortunately, you again disappoint in this narrative: Most of the danger proceeds from the right. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Yet that is no narrative! 

            Uli Grötsch (SPD): It is proved! For years!

I want to tell you one example. In the year 2022, in the area of phenomena of “right extremism, right terrorism” – in any case, too much – 19 proceedings were initiated by the Federal Prosecutor General, in the area of phenomena of “left extremism, left terrorism” one proceeding, and in the area of phenomena of “Islamic-motivated extremism/terrorism” all of 236 proceedings. 

Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): It does not depend on proceedings! It depends on verdicts!

This standard picture, “most of the danger proceeds from the right” – you thereby certainly do not mean terrorism – is a narrative the propagation of which has two reasons. 

One thing is quite clear; that, with these billions against the right, NGOs shall be fed which have, for example, been paid for having meanwhile flown in 52,000 for the 250 Afghanistan local auxiliaries as reported by you. 

For another, Herr Haldenwang yesterday has confirmed, as he stated on public television: The Constitution Defense is not alone responsible for reducing the AfD’s polling numbers. That is a quite clear sign that not just in this legislative period under you, in the SPD’s Interior Ministry, but already in the CDU’s Interior Ministry, an order has been given to the Constitution Defense, to clear away a politically disagreeable opponent – and nothing else other. Yet this will have its consequences. 

            Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Ever the same story!

We have already spoken of diverse cases. In the case of Castrop-Rauxel, Syrians seeking protection have attempted to carry out an attack with Rizin. According to careful estimates, some 30,000 to 40,000 dead and injured were to be tallied. We already previously had such a case with a Syrian in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Those are real dangers, which gives one to think, if one does think, how many victims of Islamism there have been in Europe in the last years. Those are the dangers with which we need to deal. 

These dangers unfortunately are often imported. We have for 2022 registered 530 persons posing a danger in the area of phenomena of “religious ideology”, and an additional 503 as so-called relevant persons. 317 of those posing a danger remain in Germany, and 448 of the relevant persons. 132 of those posing a danger do not possess German citizenship. It needs be said: They still do not possess it. Of the relevant persons, 171 are foreign citizens. Almost half of those 132 posing a danger in the area of phenomena of “religious ideology” with a foreign citizenship are Syrians; 62, so as to say exactly. Deported in the first three quarters of 2022 were 17 persons from the Islamic spectrum of whom five were those posing a danger. Merely five of 132 of those posing a danger were deported. This cannot continue. 

We have just peeked at the situation. I will not now return to the mass attacks in the swimming pools. Yet we see it in Nordrhein-Westfalen, in Castrop-Rauxel, Essen, Cologne: What is happening there? Turks, Lebanese and Syrians give themselves over to a war, a gang war, a clan war, on German streets. With up to 500 participants. These Syrians have well integrated themselves. They learn from the Lebanese that here one can carry out his power politics on German streets. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Auweia!

Law we give them in the area “Precaution, security custody, preventive detention”. 

A quite important theme which should concern us all is of course the online search and sources of telecommunications surveillance. Actually, the Ampel coalition had announced to quickly deal with these themes, just as the Greens and the FDP had asserted in the last legislative period that, following the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court, they had found the stone of the wise. This is indeed not so. 

            Vice-president Yvonne Magwas: Please come to a conclusion.

The new speed limit in Germany is indeed to be measured by the freight bicycle, with one forward movement and four backwards. Here we need to quite quickly act. We owe it to the victims, the potential victims and certainly to the victims of child abuse. 

            Vice-president Yvonne Magwas: Last sentence Herr Dr. Wirth, please. 

Many thanks.

  

[trans: tem]

           

 

 

 

Tobias Peterka, April 21, 2023, Data Mining

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/98, pp. 11855-11856.

Frau President. Right honorable colleagues.

Data are the essential currency of the digital age. This platitude is meanwhile – we have heard it – even overtaken by the Linke. In regards today’s data track which oneself each time again lays down and by means of which one is coordinated with others, the term “resource” instead of “currency” is actually more correct and therefrom also derives this term of data mining.

Is this discipline now a curse or a blessing, good for the individual or only for the powerful, for  the economy or for the state, for the well founded or only for the dull witted? Generally, it is scarcely to be thus answered. And thus also data mining in a medical connection is first dealt with predominantly in the named comprehensive report. Certainly it applies to emphasizing the enormous potential uses and for that reason the theme is initially very well suited for an exemplary assay.

Legally, we are not in completely unknown territory. Informational self-determination, creators’ rights, performance protective rights or rights of ownership, also in businesses, ultimately have bundled data as raw material for a theme. Therein also can now already be set out without problem an additional level of rights. Here in the future needs to be more precisely defined how dependence of this raw material on the further processing level is to be legally defined. Unusual in any case is the circumstance of non-consumption. Once used primary data certainly does not vanish just because secondary data is derived from it.

I want to again make clear both endpoints of the fundamentally scarcely comprehensible evaluation chain. Initially there is a concrete information, on occasion in direct reference to an individual, or traceable, and quite at the end there is a recommended action or acknowledgment on the basis of an inquiry from a many times processed global data product. In between, any refining stage is imaginable, the designation “data mining” itself thus actually still much too  briefly grasped.  

For long is neglected that private businesses here tend to completely hurry away from state actors, at least when over-bearing autocrats in the health area repeatedly present a special case. As with every technological upheaval, both failures of over-regulation on one side and wild growth on the other are in any case to be avoided. When however I look at the Corona policy of first the Merkel government and now that of the Ampel, this bad tutelage, the future in regards health data becomes for me one of angst and alarm; that, I need really say.

At least the avoidance of personal back reference [Rückbezug] is, yes, hopefully self-evident. Transparency and anonymity are also important, although only relevant rather early in the refining process. The avoidance of monopolization also becomes important at every level. For that, actually drawing up a public law body would at least be presentable, as long as this itself then did not again act as a bottleneck. Derived data products in the health area however then need, again please, to be accessible to private law ownership.

Data mining needs to be retrospectively, objectively subject to scrutiny, quite precisely. An ideological forward control, as you so gladly always do it, is on the contrary to be strictly rejected. Statistical data can indeed be based on incomplete realities. Data sets are nonetheless never therein guilty, rather the respective realities.   

Finish-refined data sets [Fertigraffinierte Datensätze] are thereby in regards to a more precise consideration a purely ethical, absolutely sterile product which would also open up enormous opportunities beyond political trench warfare. Whether you acknowledge that and really want it, I however do not believe.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]