Johannes Huber, May 20, 2021, Citizens Hour in the Bundestag

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/230, pp. 29541-29542. 

Right honorable Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

“We want to strengthen the people’s cooperation in the formation of the democratic will. For that, we will further develop and improve the means of petition.” With these words, the FDP and CDU/CSU already in the coalition contract of 2009 wanted to introduce a so-called citizens plenary procedure [Bürgerplenarverfahren] in the Bundestag. What to this day has happened? Nothing.

In the coalition contract of 2017 is: “We will institute an experts commission which shall prepare proposals as to whether and in which form our proven parliamentary representative democracy can be expanded by means of additional elements of citizens participation and direct democracy.” What has become of this? You may likely well surmise: Simply nothing. A few months before the end of the legislative period, the Groko [grand coalition] stands ever still at the starting blocks on the theme of citizens participation and you are simply motionless – not because you can do nothing, but quite simply because you do not want to.

On that account, the citizens in Germany require an alternative, we of the AfD. We want to venture more democracy and today introduce a citizens hour in the German Bundestag [Drucksache 19/29781]. In the citizens hour, a controversial exchange of views takes place on petitions with more than 100,000 co-signers. Consultation on the application with the petitioners themselves in a public hearing remains thereby unaffected and continues to take place. The importance of the citizens’ application thereby increases substantially by means of the deliberation in plenary session. The citizens’ concerns deserve more attention, and it would come to that if they were debated in plenary session live on public broadcasting or via an expanded parliamentary television which we also propose [Drucksache 19/29785].

With a citizens hour, the Bundestag draws nearer again to the citizens. There is finally a direct opportunity for the citizens themselves to decide which themes need be necessarily deliberated in plenary session. This would animate more citizens again for politics because now they themselves could control the government. This would also be a starting point for a broad social debate, again more characterized by that what counts is not the better scene design, but the better argument in the interest of the citizens.

The citizens are of course annoyed with politics because you all too often only simulate democracy. Just before the summer pause, a citizens council [Bürgerrat], and indeed the second, shall be commissioned by Bundestag President Schäuble. This superfluous body has in no respect a right to decide. It is thereby clear that citizens councils are much more a symptom of the crisis of parliamentarism than a solution thereof.

Democracy ultimately will not be inspired by means of state-financed citizens councils which – naturally by pure happenstance – will be supported by non-neutral, civil society organizations so as to produce purposeful, desired results. No, democracy first becomes a living thing by the cultivation of a tolerant debate culture open to result, which is oriented to the common good, and in which different opinions will not be defamed as hatred and incitement.

The introduction of a citizens hour as our alternative to citizens councils is such a step in the right direction for more democracy on the Federal level, a step which completely permits it to be more compatible with a thereby strengthened parliamentary democracy.

If you of the older parties now however nevertheless reject this motion, then it needs be asked: Of what actually are you afraid? Do you really have so much fear of the citizens that you may not for once permit in plenary session debate in detail on successful public petitions? That would really be a proof of incapacity.

Yet a rejection from you would have yet more drastic effects. Namely, it would show the citizens that we are not only the single delegation in the German Bundestag which is consistently committed to nationwide referendums on essential decisions, such as possible infringements of the basic rights, and to a direct democracy on the Swiss model. No, we are also the sole delegation which then wants to give the citizens a citizens hour in the Bundestag. We are thereby the most determined democrats in the German Bundestag.

Yet you can still prevent it. You need only vote in favor. So pull yourselves together; before all, the colleagues in committee! Let us make of our citizens committee a lever for more direct democracy and let us finally completely debate citizens petitions in plenary session.

Personally, I rejoice already at the first citizens hour in the German Bundestag. If the citizens be asked what the theme should be, then they presently say quite clearly on diverse platforms: “Prevent any obligatory vaccination of children.” Thus listen to the citizens!

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Johannes Huber, September 10, 2020, Petitions Committee

German Bundestag, September 10, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/173, pp. 21624-21625.

Right honorable Herr President. Dear fellow citizens.

Article 17 of the Basic Law [Grundgesetz] gives everyone the right to apply with written petitions or complaints to the German Bundestag. Since the AfD entered the German Bundestag in 2017, the previous, continual decline of petitions in this sovereign house has been turned around.

The AfD’s contribution, among others, is to have re-animated a high opinion of democracy and brought people back into the political discourse who previously felt themselves no longer represented.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): You have to an extent abused the committee.

The petitions portal is by far the German Bundestag’s most successful internet offering. 40 percent more citizens have registered at the platform compared with last year and, in addition, 45 percent more co-signers have taken up public petitions. Unfortunately, this is presently the only opportunity, besides non-official petitions and direct questions to the members, for a citizen to directly co-operate in national policy during the legislative period. For this reason, we wish to further construct direct democracy at last in our country.

I very heartily greet the co-workers of the committee staff.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Who were publicly attacked by you!

Each petition, as you well know, is assigned to one of three sections and so about a third of all citizen requests could be settled in the early stages of the parliamentary process by means of non-bureaucratic assistance. A big thank you to the diligent co-workers!

I may likewise announce a success concerning the publicity of the petitions. You recall the UN migration pact, in regards which a petition was first publicized due to the perseverence of the AfD.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): That’s not true!

And we prevented the application of the term “Censor Committee”, Herr Gremmels. Today I can say – so much may be allowed – that by our repeated intervention, substantially more are being publicized than earlier.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): That is false!

While there is a political arbitrariness as to which citizens requests will be publicized, the door remains open.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): False!

We therefore wish to further re-work the guidelines for public petitions and firmly and compulsorily establish them in the Bundestag’s orders of business. You could vote for that.

Dear fellow citizens, last year the prize for the ministry with the greatest performance deficit went to the Interior Ministry. First of all were the letters aimed against the draft law concerning firearms put forward by the Federal government. Thanks to over 50,000 co-signers, there was in January 2020 a public hearing with the petitioners.

Despite the lockdowns this year, there will probably be 15 public hearings in 2020; in December of this year, on the convening of an experts’ committee, including proponents and critics, on the national Corona virus lockdowns. So you see: While the Federal government allows, with Christian Drosten and Lothar Wieler, only two so-called experts, the Petitions Committee, thanks to the citizens, is already a step ahead.

While Bundestag President Dr. Schäuble just yesterday at the submission of the Petitions Report reiterated that he certainly did not want popular referendums at the Federal level, many citizens, undeterred, see that otherwise and therefore submit petitions. Even though the coalition contract has the goal of an experts’ committee, the CDU, CSU and SPD, up to today, have not once managed to designate the criteria according to which the experts will be invited. Thus I must say, after three years, the Grand Coalition here has done absolutely nothing, quite possibly because it wants to do nothing.

And then when the Petitions Committee, together with a majority of the entire Bundestag, decides to take into consideration a citizens request, motor vehicles and alarm defense were two cases in the reported year, then the government does not feel itself bound by the majority decision and simply rejects these citizen proposals for improvement.   

That fits the picture; since for three years we of the AfD have been able to observe how the legislative branch, the Bundestag, is only made use of by the Federal government to rubber stamp laws

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Rubbish!

which have been written not the the constitutional law-giver but actually by the Federal government itself.  

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): That is absurd! Produce the evidence!

We of the AfD, on the other hand, have a completely different understanding of democracy: The citizen proposes, the Bundestag decides and the government implements – so it goes. Instead, important decisions were often already reached previously in the back rooms. We know that, and not just since the “Philipp Amthor” affair or the lobby activities of an Angela Merkel in the Wirecard affair.

My written inquiry concerning non-governmental organizations, like those located in Berlin, yielded, according to the George Soros financed Council on Foreign Relations’s own statement

            Konstantin Kuhle (FDP): Unbelievable!

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): First clear up your contribution affairs!

that, quote: “Understandings derived from these contacts in preparatory discussion flow into political decisions and government actions.”

Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU): Concern yourself with the contributions to Frau Weidel and Herr Meuthen! You have enough to do there!

Members of this think tank – you also – are, besides government officials like State Secretary Niels Annan of the SPD, the meanwhile combative candidate for the CDU party chairmanship Norbert Röttgen and leading powers of the ostensibly democratic parties, like Franciska Brantner of the Greens and Alexander Graf Lambsdorff of the FDP.

            Konstantin Kuhle (FDP): Good man!

            Jan Korte (Linke): You are controlled from Switzerland! The Fifth Column!

These obvious entanglements, Herr Korte, confirm the suppositions of many citizens that the self-described democratic parties, the “better democrats”, in this country love parliament best and gainsay the citizens in the back rooms.  

For this reason, what we need is a lobby register, one worthy of the name, and such a motion the AfD will introduce into the Bundestag tomorrow.

            Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU): Yet tomorrow!

To be continued.

[trans: tem]