Stefan Keuter, September 6, 2023, Foreign Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/118, pp. 14594-14595. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests in the gallery. 

The party is over. This drunkenness, this intoxication of the left-green money squandering is over. The accounts are empty. We are in the middle of a recession let loose by means of an utterly failed energy transition, the cutting off of Russian gas, the de-industrialization of our homeland and completely nonsensical heating insulation provisions which will bring the construction industry almost completely to ruin. The concerns emigrate to foreign countries, the tax revenues shrink. Here, climate and gender nonsense and a feminist and values-guided foreign policy are certainly of no moment. 

We trace the compulsory savings in this budget: Language promotion of German minorities in eastern Europe, arms control, German cultural work, financial support of the Goethe Institute – here, the red pencil will be applied. Where more money will be expended, it is for the care and feeding of your own, Frau Baerbock; the personnel costs increase and your administrative costs. For that, you spend money. 

This country has brought forward foreign ministers of the likes of a Willy Brandt and a Hans-Dietrich Genscher. For these, the achievement counted; for you, Frau Baerbock, the narrative obviously suffices, and that often badly told. As for example in your biography – correct me – which has arrived at its ninth version. Know, Frau Baerbock, that dissimilar to you, I indeed am not come from international law. Yet I have actually lived in Great Britain and am to some degree competent in the language of that place. I say to you: Please save on the tax-financed make-up artists, and preferably invest in English instruction. Otherwise, we will soon have “more beef” with our neighbors, which we all do not want, if you understand what I mean. 

I am grateful to the Russians in that they have not taken seriously your declaration of war, “We are in war with Russia”. We of course are not. This is not our war. 

And now once for all for those taking notes: In the Bundestag election campaign of 1957, Chancellor Adenauer attacked the SPD with the words: “The policy which the social-democratic leadership wants makes Germany into a Russian satellite.” And today: We are defenseless and dependent. Angela Merkel, zu Guttenberg, Steinmeier, Gabriel, Schwesig and many others from your ranks have driven this country into dependencies and for more than 16 long years brought it to economic ruin. 

Apart from a Bohemian corporal, no one has ever brought so much misfortune upon Germany like this former Federal Chancellor. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Now, that’s enough!

From 2016 to 2020, there were a total of around 2,000 fatal crimes in Germany in which at least one immigrant was questioned as a suspect, to say nothing at all of the appalling thousands of those wounded and raped. Not even the SED had so many people killed at the Wall, the successor party of which today sits here among us and projects itself as flawless democrats. 

In a few weeks we will celebrate the 33^rd anniversary of German unity. 33 years later, Germany in a Europe of upheaval has developed itself from a refuge of stability into the sick man of Europe, indeed into a problem child. For a relatively long period of time the re-unified Germany, as once the old Federal Republic, found its place in Europe in harmony with its neighbors and to the satisfaction of its partners from Lisbon to Warsaw. For Paris and Warsaw, we as a neighbor stood quite high. This was unique in our long history, ladies and gentlemen. Here, steadily decisive were our credibility and our reliability. 

            Michael Brand (CSD/CSU-Fulda): Not yours!

What in more than 60 years Germany acquired in trust with our neighbors was our most valuable foreign policy good. 

What were the bases for that? I say it to you: First, the German anchoring in Europe; second, the partnership tie to Russia; and third, the maintenance of the historic bridge across the Atlantic. And today? In Europe, we are isolated. For Paris, we are the problem on the eastern border, and for Poland the problem on its western border – borders besides which your cabinet colleagues, who now already are gone again, do not want to defend. Konrad Adenauer’s tenet, whereby the best foreign policy is the protection of one’s own interests, is our incentive [Ansporn]. German interests, Frau Baerbock, you have never yet defended – quite the opposite. 

In conclusion, I want to here indicate that you routinely violate our right of parliamentary inquiry. We have in committee and in plenary session asked you in writing when you learned that your house issued an instruction to endorse falsified Afghan passports, and who was authorized to name persons from Afghanistan who were to be flown into Germany for a roundabout provision [Rundumversorgung]. You have prevented this. We have thereupon submitted a constitutional complaint. We remain on the ball. 

Frau Baerbock, in conclusion, I say to you: With this anti-democratic state of affairs, you would been thrown out of the polis of Pericles,           

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague, your speaking time                            is past.

the homeland of democracy. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague.

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Stefan Keuter, January 27, 2022, Ukraine

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll, 20/14, p. 885.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Let us together take a time trip to the year 1962: At that time, the American President Kennedy threatened the Soviet Union with a third world war should it station atomic weapons in Cuba – practically at the front door of the U.S.A. If you ask me, he was right to do that. Why did he do that? The security interests of the United States were massively threatened.

Let us go a good thirty years further, to the year 1999: Poland, Czechia and Hungary joined NATO. A few years later, 2004 to 2007, followed Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Roumania.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Because their security interests were threatened.

Let us for once consider the relation between the Russian Federation and the Ukraine; in the post-Soviet time, it is shaped by skirmishing over gas and the Crimea. Let us speak of the Crimea. For 180 years, it was Russian; it was russified after it had been conquered from the Ottomans. In 1954, Khrushchev, by an administrative act – it was then about the construction of a railway – attached the Crimea to the Ukraine. Since then, the Crimea twice sought to return to Russia: In 1994, and lately in 2014 in a referendum in which almost 97 percent of the population of Crimea voted for annexation to Russia. International law provided various possibilities of evaluation; yet in that regard, our Foreign Minister will likely be able to say a bit more.

What alarms me is this propaganda against Russia, indeed in the media, in politics and before all things in this sovereign house, in the Bundestag. We need only to have listened to our previous speakers so as to notice that here an unspeakable rhetoric deals with threatening scenarios of war and the suspension of gas deliveries. On this front [Horn] also pushes the ambassador of Ukraine, Melnyk, who today is a guest in this house. I am happy, Herr Melnyk, that I can also thus say to you: The demand for weapons we Germans cannot fulfill, and your unspeakable war-mongering I can only condemn. You insult Germany, you draw unworthy comparisons with German history, with national socialism. Frau Baerbock, under your predecessors such an ambassador would have been called in and a state secretary would have conducted a very protracted conversation with him.

Yet there are also other tones. Vice Admiral Schönbach recently stated that Russia wants eye-to-eye respect and also deserves it, that war is absolute nonsense, that the Crimea is gone and would never again return. I say to you, ladies and gentlemen: This officer is not only right, he has pluck.

To whose use is this escalation on the border in the Ukraine, cui bono? The U.S.A. uses the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a means of pressure. Germany should sacrifice its own interests for foreign interests. We may look at the 2014 EU sanctions for which the U.S.A. quite ably clamored. Those suffering are primarily Russia with a business loss of 36 billion U.S. dollars, followed by Germany – a disparity beyond all other European states together – with 23 billion U.S. dollars. With these sanctions, we carve our own flesh and this must stop.

The U.S. economy besides in this same time frame has made a gain in this business. A conclusion to this is needed. The Ukraine requires a solution, a solution which considers on one side the interests of the Ukraine yet also on the other side the security interests of the Russian Federation as well. We have just heard it, and here I grant you are right: There is to be no peace without Russia. Allow me to draw one conclusion. There is no war, no war threatens. No gas shortage threatens. We need to take seriously the security interests of Russia since this also suits world peace.

Many thanks, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

Stefan Keuter, June 9, 2021, Masks

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/232, pp. 29854-29855.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

In the last years, we have not heard much from the Linke that was reasonable.

            Helin Evrim Sommer (Linke): Shamelessness!

At this point, I might want – Frau Sommer, listen for once – to expressly thank you

            Helin Evrim Sommer (Linke): No, thanks!

            Jan Korte (Linke): That is the worst that you can do!

that you have brought this theme to the daily order; since it is extremely important.

The mask theme already for long occupies us. We have put quite a number of inquiries to the government. Not much came from the House of Spahn – just a lot of hot air: The parliamentary inquiries were mostly put off by State Secretary Weiss. We here have received no answers from the Federal government.

If it is desired to learn something more of this entire mask affair, it must be researched,

            Tino Sorge (CDU/CSU): Hui, you have researched!

and my delegation has researched: We have contacted suppliers, we have had informants, we have had informants – pay attention – in the Federal government, from your legal counsel Ernst & Young, and here documents have come to light of day which are seriously burdensome and seriously shameful for this Federal government.

Let us look at how the masks have been procured: A year ago, in March-April of last year, contracts were concluded with firms like Lufthansa, BASF, Otto, etc. The contracts are here submitted. It is a 16-page contract which ordinarily has been concluded.

From this research and other contracts has emerged other contracts with a FIEGE Logistik Stiftung & Co. KG, which then have been assigned to a FIEGE International Beteilungs-GmbH, a klitschig [half-baked] GmbH, abbreviated FIB, which before termination of contract received transfers to account of 40 million euros. This is an unparalleled scandal, Herr Spahn. These contracts have been concluded. Here are two sheets of paper for a procurement volume of over half a billion euros. Here, in a Wild West manner, were contracts concluded where not even a business stamp was present; which here was completed with a hand-written “FIB GmbH”. It is disgraceful to here have opened wide the door to fraud.

I ask myself: Why at all have the FIB GmbH or FIEGE been selected? Herr Spahn, is it thereby connected to that here exist personal acquaintances, that it is your neighboring constituency? The FIEGE Logistik certainly has no experience at all in the logistics which are demanded here – where it is about flying in protective equipment –, has no aircraft of its own. A skeleton agreement concluded on March 31, 2020, is assigned to the FIB. Then three days later on April 2, 2020, a one-time price discount of 10 cents was agreed to.

In conversations with suppliers it was made clear to me that it is customary when an intermediary still wants to earn, that it occurs in 10 cent increments. Here I ask myself: Who herein still earned? The volume of these FIEGE contracts alone, of these skeleton contracts, is 545 million euros. The conditions are a dream: Performance site: Shanghai; no freight costs; no clearance need be made; one need not trouble oneself with a certificate concerning how the article comes into the country. FFP2 masks were agreed. As far as I know, only a quite small fraction of those which were flown in by the Federal government were in fact FFP2 masks. The problem, in which oneself has come forward as a marketer, has been avoided.

Suppliers confirm to me that the market in March-April of last year for FFP2 masks – cleared, including freight – and import turnover tax yielded 2 euros maximum. These masks, which the Federal government procured and brought into circulation, were defective, grossly defective. Especially defective was particle passage in a rapid test: 6 percent was permitted, the masks as a rule exhibiting around 15 percent.

In addition, ever again emerges a name, a little shop in Switzerland, Emix, with which the Federal government has concluded billions in contracts. Here I also want to for once gladly look behind the corridors and peek at what has in fact happened there.

As a counter-move, the Federal government has published an open house procedure. 100 suppliers are today still not paid. A billion euros are here still in dispute. Once again, use has been made of your partners EY Law so as to ward off this demand. Here, the livelihoods of small suppliers are in play, those who have pledged all so as to help out the Federal government in a crisis and to procure protective equipment. With a legal subterfuge, you now draw yourself back into a Fixgeschäft [purchase for delivery at a fixed time]. I say to you: With the documents which have come out of your house, this Fixgeschäft is losing its balance.

In addition: How do these procurement chains work? Ever again emerges a name: Monika Hohlmeier, the daughter of Strauß. I recall just the Amigo Affair: Oneself known, oneself helped. That has obviously remained stuck together. Protocols concerning that have been submitted to me. Frau Hohlmeier recommends Emmi Zeulner, who in addition has good contacts at the Federal ministries. Thus are curtailed the procurement contracts.

I say to you: The fish have been partly selected. The CDU has already separated itself from some its members who have personally enriched themselves, or from those who are under suspicion.

            Paul Ziemiak (CDU/CSU): Do you have something to say on the theme?

Yet the fish always stinks from the head and here in this house there is much too much a smell of putrefaction.

We here have stirred up a wasps’ nest.

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr Keuter.

I come to an end, Frau President. – I say to you: We will still need to work on this matter. It cries out for an investigating committee – unfortunately after the Bundestag election. I am sure: This is not only a case for the investigating committee, but also for the state attorney.

Our chairman said: We will hunt them. 

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Come now please to a conclusion.

Yes.  – Herr Federal Minister, now you know what hunt means.

            Tino Sorge (CDU/CSU): I believe you were never on a hunt! That's why you                        speak such nonsense!

False!  

            

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stefan Keuter, March 26, 2021, Crowd Funding

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/219, pp. 27799-27800.

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear viewers.

We are today deliberating on a draft law of the Federal government for swarm financing, also called crowd funding. This is a fairly old financial instrument which is plainly not only in the new form on the internet. There are various kinds of swarm financing: For donations, for equity, for loans. Then there are a couple of special forms, which I will not go into. This instrument is thus nothing new. Already in the 1800s, the construction of the American Statue of Liberty was made possible by means of 160,000 individual donations. A very early form of crowd funding.

What are the advantages? With these products, there is often a better return than when I acquire a product through a bank. This simply depends on that here expensive intermediaries will have  been eliminated. In addition, with it, I have smaller specific risks. A practical example: If a businessman has a path-breaking idea, and for the financing requires 10,000 euros, he will, if he does not have the corresponding securities, with difficulty receive this 10,000 euros from a bank. For venture capital companies, this sum is much too small. Here is offered to find 100 persons who also believe in this business idea and from these to gather in respectively 100 euros. We are thereby at 10,000 euros. That also works. As the banker says, we thus have to do, for all sides, with a very positive Delta; a win-win situation. 

How does this preparation and implementation function these days? As the State Secretary has just attempted to explain: Mostly over the internet platforms. Here come together those seeking capital and those providing capital. This today requires a great deal of paperwork and bureaucracy. Naturally, existing laws will be adhered to today on the internet: The banking act, the securities exchange law, the consumer protection laws. We are thus already very, very well regulated. Yet these platforms have not figured on Brussels. The EU in its merciless regulation mania has here issued an EU guideline and an EU decree which the Federal government now wants to convert into national law with this draft.

What does the EU want to do? It wants to make the platforms obliged to register. It wants to place them under a European supervisory authority and it wants to expand information and publication duties. We of the AfD are quite distinctly opposed to this regulation mania. We as a parliament do not see ourselves in the role here only to wave through these regulations from Brussels and the laws which have been brought about there.

In addition, we see the great danger that the market entry risks for additional platforms will be made more difficult, that market offers may disappear, and we see the danger of forming an oligopoly. Here, we are quite clearly opposed.

I do not want however to go substantially deeper into these themes. We are here in the first reading. We will deliberate on these themes in the committees. So it shall be good with this.

We have a supplemental motion from the Greens on payment protection insurance [Restschuldversicherungen]. What this substantially has to do with swarm financing is not accessible to me. Good, since the motion of the Greens is to be added, I want to briefly go into it.

This is quite clearly an ideological motion. Your network marketing [Strukturvertriebs] rhetoric in the motion forcibly disturbs us. You of the Greens obviously have not heard. The German economy is going to the wall, and you have nothing better to do than occupy yourselves with a little credit by-product, namely the payment protection insurance.

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): If nothing better occurs to you as an argument!

            Stefan Schmidt (Greens): Clueless!

We of the AfD are against state intervention in the market. We do not want to knowingly regulate these risk premiums. Yes, from a subjective viewpoint, the payment protection insurance perhaps might appear on occasion to be expensive. It nevertheless also covers a very high risk, namely the risk of default. If a borrower defaults or becomes unemployed

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

then this insurance covers these risks.

            Stefan Schmidt (Greens): You also need to pay a bit of attention.

At this point, it only remains for me to wish you a Happy Easter and a nice weekend.

Many thanks and all the best.

 

[trans: tem]