Leif-Erik Holm, February 13, 2019, Nord Stream 2

Leif-Erik Holm

Nord Stream 2 and Climate

German Bundestag, February 13, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/79, pp. 9245-9247

[Leif-Erik Holm is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where for a number of years he has worked as a radio moderator. This state, where Chancellor Angela Merkel also has her constituency, includes Germany’s Baltic coast, the planned terminal site of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline coming across the bottom of the Baltic from Russia. Jürgen Trittin is a member of the Green party and a former Minister for the Environment.] 

Dear citizens. Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

It is significant and good that we today discuss the Nord Stream 2 project, although the title given to the bill by the Greens has confused me a bit. It is about the coherence of Nord Stream 2 with the EU’s climate and energy goals, as if that were actually the decisive point. 

I must say, Herr Trittin, your reasoning is adventurous. After nuclear power, after coal, now you also want to demonize the gas industry. In the future, from where please are we to receive a reasonable and steady flow of energy? I can actually only warn the citizens. When the Greens  govern our country, they will then transport us back to the Stone Age. 

What you are offering here is an energy policy run amok. To the contrary, it is correct and reasonable that in the future we need more gas, specifically on account of the botched energy transformation [Wende]. Only a flexible, readily accessible gas power grid offers the possibility in times without wind and solar power to keep this country running. Nord Stream 2 is thus a completely logical idea. This new pipeline does not endanger our energy security, rather it strengthens it, and that is important for Germany, for the citizens and business. 

That the new pipeline increases our dependence on Russia is bosh with sauce [Quatsch mit Sosse]. When the same Russian gas flows through Ukraine, are we then less dependent? No, of course not. On the contrary, we even have an additional risk; namely, when the transit states turn off the faucet. A bilateral pipeline is thus quite clearly in the German interest. 

A few relevant numbers: In 2017 we imported 117 billion cubic meters of gas, not half of which was from Russia. We ourselves consumed only half of that. It thus cannot be generally said that there is a dependence.  

Now I understand that the transit states find nothing good in the pipeline. That should be taken quite seriously. That can however change nothing of our basic decision. In private life one chooses that best and safest offer. It nevertheless also makes sense to cooperate so that Ukraine can continue to be supplied. Besides, with Nord Stream 2 we strengthen even the energy security of Ukraine, since the Baltic gas can naturally in case of necessity be forwarded in the direction of eastern Europe. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Nord Stream 2 is a completely sensible project, in which besides not only Russia and Germany have participated, but also businesses from Austria, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Great Britain. It is a private sector project which serves the public interest. It is a peace project. Those who trade with one another, do not shoot at one another.

Allow me to briefly address the issue of liquid gas. The fact that Germany can buy liquid gas from the USA now excites the discussion. I hold that to be completely absurd, since this gas is substantially more expensive than the Russian. Should it come to that, then one could only assess it as being a knuckling under to the U.S. administration’s improper policy of threat. That would the citizens correctly not accept. Germany must finally act as sovereign.

The construction of LNG terminals on our coasts, Herr Minister, we hold to be correct, and indeed primarily as security infrastructure. Naturally, we must be armed in any case where no more gas comes out of the pipeline, for whatever reason. But there is today not the least grounds for purchase of the significantly more expensive fracking gas from the USA. From the financial viewpoint and from the environmental viewpoint, that makes no sense. 

In conclusion, I want to say that I am really quite astonished here by the policy of the United States. The attempt at political browbeating reminds me of the darkest times of the Cold War, which should have long ago been surmounted. I think we Germans should do everything so that we are never again the plaything of the great powers. Let us straighten our backs and on the basis of reason and international cooperation defend our legitimate national interests. 

Many thanks.



[Translated by Todd Martin]

Peter Felser, February 9, 2019, Nord Stream 2

Peter Felser

Nord Stream 2

February 9, 2019

[Peter Felser is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member form the southern German state of Bavaria. He is an information technology businessman and sits on the Bundestag’s food and agriculture committee. ]  

… A German-French friendship treaty was recently staged with great pathos by Merkel and Macron and already one of the partners, France, assists American economic policy against the befriended Germany. Macron has with Brussels recently negotiated for the French energy sector the first exception regulations to the EU gas guidelines. He is now blocking the diversification of the European energy supply to the benefit of American and French energy concerns. With that is it quite clear how fragile and to whose detriment is the design of the “German-French Partnership”, the “Spirit of Aachen”.  

A diversified energy supply is in the German interest. Germany is not the self-service store of our American friends. The discreetly silent acceptance of U.S. ambassador to Berlin [Richard] Grenell’s blatant threats is unworthy of a sovereign nation. The presently negotiated compromise cannot remove disappointment over disunity in the EU and the federal government’s susceptibility to extortion.  

The financing of Polish and Ukrainian transit tariffs moreover burdens the German taxpayer and increases energy costs for the citizen. A promotion of independence in the energy sector would directly relieve those of low income.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Joana Cotar, January 31, 2019, Internet

Joana Cotar

General Data Protection Regulation

German Bundestag, January 31, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/77, pp. 9056-9057

[Joana Cotar is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. She is a communications manager and since 2016 has been the AfD’s social media manager. The General Data Protection Regulation is a European Union law in effect since the spring of 2018. Cotar here introduces a motion calling for extension of media privileges to those outside of professional journalism and institutions, the issue involving the reconciliation or adaptation of the EU law to German law. The EU law’s Article 85, paragraph 1 reads: “Member States shall by law reconcile the right to the protection of personal data pursuant to this Regulation with the right to freedom of expression and information, including processing for journalistic purposes and the purposes of academic, artistic or literary expression.”] 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. 

The AfD motion presented today concerns itself with the General Data Protection Regulation [Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DSGVO)]. Already before the DSGVO took effect in Germany, we of the AfD forewarned of the fact that it went too far. The EU and you, worthy colleagues of the old parties, wanted to hit the big game: you aimed at Facebook, at Google, at big business, without being always exactly concerned with data defense. Data defense in this regard is important and we agree with you. But, unfortunately, it is not left there. The DSGVO impacts also, and before all, the little guy, the small, mid-level business, the private website operator, the blogger, the influencer, the You-Tuber, the independent street photographer and many others. 

            Manuel Höferlin (FDP): The poor, little AfD politician! 

Important questions of detail are not clarified by the regulation and, as before, the public’s legal insecurity is great. Yet nothing is undertaken in the German Abmahnin­dustrie [Abmahnung: literally, warning; procedure between private parties similar to cease-and-desist order] –  

Jens Zimmermann (SPD): Aha! That’s interesting. But you said something entirely different. 

- and the disagreements of the officials were hitherto incomprehensible. Stefan Brink, Baden-Württemberg’s data defense commissioner, lately declared to Spiegel that the supervisory officers had plainly required “ a bit of a head-start” and now announces to a great extent the penalties: five-figure fines will no longer be the exception. 

This also involves legal insecurity, because the German government has let it slip that it will make general use of Article 85, paragraph 1, of the DSGVO containing the adaptation instructions.  

            Tankred Schipanski (CDU/CSU): Rubbish! 

The EU has expressly maintained that the member states can and should, through use of legal prescription, reconcile data defense with the right to free expression of opinion and freedom of information. The federal government, on one hand, is of the opinion that such a general adaptation is unnecessary. It references the basic law [Grundgesetz] and copyright law. On the other hand, at the federal and state levels special decrees would be issued for the defense of freedom of opinion. These however are confined to the institutional press and professional journalists whose reporting will not be endangered.

            Tankred Schipanski (CDU/CSU): Right and good.

Excluded remain the groups that I previously mentioned who, however, likewise contribute decisively to the democratic discourse: - 

            Tankred Schipanski (CDU/CSU): On very good grounds. 

- the blogger who occupies himself with present-day political issues, the press spokesman of an organization, the socially active artist. 

            Manuel Höferlin (FDP): Or politicians! 

For all these is there no declared legal status; they must fear warnings and prosecution. Even today, the Bundestag itself does not know which regulations pertain to it; the research service has stated this in a letter to the delegations and members. 

            Tankred Schipanski (CDU/CSU): We know it.

It is incomprehensible when the Interior Ministry announces that specific legal adaptations for the defense of discourse participants may not be necessary and yet at the same time, in the second data defense adaptation and adjustment law, exactly such special defense terms are foreseen but only for Deutsche Welle and its journalists. A double standard is employed here, ladies and gentlemen, and it is precisely that which we of the AfD want stopped.

Such adaptation decrees must pertain to discourse participants as in professional journalism. Other countries have made use of this same latitude which the EU has given them. We require exactly that for Germany. The AfD is not alone as to this requirement. Since the passage of the DSGVO, the recognized data defense legal experts of the German lawyers union have criticized the federal government’s lack of willingness to form and convert in the sense of the openness clause. They have even spoken of considerable intimidation effects since the enactment of the DSGVO. 

            Manuel Höferlin (FDP): Hypocrisy! 

The Regulation, together with other constructs, acts like a dark alley upon persons without legal training. We recall the #blogsterben [#blogdeath]. Not a few websites and blogs have left the internet since May 2018 or are only operable in reduced form.           

            Manuel Höferlin (FDP): That is just hypocritical! You want something entirely
            different! 

Shame on him who thinks it evil,

A scoundrel who thinks perhaps

That even was the purpose. 

[Ein Schelm, wer Böses dabei denkt,

Ein Schelm, wer denkt, dass das vielleicht
Sogar Absicht war.]

No one here would in any way be opposed should the legal insecurities be removed and the intimidations were not deliberate. Instead of waiting five or six years for the courts in cases of precedent to clarify which interpretation of the DSGVO is now correct, the government should act. The AfD requires that media privileges be extended to bloggers, photographers and those active in the public sphere. This adaptation harms no one, yet helps quite a number of active and engaged citizens. 

Dear colleagues, show here and now that you stand for freedom of opinion and freedom of information and vote for our motion. And because we know that a vote for a motion from the oh-so-evil AfD is actually out of the question, we have this time made it especially simple for you. When you vote, then before all, you vote with the capable legal experts of the German lawyers union. That should make it practically possible for so important an issue. Let us together commit to a measured balance between data defense and the interest of openness!

[Translated by Todd Martin]

           

Götz Frömming, January 18, 2019, National Education Report

Götz Frömming

National Education Report

German Bundestag, January 18, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/75, pp. 8798-8799

[Götz Frömming is an Alternative für Deutschland member from Berlin. He is a teacher and has worked a number of years in secondary schools in Berlin and Baden-Württemberg, including the Schul Schloss Salem. The Abitur is a certificate granted by college-prep secondary schools.]

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

A few days ago a young teacher in Nordrhein-Westfalen made nation-wide headlines when she told the magazine Der Spiegel that she gave only good grades so as to help each of her students achieve an academic qualification; she no longer wanted to be responsible for harming the educational opportunities of students with bad grades. The left-wing opinion pages clearly applauded her. 

Ladies and gentlemen, what is being presented here as a particularly well-developed type of educational qualification is in truth just the opposite: when all have an Abitur, then none have an Abitur.  

The national education report with impressive numbers serves to describe the expansion of education in Germany. In the census year 2016, 17 million people are in some level of education in Germany, the education report number also lately including the kindergarten small children group. One is now supposed to accept that with this quantitative expansion, the quality of education and the actual level of education is increasing. The opposite however appears to be the case. In the last world-wide PISA ranking of 2016, Germany has declined, not improved. 

The educational researcher Rainer Bölling has correctly shown that increasing Abitur numbers are bought with a general decline in standards. Approximately 30 percent of students quit their studies without completing a certificate. The AfD delegation therefore again demands improved vocational orientation and entrance tests for the universities. 

Ladies and gentlemen, science and education are the most important fuels for keeping our economy running and securing our long-term welfare. Science and education do not however exist in a vacuum but are always associated with people. When we speak of the future prospects of our educational system, we must not exclude demographic and social problems. 

The demographic problem is intensified by immigration, be it organized or, more prevalently, unorganized. The country’s social problems increase and our additionally over-stressed education system is brought to the verge of collapse. 

            (Laughter from SPD members) 

Why is that so? Because obviously we have no immigration from PISA winner countries, thus not from Singapore or Japan or Finland, but instead in fact from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. 

For the immigration years of 2014 to 2016, the national education report contains terrifying numbers: 69 percent of the migrants 15 years or older from these countries have no vocational  certificate and naturally no higher education certificate. For the protection- and asylum-seeking group, it appears even worse. 11 percent of the them indeed have a college certificate but 76 percent of them have no education at all.  

            Kai Gehring (Bündnis90/Grünen): If that were so, what would you do about it? 

Ladies and gentlemen, in closing allow me to say something in regards the coalition’s initiative for the focus schools [Brennpunktschulen]. I have myself have long worked in these schools. That is a correct initiative. However, in these places you naturally treat the symptoms only. They do not get to the causes. We have not yet succeeded in regularly integrating the children of the guest workers of the 60s and 70s and the children of the civil war refugees who came to us from Lebanon in the 80s. To the present day, for all the practitioners in the trenches, they make the greatest problems. And with Frau Merkel’s 2015 immigration policy, these problems have now been massively intensified.  

            Margit Stumpp (Bündnis90/Grünen): Such nonsense!

Ladies and gentlemen, with this motion you do indeed take the duster in hand because you notice that your cellar is full of water, but perhaps you should consider the idea of going upstairs to turn off the faucet. Thank you for your attention.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Armin-Paulus Hampel, January 31, 2019, New Russian Policy

Armin-Paulus Hampel

New Russian Policy

German Bundestag, January 31, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/77, pp. 8945-8946 

[Armin-Paulus Hampel is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Lower Saxony and was a television journalist. Alexander Lambsdorff is Bundestag foreign policy spokesman for the Free Democrats Party (FDP). “Junge Freheit” is a German newspaper generally considered to be on the political right.]

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests of the German Bundestag. 

One ought to look back to the 1930s when, for the first time, the League of Nations imposed sanctions against Italy so as to torpedo and condemn its Abyssinien policy. Even then the sanctions imposed against Italy failed completely. Till this day, nothing therein has changed.  

I well remember the successful slogan of the Social Democrats (there was then no AfD) which we in the 70s, thanks to Willi Brandt  and Egon Bahr, had so correctly formulated (none of you had called for change through sanctions, which is also correct): Change through conciliation – that can one only underline – is the correct political path. Sanctions are not only scarcely required, they hinder the conciliation. 

            Daniela de Ridder (SPD): Don’t you mis-use us! 

The Federal Republic of Germany alone has through the sanctions policy lost between 50 and 120 billion euros in turnover. That is not counting the collateral damage and side-effects. Businesses do not want to take on anymore risk and so forsake business with Russia. The lack of trust effects both sides. Business planning is put at risk and, due to the dual-use ambiguity, ever more business runs into risk or is not pursued. Once again: the German economy – and agriculture besides – has taken a 90 billion euro cut.

The USA, let it be said by the way, ladies and gentlemen, has gained. The trade with Russia is large. Washington has allowed so many exemptions that U.S. trade with Russia has increased. The business with Russia we do not, others do. So it is in normal life and in business life. That means that India, Israel, China, Switzerland and Turkey, they all are taking up the business which we no longer do with Russia. And it is then also completely normal that there is an accustomization effect: as soon as the first Chinese product has been purchased, will the subsequent business be re-directed again to the Chinese partner. And should there be no more sanctions, then one remains with the Chinese supplier and the German economy is left out. That is the effect on the German economy. The sanctions policy hinders our prosperity and it hinders our balance and our understanding with Russia. Let us end the sanctions policy immediately. That is best way to arrive again at talks, and before all business, with Russia. 

It is especially problematic that with the sanctions policy other important areas are concerned, since, when we are no longer communicating, when there is only superficial talks with Herr Lavrov and Herr Putin, then we have also in other important areas of politics no more understanding. Take the Near East, where we no longer play a role. Take Russia’s Africa policy, which we in no way can accompany nor can we be active as consultants. And take especially Venezuela, a theme of immediate moment, concerning which we of the AfD were reprimanded by Union circles yesterday. It is absurd, ladies and gentlemen. The players in Venezuela, besides the United States, are Russia and China. Thus plainly must one also so speak with these countries, whether one wants to or not. In this case, it would also be very important, for example, to speak to Russia and to develop a common line in the Venezuela policy; since, what perhaps some of you still do not know, a German journalist sits for ten weeks in secret confinement in Caracas and no German policy troubles itself about him and attempts to obtain his release. For that, Russian assistance would perhaps succeed. The man is called Billy Six, make a note of it. He writes for Junge Freiheit – I know, you’re shaking your heads. We must negotiate exactly as we had negotiated in connection with the journalist in Turkey. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we are agreed: Realpolitik in the German interest is the decisive credo of our time. We require of the federal government: let us immediately end the sanctions policy against Russia. It brings us only disadvantages, it splits Europe. Only in common with Russia can be constructed a peaceful Europe.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): The whole EU stands behind that! 

We stand for that and for that should this German Bundestag in common stand. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

 [Translated by Todd Martin]

Martin Hebner, January 17, 2019, Brexit

Martin Hebner

Brexit

German Bundestag, January 17, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/74, pp. 8600-8601

[Martin Hebner is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the southern German state of Bavaria and is an information technology consultant. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was German Justice Minister in the summer of 2017 when the Bundestag passed the German internet enforcement law (NetzDG) which places substantial financial liability upon social media firms which fail to achieve a required degree of censorship on the internet. Edmund Stoiber is a former Bavarian Ministerpräsident and chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria who subsequently served as an advisor to the EU Commission.] 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

All contracts must be announced, including those of marriage. For all are there rules, already made known before concluding the contract. Not so for EU membership! A separation for the EU was unthinkable, a sacrilege as formerly was divorce. And now we are experiencing a quite unpleasant, frankly dirty divorce. 

Herr Minister Maas, the British know what they want. They want not to be defined by foreigners [fremdbestimmt]! 

Over 60,000 bureaucrats work in Brussels, of whom 30,000 alone are engaged by the EU Commissioners. Naturally, they will at no price surrender their power and position. The Brussels bureaucrats will not allow their institutions and authorities to be questioned or be seen to be questioned. Yet the EU bureaucracy is not without alternative, exactly so, Frau Merkel, as the euro rescue policy. 

            Reinhard Houben (FDP): Like the European Parliament! 

We therefore want to help the British. The EU commissioners in Brussels direct us with their thousands of employees and lord over the citizens, who know not even one of the names of the EU Commissioners, with the possible exception of Herren Juncker and Oettinger.

Herr Minister Maas, you are responsible and known; one sees you at least occasionally. Here, when a minister, to put it crudely, makes a mess, then he is dismissed –  

Franziska Brantner (Bündnis90/Grünen): The Commissioners also, Herr Hebner, by the European Parliament. 

- insufficiently, I am sorry to say, in the case of the internet enforcement law [Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetzes, NetzDG]. The EU Commissioners however can do, or not do, whatever they want. They are infallible, like the Pope or the religion. 

Franziska Brantner (Bündnis90/Grünen): No, that’s not right. They can be voted out by the European Parliament, which you want to abolish! 

In this situation, the goal of many British is to “Take back control”. The British wish the return of the direction of their own country. 

The 28 EU Commissioners also have no interest in giving consideration to justifying their existence, either to themselves or to the citizens. In this house has there been much too little said in regards this matter. It would be immediately denounced as if it were a blasphemy. But with the Brexit, the Götterdämmerung has begun.  

And Brussels wants to delay this Götterdämmerung with the mud-fight over the separation, over Brexit. Prolongation is the means. That is definitive not only for the British, Herr Maas, but also for the EU negotiations management…And thus the two year duration of negotiations and the intractability now come to the present point, the only point to be properly arrived at, ladies and gentlemen: other nations are to be intimidated from such a step. 

All EU reform proposals put forward by Herr Cameron have run out in the sand. He was, sorry to say, not really supported by the federal government. Herr Stoiber had also once called for the dismantlement of the EU bureaucracy. 

            Florian Hahn (CDU/CSU): He had also done it, Herr Hebner. 

After he had entered the EU Commissariat, nothing more was seen of him. The EU was and is un-reformable. And that is something which disturbs many of the British: the EU Commissioners command with ever further expansion of their authority. 

“Take back control” is the motto of the British. What you have not understood – what we have in fact heard from Herr Brehm – and do not want to understand, is that many in our country, like us, are in no way enemies of Europe. 

Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Herr Gottschalk has in fact said that the EU belongs on the dung heap! 

We are against this EU bureaucracy and against this excessive centralization. We are convinced Europeans but not centralists. And the EU bureaucracy is in now way without alternative.

[Translated by Todd Martin]