Jörg Meuthen, August 14, 2019, EU Unemployment Insurance

Jörg Meuthen

EU Unemployment Insurance

AfD Kompakt, August 14, 2019

[Jörg Meuthen is a national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland and he 

leads the AfD’s delegation in the European Parliament.]

It is fully in order that the German employers reject a European unemployment insurance. Such a common unemployment insurance as Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron are planning for the EU would penalize those countries which have set up competitive labor markets. That would concretely mean that Germany must pay for the entire EU’s unemployment. No one who represents Germany’s interests can want that. The AfD is therefore committed in the EU Parliament and in the German Bundestag for the maintenance of a national unemployment insurance and against the creation of an EU unemployment insurance. We are optimistic that we will be successful since the EU Treaty states that the relevant competence belongs to the member states.

The German employers forewarn of surrendering the principle of unanimity. In that they are also fully in order since Brussels is urging that in the future the [EU] Council should decide social policy with a qualified majority instead of unanimously. What sounds good and harmless means that the profiteers of a common social system could in any given situation outvote Germany. A bottomless barrel would thus be opened and the financial consequences for Germany would be unforeseeable.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Alexander Gauland, August 14, 2019, Elections in Germany

Alexander Gauland

Elections in Germany

AfD Kompakt, August 14, 2019

[Alexander Gauland is a national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland as well as a chairman of the AfD delegation in the German Bundestag where he holds a seat representing  the eastern state of Brandenburg. State elections in Brandenburg and Saxony will be held September 1.]

For too long has the CDU dealt like a stepmother with the the citizens in the east. The systematic prejudice against easterners is now being being denounced even from within the CDU. AKK’s [Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, CDU general-secretary] demands for an increased presence of national politicians in the east indicates that she does not understand the electoral situation in the east. The problems with which the people are actually engaged are: uncontrolled mass migration, the decline of domestic security, and the lack of investment for the maintenance and construction of infrastructure. For too long were these problems neglected by or else initially caused by the CDU. The citizens do not want more politicians but a better politics. The CDU obviously has no connection to the reality of people in the east. It cannot thus win back the forsaken trust.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Joana Cotar, August 10, 2019, State-financed Digital Cloud

Joana Cotar

State-financed Digital Cloud

AfD Kompakt, August 10, 2019

[Joana Cotar is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. A communications manager, she is the AfD’s Bundestag spokesman for digital policy and since 2016 has been the AfD’s social media manager.]

The quite real problem of deficient data security of cloud servers such as Amazon, Google or Microsoft is once more addressed by the Federal government with a poorly thought out snap response. Naturally it is problematic that these servers have been obligated, on account of the American cloud regulations, to guarantee to U.S. officials wide-ranging access to their data – even when these have not been stored in the USA. The building of a state-financed cloud presents however an unnecessary interference in the competition and, with additional subventions, burdens on the purse of the citizen.

Overflowing bureaucracy, high taxation and high energy costs for computer centers rob cloud providers of their business potential. These roots of many digital policy problems must be addressed if Germany in the IT area is not to lose ever more economic initiative and political sovereignty.

[Translated by Todd Martin]