Alexander Gauland, March 25, 2020, Corona Crisis

Alexander Gauland

Corona Crisis

German Bundestag, March 25, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/154, pp. 19121-19122

[Alexander Gauland is honorary national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland and a chairman of the AfD delegation in the Bundestag.]

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

First of all: The government’s policy contains many insights which we hold to be correct and which we share. Thus, the borders can be defended and we shall on occasion remind the government of that. In the crisis, the nation is seen in the democratic nation-state and its management ability. European cooperation can expand it but not replace it. That also means that German interests must be protected, as the government has correctly done in the case of the attempt to subject a German firm to American control.

Standing together is now the first duty of the citizens. Therefore, we will largely vote for the financial measures and the legal alterations if these are put forward on a temporary basis and remain limited to the duration of the Corona emergency. The adjournment of the parliament we however do not want. The specifics will be presented by colleague Boehringer.

Ladies and gentlemen, this vote however does not mean that we will refrain until the ending of the crisis from naming the failures made by the government from the start and discussing them in this house. Entry controls came too late and the stocking of masks and disposable gloves was obviously insufficient. I cite as one for all the chairman of the medical board association of Hamburg who complained that the protective equipment for doctors in the Hansestadt is becoming scarce. Quote: “For weeks we desperately attempted to purchase anywhere in the world protective equipment, which was almost impossible.” The Federal government had promised to help, yet “Nothing has arrived. We haven’t got one, single mask.”

In this regard, in the year 2012, the Robert Koch Institute presented a detailed catastrophe scenario of which the Federal government expressly informed this parliament, this house. Therein is played out a pandemic of a Modi-SARS virus from Asia which arrives in Germany. I cite:

The symptoms are fever and dry coughing. Most patients have difficulty 

breathing, x-rays indicate alterations in the lungs…  

Thus it says in the paper.

Children and young people generally have a lighter course of illness with a mortality of 1%, while the mortality for those over 65 years is 50%

That was discussed in this house. 

That is the exact description of the consequences of Covid-19. The crisis scenario was known since 2012. The paper prognosticated thousands of deaths. Why were there no sufficient precautionary measures?

Yet, ladies and gentlemen, what matters – I also know it – is less the past than the future and there we are lacking a plan of the Federal government, Herr Minister, for the period of three months. The powerful effort, which – if everything is taken together – amounts to a total of more than 700 billion euros, is undefined and as little durable as the shutdown of a entire society. Beyond the presently decreed contact ban, there then remains only the going-out stoppage and when a southern German Minister-president, who conducts himself a little like a pro-consul, has gladly done such a thing then today must the social consequences be considered. There is no sense in reducing the number of Corona deaths at the cost of potential victims of suicide.

Thus, what is the master plan of the Federal government? What will people say when in three months there is still no All-Clear, Herr Minister? What alternatives are there to the present course and when does the Federal government think these might be indicated?

Ladies and gentlemen, the people have angst – rightly so. More than money is required to relieve this angst, namely, a strategy which extends beyond the next two or three months.  

I am grateful.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Alexander Gauland, March 18, 2020, Nation

Alexander Gauland

Nation

AfD Kompakt, March 18, 2020

[Alexander Gauland is honorary national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland as well as a chairman of the AfD delegation in the Bundestag.]

Now in times of acute crisis will be applied numerous measures which until recently were asserted to be unfeasible. Borders can once again be controlled and defended. The foreign sale of leading German technologies can now be hindered, as indicated by the example of CureVac. And no one any longer demands that first of all must a European solution be awaited. The present crisis shows us with terrifying clarity that only a strong, capable, democratic nation-state can be a reliable power [verlässliche Grösse].

And this the other European states essentially again have grasped more quickly than Germany and initiated the appropriate measures. In many European countries, it is deeply rooted that European cooperation ideally is a good supplement to the nation-state but nevertheless can never replace it. Particularly it is the Germans who must now sorrowfully re-apply this understanding.

My hope is, in this country, the lesson learned is that policy in the national interest is not chauvinistic but necessary and to demand this is not radical but reasonable.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Peter Boehringer, March 19, 2020, European Central Bank and Corona Crisis

Peter Boehringer

European Central Bank and Corona Crisis

AfD Kompakt, March 19, 2020

[Peter Boehringer is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria and is chairman of the Bundestag budget committee.]

It is true that extraordinary times like the present Corona crisis require extraordinary action. Yet is is also to be noted that the ECB [European Central Bank] is figuring on expanding the loans purchasing program which in the past was highly controversial and to which the Federal Constitutional Court has not to this day given the green light. The renewed monetization of loans is, in addition, counter to the mandate, although in the time of the Corona pandemic is at least understandable. Yet there is a price to be paid for the more than five years that the ECB has abused its mandate – since 2015, the presently employed, instrumental accounts have been abusively plundered.    

Tragically, the ECB, absent an existential crisis in past years, has for the most part fired its powder, so that the purchase program foreseeably will calm the capital markets only for a short period. Today’s new “Whatever it takes” will, by repetition, lose its effect; the euro will further weaken because it is increasingly distrusted by men and by capital markets.

The exceptional and emergency measures presently employed would be more effective if the ECB had at its disposal more room to lower interest rates, and if, shortly before the Corona crisis, the ECB had not effected loan purchases of over 3 trillion euros! The present measures, along with the crisis, can only soon become inflationary – this time also for consumer goods prices. People with particularly weak incomes will then suffer under these measures.

The AfD Bundestag delegation therefore demands that:

1. These measures, being the clear economic policy of the ECB (though far from its mandate), be strictly limited to the time of overcoming the Corona crisis.

2. They ought not to be limited to loan purchases, since only banks and large firms are generally capable of emitting loans.

3. There must be some way (perhaps through non-bureaucratic, state securities) with this ECB money of saving the independent and small and mid-sized firms, instead of yet again the banks and the big businesses.

4. The buoyant billions must be apportioned through the regular credit-granting process of the commercial banks to the people and thus not through the direct loans of the ECB, contrary to the well-founded mandate.

5. It is unfair to enforce, concealed under the shelter of the Corona crisis, additional bailouts of banks and as well as of states insolvent long before Corona. That money, to a great extent collateralized by German credit, ought to be for the good of, among others, the distressed German people and businesses, and not simply for the euro bail-out and the EU banks.  

It is a matter of great concern that, according to media reports, the Federal Minister for Finance, along with the ECB, wishes to first of all “support EUropa” and then, secondly, to save the Germans.

[Translated by Todd Martin]