Steffen Kotré, May 6, 2020, Renewable Energy Law

Steffen Kotré

Renewable Energy Law

German Bundestag, May 6, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/157, pp. 19498-19499

[Steffen Kotré is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Brandenburg. He is an engineer and is the AfD's energy policy spokesman in the Bundestag. He here responds to a draft law proposed by the government to amend the Renewable Energy Law (EEG).]

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Herr Dr. Lenz, 20 years of the EEG is, I believe, no occasion to celebrate.

            Andreas Lenz (CDU/CSU): Still!

Because it still is not grown up. It cannot run on its own.

An untold sum of subventions is required. With the EEG, we have the purchase prices determined by the state, we have shutdown plants, we have rising consumer prices and we have a need for previously produced electricity – with which a blackout can be prevented only with difficulty.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): The price of electricity is decreasing!

In addition, we have a situation in which we must produce more electricity and also must have more output capacity because the quality is simply inadequate.

And that taken together is a planned economy, ladies and gentlemen. Which we had once already in the DDR [East Germany]. It failed there and it will fail here in this situation.

That is not to gainsay if citizens wish to get together to produce energy. Yet these citizens’ energy collectives are highly subsidized and plainly live off tax money.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): No, from the assessment! That is rubbish!

They live at the cost of us all. That is plainly unsozial. The average citizens cannot make these luxury investments. If the state is encouraging the citizens to form these collective energy farms [Energiekolchosen], then we have already long since arrived at the scarcity economy.

The energy transformation is off course. For example, we require about ten power plants which must maintain their full capacity and employment, on stand-by or out of service and thus may not be producing, only because the renewable energy cannot keep the network stable. All of that is an unnecessry cost, apart from the blackout danger. The Federal government has long since taken leave of the threefold goal of security of supply, economy and care for the environment.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): You indeed ought to know!

Perhaps once more a reminder: Affordable energy makes for successful states. Yet Germany uinfortunately has long since taken leave of that path.

Until April of this year, for 170 long hours, we had to pay foreign countries to take our electricity. The cost: 1.1 billion euros. 100 million so that the foreign countries might take the electricity, 1 billion euros which we have sunk into the production of this electricity. That is actually nothing other than a gigantic redistribution program, to the burden of the citizens and plainly to the burden of the producers [Leistungsträger] of our country.

If the Greens now require that the EEG assessment be reduced, that is really a piece 
of work.That is plain populism of the most negative sort!

Timon Gremmels (SPD): You sure know what’s what with populism! 
There speaks the expert!

Since you of the Greens are certainly responsible for high energy prices and for the EEG assessment and its high price. What actually happens then when the EEG assessment is cut? Then will cash be demanded of the electricity customer, not as electricity customer but as taxpayer. Thus nothing gets by: Left pocket, right pocket.

            Julia Verlinden (Greens): What then do you now want?

That will simply be wiped away. That is not to be looked into.

We now stand before quite different problems. The hysterical Corona measures are leading to economic harm. The infrastructure quality declines. The Mittelstand, the middle class, likewise are shrinking. It becomes ever more clear: We are encountering entirely different problems and should conserve our money. The citizen, the skilled worker and the businessman need every euro to recover and they simply have no guaranteed income,

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Yet the skilled workers install the photovoltaic cells!

like the producers of wind electricity with their compensatory feedings.

No, our country requires future-oriented, capable energy concepts,

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Exactly!

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): Then resign!

economic, environmental friendly and of secure supply.

Thereby is, in my opinion, the more secure, modern nuclear energy. 50 nuclear power plants under construction worldwide send a clear message.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Yet there are no subventions!

Let us think realistically. Let us put our prejudices aside! Nuclear energy may secure our well-being. Nuclear energy makes possible a cleaner environment for our children.

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): Have you been to Chernobyl?

In this sense: Let’s leave these environmentally dangerous wind energy investments be! They are a danger to man and animal! Reality instead of hysteria!

Many thanks.

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): “The Earth is flat” occurs to me!

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Get another plate!

[Translated by Todd Martin]

           

           

Peter Boehringer, May 5, 2020, European Central Bank Loan Purchases

Peter Boehringer

European Central Bank Loan Purchases

AfD Kompakt, May 5, 2020

[Peter Boehringer is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria and is chairman of the Bundestag’s budget committee. He here comments on a recent decision by the German constitutional court concerning the European Central Bank’s purchases of state loans. Article 123 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union reads in part: “Overdraft facilities or any other type of credit facility with the European Central Bank or with the central banks of the Member States…in favour of Union institutions, bodies, offices or agencies, central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of Member States shall be prohibited, as shall the purchase directly from them by the European Central Bank or national central banks of debt instruments.”]

This is an important decision. The Federal Constitutional Court hereby confirms the AfD delegation’s legal interpretation that the ECB for years has acted in ways that exceed its competence, are counter to the constitution and are irreconcilable with EU treaty law. At the same time, the court reprimands the Federal government and the Bundestag for not fulfilling their constitutional mandate to examine the decisions of the EU Council for their legal compliance. Thus is confirmed by the highest court what the AfD has argued all along in reference to the rescue of the euro – and that the Federal government has long since been obliged to oppose.

With the demand for a description of proportionality, the Constitutional Court presents the ECB council with an indissoluble order. The purchase of state loans obviously serves economic and fiscal policy goals. The mandate of the ECB is however limited to pure monetary policy. Any attempt to subsequently supply a basis for the purchase of loans is here condemned to failure.

The Federal Constitutional Court has today made clear that a continued frustration of the law by the European High Court will not be accepted. Thereby the [Federal Constitutional] Court strengthens in welcome ways the nation states in their relation to the EU. Nevertheless, the judges have avoided determining and censuring the obvious violation of the ban on monetary state financing by the purchase of loans.

On the basis of this decision, the AfD now demands:

1. The cessation and winding down of the loan purchases of the PSPP [Public Sector Purchase Program] (2015 to 2020) to which in no way can be attributed a basis for proportionality at that time.
2. Also the cessation of the ECB’s new loan purchase program (PEPP [Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program]) on the same grounds.
3. A more unequivocal formulation of Article 123 AEUV on the ban on monetary state financing so as to here limit the latitude of interpretation.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

    

Joachim Kuhs, May 3, 2020, Church Tax Revenues

Joachim Kuhs

Church Tax Revenues

AfD Kompakt, May 3, 2020

[Joachim Kuhs is an Alternative für Deutschland member of the European Parliament where he is the AfD’s budget policy spokesman. He is also head of the Christians in the AfD organization.]

The German Amtskirchen [official churches] have made themselves much too dependent on the church tax. Instead of growing living communities true to the confession, they have developed into welfare businesses with quasi civil service personnel. The sad consequence is each worldly crisis hits the secularized church with full force. We see that now in the Corona crisis. The German church princelings should grasp the Corona crisis as an opportunity to lead the Church back to its Christian core. In that regard, it may be helpful to completely renounce for many months the church tax and state benefits. That would be good for the churches and the taxpayer.  

[Translated by Todd Martin]