Joana Cotar, May 7, 2020, Basic Rights in the Corona Crisis

Joana Cotar

Basic Rights in the Corona Crisis

German Bundestag, May 7, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/158, pp. 19561-19562

[Joana Cotar is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Hessen. A communications manager, she is the AfD’s spokesman for digital policy in the Bundestag. She here introduces two AfD motions (Drucksache 19/18976, 18977) concerning basic rights in the Corona crisis. Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU) is the German Minister for Health.]

Right honorable Frau President. Worthy colleagues.

How is an amount of trust squandered in the briefest time? The government in recent weeks has impressively demonstrated that to us. I am speaking of the Corona app. What chaos, what a communications disaster, what absurd and dangerous planning, ladies and gentlemen.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): You are the ultimate in absurdity.

Initially, Jens Spahn wanted to allow the evaluation of location data for the control of Covid-19; an absolutely disproportionate incursion upon the basic right to information self-determination, as well as being technologically senseless. The outcry was sufficiently great that he had to withdraw the plan. Now it shall be directed to apps. To a tracing app is suddenly associated the data contribution app of the RKI [Robert Koch Institute]. Soon there shall be – besides others – a quarantine logbook app. An immunity certification app is also being discussed. The government is evidently happy to make use of this crisis so as to see how far it can go before the citizens have finally had enough. These assaults upon the rights of freedom may not be otherwise described.

Initially, the government added the tracing app to the central service approach. Thereupon 300 scientists from renowned universities warned of a possibly unprecedented surveillance. Despite that, the Federal government adhered to the central approach. The Big Brother idea was plainly too attractive. Once athwart the tech giants Google and Apple, the government had to give up the plan.

Thus it shall now be aimed at the decentralized approach. Exactly how, we do not know. We could ascertain in the Digital Agenda committee that there is no schedule, no budget, no one is responsible. The data defense is not yet defined and the technical problems quite certainly not. There has been not the slightest personal conversation with Apple, thus with those responsible for whether this app can function at all. There is no exit plan. And most important of all: There is not the slightest planning by the government to defend those not using the app from social discrimination. This app must, if it comes to that, be absolutely transparent and voluntary, and it must not come to pass that one can no longer simply set foot in the supermarket or can no longer go to work if one does not use the app. That it does not go that far, lies within your responsibility, dear government. Do your job!

At the moment, you are doing the exact opposite. From the CSU ranks comes the proposal to link the use of the app to the basic rights.

            Stefan Müller (CDU/CSU –Erlangen): What rubbish! Where did you get 

            that nonsense?

What an absurdly dangerous thought! Just like the idea of coaxing the people with tax reductions. Basic rights are not for sale, dear colleagues.

An app is not a cure-all. It replaces no hygiene measures. Not once has it been shown to be of general epidemiological significance. Singapore, long considered a model, is experiencing a horrific second wave – despite the app. Yet that is the government’s Brave New World; we shall simply accustom ourselves to the surveillance. And if not enough citizens participate, then after the freedom comes the compulsion – and it is to be by social exclusion. The city and local councils are already requiring extensive access to practically stored data. The police are fine with that. Look at Baden-Württemberg.

The AfD consistently rejects these incursions upon civil rights. When in doubt, freedom! The AfD therefore demands that the government stop the app planning. Come about and concentrate yourself on what may really help. Let us find a way to normality without spying, without surrender of civil rights, but with a healthy, human understanding.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

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]