Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, July 2, 2020, Basic Pension

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing

Basic Pension

German Bundestag, July 2, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/170, pp. 21182-21183

[Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She is a pensions administrator and member of the Bundestag social security committee and here responds to the government’s plan for a basic pension. Hubertus Heil (SPD) is German Minister for Labor and Social Affairs.]

Right honorable Herr President. Honored colleagues. Honored citizens.

At the first reading, we heard from colleague Brinkhaus of the CDU/CSU delegation that there will be no second or third reading of this draft law if the basic pension [Grundrente] was not solidly financed. Now, this statement does not last very long, although nothing in the least has altered in this draft law. In other words, the CDU/CSU delegation yet again allows itself to be lead about by the SPD and yet again betrays its principles – or perhaps it should be said, its former principles.

Alexander Kraus (CDU/CSU): The Grundrente belongs to our principles because it is equitably effective [Lesistungsgerecht].

In other respects, hearty congratulations to the CDU on its 75^th birthday. It should be thought that at such an age sufficient experience was gathered so that one might assert oneself against a hyperactive coalition partner. Yet that, to be sure, is not so.

We have debated a great deal over the Grundrente in this place, over why we hold the Grundrente to be fundamentally false, why we hold this concept to be too expensive and, before all, unjust, why we  hold it to be destructive to weaken to such an extent the equivalence principle – that for an agreed achievement there is to be an agreed compensation -  why it is false to overburden the Pension Insurance with bureaucratic duties, to disburse money by the most complicated ways and means imaginable, from which in the end so few people profit.

            Matthias Bartke (SPD): 1.3 million are a few?

I want to spare myself  all that here today, since all that could be said on this theme has been said: From numerous public hearings, from the Pension Insurance and even from the grand coalition’s own members – as we know today – futilely…

The pension instruction is certainly not simple to understand. The insurance executives and pension advisers here provide very good help to the pensioner. But these pension advisers themselves cannot comprehend the Grundrente accounting.

            Daniela Kolbe (SPD): That is not agreed!

The Grundrente will amount to an average of 75 euros monthly. If the married couples have sufficient income, there follows an income charge and there is not even this 75 euros. What will the Grundrente recipient now say when she receives a pension instruction with so small a payment? Minister Heil had promised them 200 euros, in some speeches 400 euros, today 300 euros. Will they accept their Grundrente? They can no longer comprehend the instruction.

They will feel that they have been treated unjustly and complain, precisely like the pensioner who has no claim to the Grundrente, or the married couple for whom there is an income charge in contrast to those living together for whom this is not so, or pensioners who do not want an automatic income adjustment undertaken by the Finance Office which crushes the restraints of data defense. Those who cannot defend themselves may not refuse to accept the Grundrente. There will be among the pensioners very much disillusionment, since the name “Grundrente” implies that all receive this pension. Which is however not so.

            Uwe Schummer (CDU/CSU): That would be an everyone pension!

I would have very much preferred that we today speak of a law which actually improved the living circumstances of the many needy pensioners. Many people who live in precarious circumstances, even though they have worked a lifetime, had hoped for that. This concept of the Grundrente is too expensive, is socially unjust, is ineffective and it burdens the succeeding generations.

The financing of the whole is entirely open, the conversion is a disaster – even without Corona. No wonder that colleagues of the CDU/CSU have resisted this hand and foot. Alone the leadership have decided otherwise.

With a motion in April 2019, we of the AfD delegation have already shown how we can exactly and efficiently help pensioners living in poverty: An allowance resolution [Freibetragslösung] of the old age basic security determined by need and which does not place the Pension Insurance under so much pressure.

Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): That would be even less than the thin soup of the FDP! You do not still mean that quite so earnestly, Frau colleague?

You, Minister Heil, have even taken up our proposal with the Grundrente law, yet have installed the great hurdle of “35 years insured time”. Why do you not permit this support for the good of all needy pensioners? That would be a measure precisely aimed at combating old age poverty. Yet unfortunately only the pensioners who have worked 33 to 35 years count for you. All others, even those pensioners capable of earnings, remain outside.

Not all the CDU/CSU members are happy with the Grundrente. The Mittelstand Union issued a paper on that, in which is to be read – I cite with permission of the President –

This Grundrente creates injustices which are not only aimed at the needy, who are not solidly financed, it burdens, amidst the great economic crisis, taxpayers and contributors and will unnecessarily burden succeeding generations.

I can agree with this estimate one hundred percent. It is a pity that these members represent only a minority within their delegation.

Many thanks.  

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Alexander Gauland, July 1, 2020, Second German Presidency of EU Council

Alexander Gauland

Second German Presidency of EU Council

German Bundestag, July 1, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/169, pp. 21055-21056

[Alexander Gauland is honorary national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland and a chairman of the AfD delegation in the Bundestag. Heiko Maas (SPD) is the German Foreign Minister. Article 125 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states in part: “A Member State shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of another Member State, without prejudice to mutual financial guarantees for the joint execution of a specific project.”]

 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Children in the Grundschule mathematics classes learn how to find their way around ranges of numbers which become ever greater – first from 1 to 10, then to 100, then to 1,000, etc. Later, people then learn what the truly big range numbers are and who it is that puts them in motion – astrophysicists and EU financial politicians.    

Since there was a European Union, the relation of Germans to billions has indeed become intimate. As a rule, these billions flow to a country which ostensibly must be rescued. Each day is greeted not by marmots but by billions in the newspaper and or on the TV news. Somewhere in Germany they must grow, these billions.

Frau von der Leyen was no slouch and at the end of last year even brought the trillion into play.   That is 1,000 billion euros – only thus for an understanding of the range of numbers: A one with twelve zeros. So much will the EU expend up to 2050 to transform Europe into the Earth’s first climate-neutral continent. That also states the motto of the German presidency of the council.

As is known, ladies and gentlemen, something came in between: A virus out of Asia frustrated these pious plans. The Fridays-for-Future teenagers could experience what an authentic crisis is like and had to go into lock down. And now we hear on the news of three-figure billion amounts to counter the secondary effects of the Corona lock down, which together could come near to the sum which Frau von der Leyen wanted to expend on restraining the world scourge of carbon dioxide.

Instead of a CO₂-neutral economy, the money will thus now flow into overcoming the consequences of Corona. We have only one, anxious question for the Federal government and the EU leadership: Was that then, or do you still want to make a payment of 1 trillion for Greta’s fairy tale world?

The Corona crisis has literally shown the Brussels bureaucracy its borders. Herr Minister – I am of a quite different opinion than you – it has shown how little the EU is in the way of solving the problems of the European citizens. When it gets serious, people draw back into their national confines, and it will continue to be so.

The fixation of the EU Commission and the Federal government on the various green illusions and the fundamental reconstruction of economy and society are just as false as the tendency to shift ever more competences to the European level.

Amidst the daily reports of Corona and the emerging reconstruction of Europe, one news item, for example, has been nearly submerged. The Italians, without the EZB’s feedings, would be bankrupt. According to a Reuters report, in April and May the EZB took up nearly all of Italy’s new debt. Moreover, no one in the capital market was ready to purchase Italian national notes on a large scale. This factual state financing by the central bank [Notenpresse] is not only a violation of all European treaties, but it irrefutably leads to inflation.

            Franziska Brantner (Greens): Deflation!

We similarly experience that Germany’s yearly contribution to the EU budget shall increase around 42 percent in the coming years. Ladies and gentlemen, it must be said ever anew: This EU was founded under the proviso that no country is liable for the debts of another.

Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): False! There must be liability! It is quite otherwise, Herr Gauland! Old legends here!

            Franziska Brantner (Greens): Herr Gauland, you know better!

            Christian Petry (SPSD): Always these falsehoods here!

The Italians clearly have a higher per capita wealth than Germany. Germany is in no way rich, as is always asserted by interested parties, but it is capable. I have no idea

            Gunther Krichbaum (CDU/CSU) That is true!

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That is right!

how the Federal government will explain to the Germans that they should now rescue the Italians who are clearly better off.

Instead, ladies and gentlemen, it is rather time to give up illusions and leave the Italians and the  Greeks to a currency of their own

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Oh, Gott!

which is to be supported by an economic and social policy for which Rome and Athens are responsible; or which is simply to be weakened, according to the circumstances.

Ladies and gentlemen, this EU is in flames, and indeed not only financially. Herr Macron declared in February that he wanted to reconquer those territories of the Republic lost to Islamic separatists.

           

Franziska Brantner (Greens): That was not the formulation! Herr Gauland, 

you cite falsely! That you are not ashamed to cite falsely! That is really 

unbelievable! One false statement after another!

In these lost territories of the Republic, a white person today better not let himself be seen, much less a Jew and no woman who thinks she herself can decide her personal appearance. That pertains precisely to the eastern Europeans, upon whom our EU centralists wish to impose obligatory migrant quotas – Herr Maas has again done that. He who has not first lost something, need not reconquer it, and it will remain so for the eastern Europeans.  

We are certainly not as far gone as France, but we are on the way. On May 22, the police praesidium in Duisburg received a letter, in which it is said, I cite with the permission of the President –

…Duisburg-Maxloh is our part of the city…We forbid all unbelievers to set foot in our part of the city…All police, journalists and other unbelievers, we will drive out with armed force or kill…Allahu akbar…

The Party and Event Scene in Stuttgart, wondrously quick forgotten by the media, at which Boris Palmer had recognized so many immigrants, has opened an additional view into a future which has little to do with that golden future being extolled in the EU’s glossy brochures or as it has been again extolled by the Herr Minister. There, ladies and gentlemen, are to be found no such disillusioning facts. The European nations will have to solve most problems in their own front yard. Brussels will not do it for them. Otherwise, the second German presidency of the EU Council could be the last.

I am grateful.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

           

           

Armin-Paulus Hampel, June 18, 2020, Nuclear Weapons

Armin-Paulus Hampel

Nuclear Weapons

German Bundestag, June 18, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/166, pp. 20771-20772

[Armin-Paulus Hampel is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Lower Saxony. He is the AfD’s foreign policy spokesman in the Bundestag and here responds to motions from the Linke and Green parties concerning nuclear weapons.]

Many thanks. Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. We have no visitors. Dear viewers, if you are still at the screens at home.

Much, dear Herr Löbel, – where is he sitting? – of what you have said is indeed correct. It is agreed that we Germans have a great interest in the continuation of this treaty. We have an interest in the retention of INF regulations and that we have no new intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Only, what is sad is – you can describe that in all the particulars, regardless of from which delegation –: In Washington, ladies and gentlemen, it is of interest to kein Schwein.

What is in fact sad is: Whether a sack of rice turns over in China or is discussed in the Bundestag is no longer of interest in Washington, and that did not start with Donald Trump, but I refer to the fact that it was already a demand of the Obama administration that the German defense proportion be cranked up to 2 percent. And the Democrats in Congress have voted to cover Germany with sanctions on account of Nord Stream 2. Why all that? Because since the Trump presidency, there is no longer a dialogue between the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. Because we are developing a willingness to draw red lines with American presidents.

A German Federal president ignores the U.S. president during his visit in the U.S.A., a former foreign minister calls him a preacher of hate during an election campaign, and Frau Merkel renounces the recent G7 because it is suspected – or hoped – that eventually in the autumn the man could no longer be president. That is the present – what is called “policy”? – non-policy. In the foreign affairs committee we questioned the state minister. If such a situation, as it now is, had existed in earlier times, then any German foreign minister would have immediately flown to Washington: The chancellor he would have taken with him or turned around, and the problem would have been discussed with the American friends as long as until it was off the table. Today, kein Schwein any longer travels to Washington. First, we are not welcome; second, we are drawing red lines;

            Jürgen Hardt (CDU/CSU): Corona!     

and third, there was not once in the questions to the Federal government a travel date from Herr Maas or Frau Merkel. That is unbelievable in today’s German-American situation.  

            Heike Hänsel (Linke): You can depart!

I can say one thing to you: To the question, Why then does not Frau Merkel travel?, it was put out that Corona travel conditions could make problems. So absurd is the discussion in the foreign affairs committee.

Back to the theme.

            Heike Hänsel (Linke): Yes, to the theme!

For us, a further extension of the treaty is interesting, important and good. But we must well prepare ourselves to again conduct a dialogue with the Americans, and that in fact on a basis of Realpolitik and not on a basis of trauma à la Merkel and Maas. You must live with the president that you have in Washington, and not dream of someone who perhaps in the autumn may not be there. World affairs go on.

We are thus in favor of seeking an understanding with Russia – I have often said it – so that the INF treaty may perhaps continue on the basis of a common European regulation.  

            Heike Hänsel (Linke): The colleague has said the opposite. What does the 

           AfD want?

In regards the START treaty, there remains nothing for you to do other than to travel to Washington. Only, I figure it is to be doubted whether today that exalted height is still a possibility. Again: The German lament, and your lament, Frau colleague, is of present interest to kein Schwein. That is the sad reality.

I thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

[Translated by Todd Martin]