Alice Weidel, November 26, 2020, Pandemic

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/195, pp. 24569-24571.

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The collateral damages of your Corona policy are now already greater than the damages caused by the virus itself. The greatest damages you have inflicted on our economy, our Mittelstand and our legal and constitutional order by means of the third – so-called – population defense law. In record-breaking haste, you have permitted yourself to write out a blank check for a fundamental and incisive infringement of basic rights.

            Christian Lindner (FDP): We had discussed that last week!

In opposition to that last week the people held a demonstration, which you rubbed out with water cannons and violence – a low point for the democratic composition of our state.

            Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU/CSU): Certainly the law-breaking has been                                        brought here by you!

Emergency measures must clarify, be able to be examined, and follow strictly limited criteria, and be subjected to close, parliamentary control. You however have simply written your dubious measures into a law which thereby enables you to continue as before, unannoyed by the courts. The parliament from now on is an on-looker.

Thus again, unforeseen by the constitution, a round of wheeling and dealing from the Chancellor’s office and the Minister-presidents has met in the virtual backrooms and this round has again negotiated decisions which encroach deeply upon the lives and rights of citizens and businesses. What you demand of the citizens is inconsistent, contradictory, of dubious utility, and is saturated with an undemocratic spirit of a state-authoritarian patronization.  

It is simply no concern of the state when and whom one meets in his private quarters and with whom and in which surroundings someone celebrates Christmas with family, neighbors or close friends. That is improper, that is intrusive.

Do you really not understand how condescending and insulting it is for grown, mature citizens when the state plays the nanny and itself presumes to graciously allot what shall still be allowed during the holidays and what shall be forbidden? The state’s meddling in private affairs and family life poisons the social climate and promotes phenomena like spying and denunciation, such as at the beginning of the week in Söderland Bavaria when the police, on a tip, stormed into a little coffee klatsch of pensioners. Quite honestly, our police officers have better things to do.

To no reasonable people can be explained the chaos into which you throw schools and educational institutions, even though the danger of infection emanating from them is only slight. Instead of learning, children must grapple with questionable mask duties and freeze in continually aired-out classrooms. At any time during these unplanned hagglings over the extension of the school holidays have the parents been thought of, who besides often certainly have no additional vacation days so as to care for their children? Who shall understand that it shall be in order to go to work in full buses and subways, yet it shall be an unbearable risk to eat in restaurants with tables far distanced from one another?

What is that for a breach of trust as concerns restaurateurs, retailers, the self-employed, and the small businessmen who for long grind their teeth and endure? Many in good faith have invested not a little so as to implement the hygiene concepts only to again find themselves in a lockdown. This lockdown will finish off many and destroy their livelihoods and leave the retailers in the desolated inner cities to starve in an extended poverty. The government thus punishes precisely those who have done everything correctly. Not once in the numbers given out by the RKI [Robert Koch Institute] is there evidence that the closing of restaurants might have a noteworthy influence on the incidences of infection.

Lockdowns without end strengthen the state sector and in the long-term destroy the Mittelstand and the variety of self-employed businessmen and freelancers on whom is based the strength of our market economy. It therefore directly depends on the citizens’ self-responsibility if we wish to find a way to deal with this situation. Long-term meddling by the state is really no solution. Do not underestimate the citizens, and do not overestimate yourselves.

The state must concentrate itself on its core duties, support and invest in the performance ability of the healthcare system, construct capacities where required, and secure the functionality. Beyond that – as I already in March indicated – it must find preventative measures for the protection of especially endangered groups of the population and medical personnel. Timely prevention would have been the right way.

The overcoming of the crisis requires a calm, believable information policy and must be based on clear, comprehensible criteria. To this day, you do not obtain that. We however before all need an open, honest and unincited dialogue over what is to be done and in fact before, and not after, the decisions are taken, as we are doing here today.

            Ansgar Heveling (CDU/CSU): You yourself must laugh at that!

It is quite clear to me that that hits you.

             Britta Haßelmann (Greens): That does not hit us!

In this debate must be everything essential [sachliche] and

             Anton Hofreiter (Greens): You do not at all know what the word                                            “essential” means!

and not only that which has been acceptable to the Chancellor and some of the Minister-presidents. We may thus turn back to democratic normality.

             Anton Hofreiter (Greens): You also do not know what democratic is!

 Many thanks.

 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Kay Gottschalk, November 20, 2020, Financial Supervision

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/193, pp. 24448-24449.

Right honorable Herr President. Honored colleagues. Dear fellow citizens.

Dear colleague Matthias Hauer, brevity is the soul of wit, and not interminable pages.

The topic “Financial Fraud, Financial Criminality” – the colleagues mentioned it – is unfortunately these days again in vogue. The Wirecard case here however indicates – a colleague has said it – a multiple system failure of a particular kind.

The enlightenment – as it was named here – is well underway. Das is gut so, and I am also happy that I can take part in this enlightenment in the corresponding committee.

Unfortunately, some of the delegations here in the sovereign house appear to set false crucial points. Besides, I also thought as I heard Frau Paus: Mein Gott, she has listened to me in many hearings on the topic of the BaFin [Federal Office for Finance]; since, much of it I have already said; I have also gone into it in my speeches.

            Fritz Güntzler (CDU/CSU): What?

Ja, that comes forward. But I am grateful that you here re-cite much of what I in the past two years – we had many hearings on the topic of the BaFin – had said.

             Matthias Hauer (CDU/CSU): I deem that to be a rumor! That cannot be!

The Greens as well as we of the AfD delegation have thus put forward here motions [Drucksache 19/24396, 24398] on a complex of topics which include the areas of corporate governance, formation of supervisory boards, the BaFin’s personnel and competence provisions, – to which I will come – reduction of the time for the obligatory succession, colleague Hauer, of auditors and an increase of the liability limits. The last has been converted, we have written a bit more of same in the motion.

So you see: A bunch of topics. I want to so far only go into our own motions. Unfortunately, these topics are only worth 30 minutes to the sovereign house. Perhaps we should have had here an hour to discuss.

 Matthias Hauer (CDU/CSU): In the time, you would have been able to present the entire motion!

For one, we move – into which I wanted to go – that the future proficiency test [Sachkundeprufung] – an acknowledged topic, colleague Hauer – and the supervision of financial investment brokerage [Finanzanlagenvermittlung] and of fee and financial advising for all Federal states, shall be overtaken by the chambers of industry and commerce and at the same time – at the same time – by the Federal institute for financial services supervision, resulting in: The BaFin shall issue and correspondingly examine a unified standard for the supervision of a proficiency test.

Why do I say that? I had the impression that especially the SPD and the Greens – you had even said it: We are not in accord – want to once again inflate the BaFin. Colleague Hauer, I take you and the CDU/CSU delegation at your word: To concentrate on the core competences.

            Matthias Hauer (CDU/CSU): Yet for that, we do not need your motion!

That means: In some positions, to cleanse the BaFin. For what they cannot do, they shall not receive additional positions to be commissioned, right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

And the failures of the P&R and of the green so-to-say Investors Prokon – as the colleagues have named it – must be blamed on the BaFin. Once again: We follow the experts opinion. With this experts opinion, we have thus cast so-to-say experts opinion in the form of a motion.

            Fabio De Masi (Linke): But which experts?

Something better actually cannot occur.

Yet we come to our second motion, “Reduction of the Time for the Obligatory Succession of Auditors and an Increase of the Liability Limits”. It is known to us that these four years clearly present an obstacle and are difficult. On the other side, that induces: In the first two or three years of examination, one learns to know the business…I believe, in regards so much expertise and benchmarketing in this area, that I can expect that E&Y or other business auditing companies can here climb without a rope and understand the business model.

On that account: A four year rotation, bring the liability limit to 10 million and not to the utopian 20 million euros and otherwise 1 percent of the yearly turnover of the examining firm. And to intercept you: We have clearly demanded what for years has been said directly in regards personal service firms; namely, the separation of tax consultancy and auditing; read the pertinent paragraphs. The science very clearly affirms this, ladies and gentlemen.

It sounds – I turn to the the unfortunately not present Olaf Scholz – : What are necessary are not only laws but a change in the ethic of these officials, a change of mentality, as well as of a government and of a Finance Minister who might do the BaFin proud and simply to therein show where the fire is. How is it so nicely said? Where there is fire, there is also smoke.

            Danyal Bayaz (Greens): Other way around!

On that account, we will vote for a constructive debate. We move, like the colleagues, for a transfer to the Finance Committee and will here constructively accompany the debate with brief but very good motions and measures.

Thank you.

             Matthias Hauer (CDU/CSU): “Brief”, agreed.

             Fabio De Masi (Linke): For once explain “benchmarketing”!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Uwe Schulz, November 19, 2020, Identification Number

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/192, pp. 24338-24339.

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The AfD supports every measure for the introduction of sensible digital solutions for authorities and administrators. For us, only one thing is important: Everything must be tailored for the customer [Kunden], for the citizen – I do not understand why you laugh at the word “customer”. With the planned registration modernization law, the citizens’ basic data shall be centralized and it is quite clear that such a project makes sense. If, however, it is conceivable that the transparent citizen [gläserne Bürger] results from this move, then for us of the AfD the threshold of pain is exceeded. For it is precisely these transparent citizens which the Federal government appears to want. And if the draft is implemented, there are yet only a few steps and the state obtains, on the head of a pin, a comprehensive profile of every citizen.

The principle weak point of the draft is the introduction of a unified identification number. For with such a number, relations records will be possible. Despite that, now – and Herr Krings said it – the tax ID has been selected, introduced in the year 2007, although it was assured at the time it had nothing to do with exactly that on constitutional grounds. And naturally the Federal Constitutional Court and the Federal commission for data protection again warn against the use of this number. The Federal government, however, ignores this warning, even so as does the scientific service of the German Bundestag.

And the Austrian prospect is of no interest, although there, and without conflict with the constitution, data management based on a recognition number [kennnummer] has been centralized. And what does Herr Seehofer’s ministry say to the Austrian model? The procedure was too expensive and lasts too long. Ja, ladies and gentlemen, the Federal government gladly submits itself to all possible international authorities and NGOs; yet in matters of data security, to learn for once from the neighbor Austria, that is evidently too costly.

In this connection, it is amusing that yesterday Minister Seehofer called to me in this room that he now for 50 years works for the security of Germany. Yet, Herr Minister Seehofer, – he is not there – the years do not count, but only the success. And certainly when it concerns the data security of our citizens, not “quick and dirty” but only and alone care counts, and which may even be somewhat more expensive.

Ladies and gentlemen, the draft law put forward is the next step to transparent citizens and it is presently happening. We have yesterday experienced how far the Federal government is willing to go in the patronizing of the people. And meanwhile must each recognize that state surveillance and regimentation shall reach deep into the private sphere. Ladies and gentlemen, with the planned law, it will be possible to gather together and use personal data from many corners – data which Corona detectives can also use for their dirty business; since Herr Lauterbach of the SPD is quite openly thinking of introducing such a spy organization – not to be called back, ladies and gentlemen.

Yet allow it to be said: With the AfD, there will be no modern block leader; data of our citizens shall come into the hands of no private and no state snooper, and no Federal commissioner may invade the deepest private sphere of our citizens.

The draft law shall evidently again be driven through the committees at a pig’s trot – and that we know already – and clearly also will our Federal President and Chief Magistrate Steinmeier again fill up his fountain pen and stand at the ready for a quick signing. It is all as always.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

Mariana Harder-Kühnel, November 19, 2020, Violence against Women

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/192, pp. 24300-24301.

Every third day in Germany a woman is murdered and in fact for one, single reason: Because she is a woman. Femicide is the name for this crime and Germany has become one of the focal points of this purposeful killing of women. Now it could naturally be wondered what are the reasons for this contempt of women. Clearly it could concern, as the Linke continually and in the presented motion assert, a hierarchical relationship of the sexes, a patriarchal dominance. This leads to an oppression of women and not seldom to directly applied violence and many times to death.

There are societies in which women are respected. Germany was once such a society. And there are societies in which women are treated like dirt, like disposable slaves, like second class people, who in childhood can be compelled to marry, who may be murdered for reasons of honor.  

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): You should read the criminal statistics before you                                speak here!

These are societies which can be come across in North Africa and in the Near and Middle East. Germany is well on the way to become such a society. You make Berlin into Baghdad.

             Marianne Schieder (SPD): Let’s be aware it lasts only for a brief time!

             Steffi Lemke (Greens): That is a pure agitation speech!

That is straightaway the consequence of your policy of unchecked migration. You rightly complain of patriarchal dominance, yet at the same time import masses of aggressive machos, for the most part from patriarchal societies. How, please, does that go together?

Many migrants from these societies, who have been merkeled into Germany, do not at all wish to integrate into our society, let alone in that case assimilate.

Why? Because, due to your policy, they certainly do not have to. Because they, due to our lack of identity,

Vice-president Hans-Peter Friedrich: Frau colleague, do you consent to an interim question?

 – no – lack of self-esteem, and lack of strength, do not respect us or see us as a model worthy of emulation. And so these machos hold onto their imported picture of women and continue to treat women as second class people, people who can be molested, beaten and murdered at will.  

Simply look for once at the numbers. The number of victims of crimes of domestic violence steadily increases since 2015. Over 140,000 people meanwhile are each year victims of domestic violence, 80 percent of them women. What is striking: With a foreign portion of 12 percent of the total population, 33 percent of the perpetrators of domestic violence are migrants. And yet German citizens with a migrant background are not even included in that.

The women's homes burst at the seams. Almost 70 percent of the residents of women's homes besides have a migration background. Seven years ago, it was not even half.

Who, for reasons of devout cultural sensibility, political correctness or plain ideological cowardice, ignores entire groups of perpetrators and shields their cultural and religious background, promotes a culture of violence against women.

             Steffi Lemke (Greens): You promote racism! You promote pure racism!

So finally stop with your mendacious multicultural romance!

Certainly some on the left side of the house, who so readily designate themselves as women's rights advocates, pursue a policy which, millions of times, summons up archaic prejudices and the oppression of women in Germany. Yet there is no talk of that in the motion, not a word on multiculturalism, nil.

 Ulle Schauws (Greens): Because every woman has a right to be protected from violence, regardless of origin!

Ja, ladies and gentlemen, you close your eyes to that. You ultimately wish to be sufficiently cultural-sensitive merely not to irritate. Yet who here does not name horse and rider, he conducts at last a phantom debate, he does not seriously mean it, he does really want to help women. It is the consequences of the drunken utopia of your multicultural policy which for many women become a real nightmare.

Inquire into the circumstances which lead to femicides. Yet do that, please, completely and, before all, honestly. Who wishes to protect women must himself analyze, free from ideology, the origins of the increasing violence against women in Germany. Who does not want to see evident connections makes himself an accessory, an accessory to the oppression of women, an accessory to the battering of women, an accessory to the murder of women, an accessory to femicide.

Many thanks.

             Steffi Lemke (Greens): Write that on the mirror!

 

 [trans: tem]

 

 

 

           

 

 

Fabian Jacobi, November 18, 2020, Restructuring and Insolvency Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/191, pp. 24117-24118.

Many thanks. – Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The bill for the re-development of restructuring and insolvency law, the draft of which the Federal government presents here for a first reading, shall on one hand be the big shot which opens to us the entirely new universe of the pre-insolvency restructuring of businesses. On the other hand, everything having to do with this law shall once again proceed all too quickly. In the coming weeks, for all that, we will be able to conduct an experts hearing. For its evaluation there will nevertheless scarcely be time, since this law shall unquestionably be passed this year and enter into effect January 1.

Now then, what is in the draft? Essentially, an entirely new, creative bill for the stabilization and restructuring framework for businesses; in brief, StaRUG; besides which, however, is also the alteration of numerous other laws, not least of which is the order of insolvency. To be brief in regards the areas here put forward, I must limit myself to three short remarks: One on the fundamentals, one on the StaRUG and one on the order of insolvency.

On the fundamentals: Unfortunately, I must again this time come to speak of my Carthage which lies in Brussels. For this draft law contains, like so many, the note “Tina”: “There is no alternative”, or in German: “To the implementation of the guidelines’ requirements, there is no alternative.”

The material law of insolvency, which for long underlay our own legislation, has meanwhile been taken in by the EU – so far, only in the form of a guideline which still allows us some large-scale leeway for design. Yet the increase of the EU’s regulatory dicta, and thereby the shrinking of our self-determined legislation, is foreseeable.

If a criticism of the Herr Bundestag-president expressed here by one of the AfD members in the Bundestag was “destructive of the state”, as was recently advertised by the Federal Interior Minister, then it is no doubt a question of projection. Since the destruction of the state is not done by us of the AfD, but indeed rather by the majority delegations of this house who joyfully applaud any EU grab of the legislative competences of the German Bundestag and thereby transform the German Republic into a kind of Potemkinesque play parliament.

            Canan Bayram (Greens): This is a political insolvency which you put                                    forward here!

            Sebastian Steineke (CDU/CSU): It would have been better not to speak here!

So much for the fundamentals. What now shall the StaRUG produce? It shall furnish a framework for the attempt to refrain from initially commencing the insolvency of a business which is already in the preliminary stage of a restructuring of the business’s obligations. The aim is thus clearly a sensible one. Restructuring is thereby according to all precepts a re-writing [Umschreibung] so that the creditors renounce a portion of their demands. Where that is agreed to by all those affected, after a weighing of their interests, that is not problem. That, however, is not always the case and therefore shall only be possible by the majority acceptance of the creditors.

The rights of a single creditor…will thus be infringed. In certain cases, that might need to be justified. Yet at the least, it requires that the individual concerned be able to sensibly protect his rights in this procedure.

In regards, for example, the acceptance period in §21 of the StaRUG draft which at a minimum shall amount to only 14 days, there by all means can be doubt. To this and to additional points, the hearing will hopefully bring additional attention.   

On the insolvency order. The presented draft law shall not in fact, as was to be feared following remarks by the CDU/CSU delegation, entirely abolish the basis of insolvency of the over-indebted. Yet it still weakens it an additional time. We reject this. The avoidance of a business insolvency is – where possible – clearly desirable. It is not, on the other hand, sensible to only postpone it for as long as possible. By means of a further weakening of the insolvency basis of over-indebtedness, the number of zombie firms will only increase – which in the end, if the insolvency then finally occurs, only inflicts even so greater damages. Here, we should not pursue the previous mal-development, but instead take counter-measures.

Many thanks and until next week.

 

 

[trans: tem]