Joana Cotar, November 25, 2020, Digitalization and Pandemic

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/194, pp. 24536-24537.

Frau President. Worthy colleagues.

It occurs to me a bit like before: „Und täglich grüsst das Murmeltier” [And daily greets the groundhog/marmot]. Once again we discuss a FDP motion on digitalization. The government shall “take the pandemic seriously as a wake-up call” – so far, so good. We of the AfD have here associated with five motions – for one, the demand for a digital ministry for the bundling of competences and for a structured procedure concerning digitalization in Germany. We daily receive evidence that this is urgently required. Yet the government actually appears to shut its eyes to this so that it need not see it. Otherwise, the inactivity is not to be explained. Instead, endless discussions between the Union and the SDP: The ministry is coming, the ministry is not coming. – It is the same chaos in regards digitalization. No wonder that here nothing happens.

We moreover demand the commitment of artificial intelligence in public administration for the deconstruction of bureaucracy and so as to form it more efficiently. The government up to now does not once put forward a complete overview of all uses and pilot projects for administrative AI and it also has not yet obtained this overview for itself. AI applications are the future, whether you want that or not. Not to make Germany ready for that is a gross negligence, ladies and gentlemen.

We want the start-up assistance in the lockdown crisis to be distributed fairly; the present package of measures was unsuited to the real market conditions and causes a distortion of competition in favor of well provided risk investors. Moreover, we of the AfD are of the opinion: The state is not the better businessman. It has to create the parameters and otherwise keep out.

Our motion [Drucksache 19/23347] for digital aid for families and youth in the crisis was implemented as part of the law for the digitalization of administrative procedures in regards the guaranteeing of family benefits. And though the coalition delegations self-evidently rejected our previous motion, I say: Thanks for the rapid implementation – the AfD works!

Later here will also be discussed our motion for a national mortality register which has already been rejected in the committees. Certainly in times of Corona, I hold that to be absolutely  irresponsible. The death rate in Germany must be better and faster collected. Such a register would considerably facilitate a timely identification and awareness of groups at risk. Moreover, thus would be achieved a quick understanding of pre-illness factors on the risk of death. Initially in June, the Leibniz Information Center for Economics demanded the synthesis of such a register. For long, the Council for Social and Economic Data expresses itself for that. And the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection also recommends such a statutory regulation. All speak in favor of our motion, and you also know that. To reject it for the usual reason, that it comes from the AfD, harms Germany, ladies and gentlemen.

            Florian Toncar (FDP): What is bad for Germany, is good for the AfD,                                    I once have heard!

And thus we are again at Groundhog Day, or at Berlin’s Greatest Show. For once let us be honest: The government parties on principle reject the motions of the opposition, no matter how good they are. Some, you yourself take up, like the one demanded by the AfD for the completion of the NIS [Network Information Service] and its obligatory implementation: The motion rejected here in April, to conclude precisely that here last week.

             Mathias W. Birkwald (Linke): Ja, so functions the opposition!

It is clear to me, sooner or later the mortality register will again emerge here in plenary session and will be passed – not, when all is said and done, under the AfD logo.

Yet we also know the little games of the opposition parties. Thus the FDP rejects in committee our motion for a digital ministry,

             Patrick Schneider (CDU/CSU): (To the FDP) You do what? That is horrible!

yet demands, in this motion put before us today, precisely this digital ministry. What shall that be? What does not agree with you?

 Franziska Brantner (Greens): Don’t you know the difference between                                        ministries and authorities? My goodness!

Dear colleagues, this play-acting can no longer be taken seriously. You appear to have forgotten why at all you have been elected here to the Bundestag: To make the best policy for Germany. It becomes high time that the welfare of our country and the welfare of our citizens were placed above partisan tactical games, ladies and gentlemen.

            Martin Rabanus (SPD): Thus speaks the righteous!

Good motions are good motions, no matter from which party they come.

            Patrick Schneider (CDU/CSU): Good motions just never come from you!

The quicker they are implemented, the better for us! So long as that does not occur here in the sovereign house, is what we contrive here more appearance than substance [mehr Schein als Sein].  

            Patrick Schneider (CDU/CSU): Yes, in regards to you!

            Vice-president Claudia Roth: Please consider the speaking time.

That, the citizens out there truly do not deserve. In that sense: The motion of the FDP demands in many places what is right. We are to discuss all of that in committee.

Many thanks and good evening.

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frank Magnitz, November 27, 2020, Inner Cities, Commerical Rent

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/196, pp. 24787-24789. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

If one wishes to see the best Germany of all time, then a momentary glance at the German inner cities suffices. Vanishing attraction, increasing decay and often also a latent sense of insecurity, that is meanwhile what our inner cities are coming to. This situation is not new. As a result of the competition of giant retail centers in the greenbelt areas and the increasing on-line business, they in past years lose both customers and purchasing power.

Edkhard Pols (CDU/CSU): Yet your colleague Hemmelgarn is building.                    He promotes that!

In precisely this situation, internet concerns, with the friendly support of the cartel parties, achieve ever more importance, while the neighborhood stores go to the dogs. And the friendly saleslady at the bookstore may soon be pushing pallets to and fro at Amazon.

The Federal government thus promotes unfair competition at the cost of the small businessman and the Mittelstander. In that regard, it does not help to conjure up the so-called transformative power of the cities. In the present time, the inner cities have three foundations: An urban, a national and an international. The urban foundation I have just described; our motion “Inner City as Home Space” [Drucksache 19/24658] is concerned with it. It includes measures to enhance their attraction. Retailing must again become a tangible event. In areas of a Federal promotion program, it concerns a balanced mix of commercial and private usage, including dwellings, unhindered accessibility and adequate free parking possibilities, a greater variety of business offerings, and the coordination of city planning between neighboring cities and communities.

Violent perpetrators, trivialized as part of the Event and Party Scene, are meanwhile in many places the new masters of the inner cities. They oppress residents, visitors and business managers. Our motion therefore values security and cleanliness in the inner cities.  

The national foundation is surrendering to the Corona hype. As of yesterday, the wearing of a mask is obligatory in publicly frequented places, and there must be 10 or 20 square meters per customer in the respective stores. At the same time, citizens move about, for example, in the closest spaces on buses and trains. It is exactly these crying contradictions which make clear the nonsense of the Corona preventative measures. And I say to you: An end to that!

With a mask and distance duty, the inner cities are neither a space in which to linger nor for living and well-being, and are certainly no home space.

Yet it is not the virus which destroys our inner cities. It is the utterly disproportionate measures of the Corona cabinet. A glance at Sweden shows how it goes: No pressure, no denunciation, no police state; instead, a relaxed atmosphere, mutual trust, prospering inner cities.

            Eckhard Pols (CDU/CSU): That is just rubbish!

As can be seen, it can be just so simple. Why then the excessive measures in Germany? On that, the Chancellor expressed herself in February of this year in Davos. Cite:

This transformation basically means in the next 30 years leaving the entire way of business and life to which we have been accustomed in the industrial era… 

 

He who holds this politics to be brainless, errs. It has been planned and will be, against all opposition, enforced, in the meantime with water cannons and violence-ready police, and by the illegal arrest of citizens of no ill repute, among whom was even a member of our delegation. 

Just why does the Federal government stoke uncertainty and panic?

            Christoph Hoffmann (FDP): Why must you always provoke?

Listen calmly.

            Christoph Hoffmann (FDP): You have still provoked!

Even the Chancellor, her cabinet and the State Minister-presidents must recognize what their actions produce: Fundamental intrusions into the basic rights and freedom of the citizens, destruction of our economic and mental fundamentals of life, hatred and agitation against those who think otherwise and ultimately a complete surveillance of the people. Does the RKI [Robert Koch Institute] become something like a Stasi central?

That’s nice, you’ve noticed. 

           Christoph Hoffmann (FDP): The last gasp!

Eckhard Pols (CDU/CSU): We are here discussing commercial rent and                                    inner cities. So, Herr Magnitz: Lack of topic number six!

The international foundation is the big new start. If it is to succeed, then quite obviously must be abolished trusted values like family, nation, cash and private property. The Great Reset is a real, existing theory. Herr Schwab’s book of the same name from the World Economic Forum is already on the market. It is about more than the inner cities; it is about our entire country.

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Please come to a conclusion.

I come to a conclusion. The AfD is the voice of reason in the heart of democracy. I implore the people out there: Do not be afraid [Lassen Sie sich keine Angst machen]. Defend yourselves and go into the streets!

           Kai Wegner (Greens): Inconceivable!

           Eckhard Pols (CDU/CSU): Aua, aua, aua! That is a real pain!

Franziska Brantner (Greens): To designate the RKI as a Stasi central, what is                                that for forgetting history!

Jürgens Martens (FDP): I would rather explain that as owing to a massive                                    dose of psycho-pharmaceuticals!

Franziska Brantner (Greens): The question is, what did he take?

Jürgens Martens (FDP): Something Russian?

Franziska Brantner (Greens): Nay, he needs to take nothing! Without it,                                    that is already so harmful!

 

 [trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tino Chrupalla, November 26, 2020, Pandemic

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/195, pp. 24580-24582.

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen.

Much has happened in the last days. All of these events raise questions which revolve about me as a politician, businessman, father and citizen and do not allow me to sleep peacefully. Right honorable Frau Chancellor, I am perplexed by the extension of the preventative measures. You thereby proverbially shut down Germany. And please, it is clear to us that the endangered groups must be protected; we have here demanded that often enough.

            Claudia Roth (Greens-Augsburg): What?

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): You have not done that! Many of you still                                     deny Corona!

Yet what value to you is the life’s work of those who depend on your decisions? Where is your respect for the dignity of men, for our Basic Law?

            Anton Hofreiter (Greens): You do not at all know what the dignity of men is!

Economically and mentally, this Federal government leaves behind a field of rubble.

Now, Frau Dr. Merkel, have you really thought through this entire process to the end? That actually corresponds to your credo. Why will not critical voices also be included for you in the determination of decisions? How scientific are these proceedings?

As an opposition party, we of the AfD strive for reasonable and proportionate solutions. With all means, you defame us at every stage; Herr Mützenich has again here given the best example of that. We are elected members. We represent the portion of the population which has given us their votes. As a member of the largest opposition party in the German Bundestag, I can only say: That is over 12 percent or 6 million of the voters. With your proceedings, you defame not only the AfD, you separate our voters from society and, despite that, offer them no persuasive concepts.

We all, dear colleagues, are here as politicians to form the general social conditions. We should thereby include the broad social discourse. But you, Frau Chancellor, decide only between black and white, and in that you believe yourself always to be right. You and your Federal government set yourselves apart from parliamentary democracy.

             Saskia Esken (SPD): [****]

The members of this sovereign house first learned in the press on Tuesday midday of which preventative measures the Minister-presidents had agreed on. It appeared, as if in a film scenario, that these on the following day were merely passed through with a wink.

Apropos a film scenario, Herr Finance Minister…Who pays the ever new bills for the purchased assistance? It is again – I can say it to you – the worker, the Mittlestand, and the small handworker – today, tomorrow and in the future. It is to me really inexplicable how a Social Democrat can be so unsozial towards the workers. One thing is certain: Europe, which you hold so dear, you thereby permanently damage.

Herr Linnemann, as chairman of the CDU’s Mittlestand association, you have in the last years correctly shown: The Mittlestand requires planning security. How do you explain the decisions of your party to the merchants, the firms and the trades? Does the social market economy still at all play a role in your thought and action?

In regards the setting aside of the insolvency obligation until March 31, 2021, there are meanwhile said to be over 800,00 businesses which in some way will be artificially kept alive. How do you plan to forestall that, Herr Economy Minister?...Herr Altmaier, a successful business requires capital, customers, sales and courage. How do you actually want to motivate old and new firms to persevere? For me as a businessman, motivation is the driving force. On your guarantees, to the contrary, – you have shown that – should one who is self-employed not rely.  

Worthy cabinet members, for you, who or what is actually system-relevant? And with what means do you support these people; for example, the skilled medical personnel who work for years and today, completely under-staffed, shall guarantee the implementation of your disproportionate preventative measures?

Herr Brinkhaus, you have today x-times said thanks. The people are full to the limit with “thanks”. My proposal: Finally fashion a relief whereby the system-relevant personnel in all branches shall be immediately freed of the wage tax [Lohnsteuer]. I guarantee you: These people do not hold on to the money. They do not take it to a tax haven. They will immediately again expend it in our own country. For they need it to finance their living expenses and to support their families. With such measures, you would demonstrate a true bond with the people.

Frau Chancellor, one thing I must grant you: You appear to enforce your will without conditions.

             Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens): That would be nice!

Yet your actions have produced insecurity and angst among the people of our country. Corona  has not put this country into a deep depression; that was you, Frau Chancellor, you with your policy which you regard as being without alternative.

             Michael Grosse-Bömer (CDU/CSU): And still the refugees!

             Claudia Roth (Greens-Augsburg): Exactly! Still the refugees!

Yet what does that actually have to do with the welfare of the German people? Is that not simply a dubious attempt to maintain one’s own power? And will you actually be right to claim to lead this country? You really should ask yourself that.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]