Stephan Brandner, January 29, 2021, Infection Protection Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/207, pp. 26120-26121. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

In Germany, we know of two legally normative states of exception: For one, the case of defense; for the other, the case of pestilence, pandemic or infection. 

On the perimeter of the regulations of one of the states of exception, heated debates for some ten years took place in parliament and in the media. In the end, there was a most highly contested vote in the German Bundestag. Students, intellectuals, labor unions, yet also the SPD and the FDP – hear and be amazed! – then proceeded against this alteration of the Basic Law. They feared a danger to democracy and they remembered Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power. 

The regulation of the other state of exception went quite smoothly: A few days of debate, a discrediting of opponents by the old parties and the media with the simultaneous support of those governing, a couple of water cannon missions against peaceful demonstrators 

            Niema Movassat (Linke): Very peaceful were they!

and then a nearly unanimous vote in favor by the entire Grand Coalition of CDU, CSU, SPD and Greens. 

Ladies and gentlemen, in the case of defense, a state of exception foresees the possibility to intervene in five basic rights: Expropriation, withdrawals of freedom, a service duty for women, limitations of Articles 10 and 11. In a case of pestilence and pandemic, it can come to temporary, unlimited interventions in nearly all basic rights: To begin, in regards human dignity, Article 1; over the general right of personhood, Article 2; the equality principle, Article 3; the practice of religion, the freedom of learning, research and assembly, Articles 4, 5, 6; family rights, Article 6; freedom of movement, Article 11; freedom to pursue an occupation, Article 12; inviolability of a dwelling up to interventions in the right of personal property, Article 14. 

           Jan-Marco Luczak (CDU/CSU): You can recite! But that is all!

It thus then concretely appears: §28a of the Infection Protection Law. Possible is: Distancing order, mask duty, prohibition of leisure events, prohibition of operation of leisure establishments, prohibition of sporting events, prohibition of events, gatherings, processions, assemblies, religious meetings, prohibition of travel, prohibitions of overnight lodgings, prohibition of the operation of restaurant establishments, closing of industries, businesses, retail and wholesale trade, prohibition of establishments of health and social work, closing of colleges, orders on going-out limitations, prohibition of entries to old-age and care homes. This was not definitive, ladies and gentlemen. So far, so bad. 

Besides that, the only basic right not infringed is the basic right of asylum. Thus an entire people are blockaded and forbidden to travel; yet anyone may enter and remain. Let that be understood by who will. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have now compared two states of exception, and I ask you: For which of the two must higher prerequisites be fulfilled? For the one case, the defense case, where five temporarily limited basic rights can be infringed, or for the pestilence case in which the possibility exists to temporarily infringe without limit all the basic rights which I have just named for you, with all the harassment measures which I have just named for you? In addition: For what must higher prerequisites be fulfilled? – I know of none. I say to you: The pestilence case is much more simple to determine than the defense case. For it, a simple majority in the Bundestag suffices to abolish all basic rights. To determine the defense case, a qualified majority in the Bundestag is required and, what is more, the approval of the Bundesrat. 

Whether and when the basic rights will then be conceded is in the stars. You know of the discussions, primarily conducted by Frau Lambrecht – where is the good, actually! Certainly not there – and by Herr Maas, that it would be a matter of privileges as to when one has the basic rights. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I say to you quite clearly: For us, basic rights are not privileges. Basic rights apply always and over all, and before all in times of crisis. Write that behind the ears.

            Rudolf Henko (CDU/CSU): Then you want to let everything run?

We say: There is a need for a more considerable constitutional clarification. For us, the unconstitutionality lies directly at hand. If already a state of exception, then a standardization in the Basic Law. That is called a superseding of the constitution. 

Yet the legal regulation, ladies and gentlemen, is also unconstitutional, since it is indeterminate. The spread of a “threatening infectious illness” suffices to determine this state of exception. What this threatening infectious illness shall be is not further defined. Thus, when in doubt, any wave of the flu, as emerges nearly every winter, suffices so as to blockade and harass an entire people. How useful for those who govern, who for years have accustomed themselves to millions of violations of constitution and law! 

The Infection Protection Law – ladies and gentlemen, I say this quite clearly – is a knowingly vague, subjugation and robbery of freedom law. The solution would be so simple. Why do you not simply define the “threatening infectious illness” in §5 as in §6? Only one paragraph later are threatening illnesses concretely listed. A law could thus be correctly fashioned with a degree of certainty so that no problem with legality arose. Yet you wanted it vague. You want to be free to do as you please, to the burden of the citizen. 

Why? The catalogue of chicanery in §28a which I have have just recited is directed at every citizen. You place every citizen under a general suspicion. That is a break with the hitherto fundamentals of police law, according to which fundamentally only vagrants may be objects of a state’s preventative measures.  They are thus a serious violation against the principle of proportionality. 

If you then look for once at the potential for manipulation which applies to the incidence values – arbitrarily set incidence values – : If you want the state of exception, you simply test more; then you have more infected, in regards to which we all meanwhile know: “Infected” does not necessarily mean sick nor necessarily in a position to be infectious. Thus you can do as you please; and you want precisely that. The door is opened to arbitrariness. Through it come violations against federalism and thus the breakdown of the separation of powers between Bund and States. 

Ladies and gentlemen, this law is tangibly unconstitutional and ought never to have taken effect. The Merkel coalition however has with the support of the Greens whipped and passed it through the parliament. The opposition, here for once not only in the form of the AfD but also supported by the FDP and the Linke, could with parliamentary ways unfortunately not prevent this law taking effect; therefore this motion [Drucksache 19/26239], for which the same just possibly may vote and with us of the AfD give to all true democrats and friends of democracy here in this house the opportunity to appear with us before the Federal Constitutional Court. And I promise you: We will be successful at the Federal Constitutional Court. Just as I stand here: We will win this process when we then conduct it in common as opposition parties, ladies and gentlemen. 

I have been cognizant of the proposal – it comes to the same – to forego a formal written application with which you also can bring yourselves into the debate. We then may formulate in common the written application. 

Thus – I come to a conclusion, Herr President – : In common with us of the AfD for freedom, democracy, the state of law and basic rights – this is what it is! I thereto heartily invite you all. 

Niema Movassat (Linke): You yourself must laugh, because it is such an imbecility, what you are telling here! 

            Carsten Schneider (SPD): A Punch and Judy Show

You are heartily welcome.

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beatrix von Storch, January 28, 2021, Big Tech

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/206, pp. 25954-25955. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

If all men except one were of the same opinion…then all mankind would not…be justified in silencing this one

Cited from John Stuart Mill, with permission of the President. 

The global left in league with Big Tech, on the contrary, want to silence any who do not believe in their truth. They hold their opinion to be without alternative, as being the absolute good. Migration, climate change, gender and Europe: Who dares to have another opinion, he is a heretic, an enemy, a climate and Corona denier, a speaker of hate, a racist, a Nazi. And he is absolutely evil, he must be purged and outlawed from every social communication and be socially annihilated, he must cease to exist in the social media; that is the goal of cancel culture and deplatforming. 

Behind this stands the spirit of destruction, the union of cultural Marxism with the Big Tech concerns. They have a division of labor: The leftist terror hordes of Anitfa and Black Lives Matter with massive physical violence intimidate political opponents, mob unsuitable scholars from the university, boycott and attack businesses and desecrate memorials, loud and dirty. 

            Florian Post (SPD): Ui!

The deletion armies of the Big Tech platforms delete, block and eliminate ranges, make contributions impossible to find so as to destroy competitors, cut off organizations from donors, users, consumers, quick and dirty, without the law, millions of times – a pure arbitrariness. 

And their fact checkers are a Ministry of Truth – true being what is left; left is good, right is evil – and this Ministry of Truth is a World Ministry of Truth, a very powerful one. There are principally five concerns which control the internet, the platforms, the payments function, the entire technical infrastructure, world-wide, global. Smartphone operating system: Dominated by two: Google and Apple; social media dominated by two: Facebook and Twitter; video platforms: One, YouTube, thus Google; cloud infrastructure: Three: Amazon, Microsoft, Google; and in regards on-line payments system, in addition, PayPal. 

At the press of a button by a handful of Big Tech billionaires, Herren Bezos, Zuckerberg, Dorsey, Pichai and Nadella, can anyone in the world be blocked and digitally erased – and they do it, day after day, millions of times. They are the world’s most powerful men. 

A Herr Dorsey could silence the incumbent American President Trump, and after Trump’s deletion a Herr Bezos pulled the plug on…Parler – tens of million of users with hundreds of millions of expressions of opinion: Click, gone, dead.

            Markus Kurth (Greens): Gott sei dank!

In the 21^st Century, access to the digital public belongs to the basic service like water and electricity. Monopolies may not turn off citizens’ water and electricity because they have a “wrong” opinion. Yet they are doing precisely that, and against that must this government, must this Bundestag proceed. And this is being done. The Polish government once again has shown how to do it. 

            Tabea Rössner (Greens): A fine example!

They have put forward a law: What Polish courts have not forbidden may no more be deleted; otherwise, there is a high fine for the concerns. That is the correct way. With us, it is exactly the other way around: Here, censorship will not be penalized but those not censoring will be penalized; that is this government’s NetzDG. 

We stand before a change of times: Before our eyes rises a global surveillance state and a quite perfect censorship regime, as never before in the history of mankind. This is digital totalitarianism. Which we must stop – for  the citizens’ freedom of opinion, for democracy, against the totalitarianism of Big Tech and against the rule of Silicon Valley. 

Many thanks.

…

           Anke Domscheit-Berg (Linke): That was really quite embarrassing, Frau                               von Storch.

 

[trans: tem]

 

Joachim Paul, January 25, 2021, Deplatforming

AfD Kompakt, January 25, 2021 

Poland’s advance against the notorious “deplatforming” is really exemplary. While as before in Germany, content normally not criminal-relevant falls victim to deletion troops – often composed of student assistants without legal knowledge – Poland now puts an end to the deletion orgies. 

In the view of the Polish government, they are evidently “censorship”. In the Polish legal situation, a posting is in fact only culpable if a court has definitely established culpability. The legislators in Warsaw hold everything else to be an infringement of freedom of opinion and thus unworthy of a democratic state. 

We demand that a grievance system according to the Polish example be firmly established in Germany. The citizens must have the opportunity to re-establish their illegally and arbitrarily deleted postings and to annul blockings – for which the social media concerns should be liable. 

Unfortunately, the Federal government has gone another way, for with the NetzDG arbitrary deletion orgies were directly stimulated in the social media. And that, even though criminal offenses like libel, assertion of false matters of fact, and popular incitement already prior to the NetzDG have been prosecuted by the Justice Ministry and, assuming culpable relevance, have been deleted. 

Thus, for freedom on the internet, the best way is the Polish, not the Federal German. Against this background, many of the old party politicians really should now spare themselves from shaking a finger at the Poles. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Björn Höcke, January 20, 2021, Corona Preventive Measures

Thüringer Landtag, Plenarprotokoll 7/33, pp. 6-9. 

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

Prof. John Ioannidis is one of the world’s most cited scientists. Already in October of last year, he published a world-wide applied meta-study which has an unequivocal conclusion: The Corona mortality rate of 0.23 percent is only slightly above that of a serious flu. It is in any case miles away from the panic value of 1 percent permanently maintained to the people by Herr Drosten, along with the RKI, via the government media. And we know: Corona is an epidemic of those advanced in years. In the last months, it was ever more evident that the running down of the public and economic lives, the limitations of the basic rights, of children, youth, young and middle-aged adults have no effects on the mortality rate of those advanced in years. 

In a quite topical study the above mentioned Prof. Ioannidis unmistakably declares: There is scientific evidence that the so-called lockdown has no positive effects on the groups known to be at risk. 

At the University of Munich for some time labors a working group of medical statisticians which prepares routine reports on the so-called Corona pandemic. In the recently published fourth report, the scientists put forward three central statements which corroborate the above mentioned Ioannidis. 

First: The fatalities resulting from Covid-19 – adjusted for the number of inhabitants – do not show a distinct excess mortality. 

Second: The previous Corona preventive measures fail to protect the elderly. 

Third and last: The course of the pandemic shows that there is no clear remission after the so-called lockdowns. 

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, the factual situation, which we can determine for ourselves from diverse studies, is in fact meanwhile so clear that the Federal Constitutional Court and the State Constitutional Courts of our Free States must immediately declare the massive reductions of the basic rights to be unconstitutional. 

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, apparently – and this at least is my personal opinion – the so-called lockdowns are more harmful to public health than is the virus. In any case, they are highly dangerous for our democracy and our parliamentary government. According to our basis of decision, the parliament should be incorporated into the technical consultations on the Corona preventive measures. In that regard, for the present provisions, the Social Committee and Education Committee should have met in common on January 8. That however did not happen. Some members had just shortly before carried out an antigen rapid test – and behold, a colleague of the Linke delegation tested positive. 

            Rothe-Beinlich (Greens): You had not let yourself be tested.

Therefore the sitting was simply brought to an end. A few hours later, it is reported: False alarm. A PCR test had now yielded that the colleague was nevertheless not positive. The foregoing not only shows that the diverse Corona test are not reliable, it primarily before all things shows that one – I stress, one – false positive test result – and if almost a hundred members were tested, then statistically 2 to 3 percent false tests would ostensibly result therefrom – that one positive test in fact suffices to simply set aside parliamentary arrangements, processes and participation rights. 

           Rothe-Beinlich (Greens): State your reason why you had not let yourself                                                   be tested.

Since last spring, the Free State’s parliamentary life becomes more and more a phantom. Committee sittings were set aside, sittings did not take place, visitors’ groups simply remain excluded. Parallel to this, the political life of our Free State is dying away; thereby namely the holding of round tables, citizens’ dialogues and rallies will either by means of restrictive measures be actively impeded, or they will be directly and entirely forbidden. What we are experiencing, right honorable ladies and gentlemen, right honorable colleague members, is in my eyes the liquidation [Abwicklung] of democracy under cover of the fight against the pandemic. 

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen of the old delegations, right honorable State government, despite the evident unreality of your Corona policy – no, despite the evident harm of your Corona policy – you run ever further into a dead end. And each day without success forces you deeper into this dead end. Ever more arbitrary, ever more ineffective, ever more disproportionate become your preventive measures. Not a few at this point will think of Albert Einstein and his definition of madness. 

Look in this regard at your present confinement decree. The going-out restrictions between 10 PM and 5 AM or the mobility restriction to a radius of 15 kilometers by chance are arbitrary. I ask you, right honorable colleagues of the old delegations, right honorable State government, and I ask you in the name of ever more citizens in the State: How are such measures still to be substantiated? In which way does this preventive measure really check the spread of the virus? Why a limitation of 15 kilometers? Why not 10 or 25 kilometers? Or why, for example, are bookstores closed, while bookstores with newspaper sales are allowed to be open? Do these measures protect the especially endangered groups, particularly our citizens of advanced age? 

And where actually is the State government’s protection strategy which pertains to the high-risk groups? For almost a year we wait in vain for this strategy. 

Your arbitrary and ineffective government protective measures, once more, mean a massive harm for the economy, an education catastrophe for the present school generation who as well suffer for years from a massive instruction deficit; mean a division of society, a growth of poverty and unforeseeable consequences for the public health. 

You, right honorable Herr Minister-president Ramelow, right honorable colleagues of the old delegations have, in my eyes and the eyes of my delegation, lost every measure and mean. Your Corona extremism is destroying our country. 

In conclusion, I emphasize: We need a paradigm change. We must get out of the dead end in the area of Corona policy into which you have driven, into which you have entered. We must exit this dead end. With the adoption of our resolution motion [Drucksache 7/2566], we can do that. We of the AfD say: Let us protect the at-risk groups – but please also with a goal-oriented strategy – yet immediately open the kindergartens, schools and businesses. We will finally again become a normal country; it is high time. 

I thank you for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Bernd Gögel, January 8, 2021, Corona Pandemic

Baden-Württemberg Landtag, Plenarprotokoll 16/139, pp. 7987-7991. 

I first want, and in the name of my delegation, to wish all of you here in the sovereign house and the citizens in the State a good New Year with the best of health. 

The year 2021 unfortunately has not begun with the desired light at the end of the tunnel. We are still miles away from the promised vaccination, Herr Minister-president. Our basic rights are as before disempowered and in this wrong-way drive of decrees, one cannot with the best of will speak of democratic processes. Ladies and gentlemen, we here come together multiple times to a special sitting to debate over the decisions of a body not capable of decisions.   

            Heinrich Fiechtner: Quite right!

I ask you, the State government: When will you finally re-establish an orderly, democratic process?

            Daniel Rottman (AfD): Very good. 

Of “orderly”, we understand: Initially the parliament consults and reaches its majority decisions and in that connection you, Herr Minister-president, can debate with the Chancellor in so far as you still see the need. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Baden-Württemberg is a Federal State. The subsidiarity principle must again attain recognition in this State. Depending on the competence, the decisions must be made here in Baden-Württemberg and carried further through Berlin to Brussels – and not the reverse, ladies and gentlemen. 

What you are doing here is a disempowerment of our Federal principles and a neglect of parliamentary government in our State, ladies and gentlemen. 

            Andreas Stoch (SPD): At most, no idea!

At the end of the past year, with your saviour, the Corona vaccine, you promised the citizens the light at the end of the tunnel. Before Christmas, you, Herr Minister-president, had very emotionally stated the following, I cite: 

            …the people will be vaccinated, and then it is over with this pandemic…

            Heinrich Fiechtner: Exactly! He said that! 

The reality unfortunately appears otherwise. It is still dark in the tunnel. What you had ignited is a small tea candle beside the tracks in this tunnel. Yet of light, one cannot speak. The state of vaccine availability is a disaster, ladies and gentlemen. The Chancellor alone first of all bears the responsibility for this situation. Nevertheless, we cannot relieve you of your co-responsibility, Herr Minister-president, and you, Herr Lucha. 

Why does the Chancellor especially bear responsibility for these failures? Already in June of the past year, Health Minister Jens Spahn and his colleagues from France, Italy and Holland had spoken of modalities like delivery numbers, conditions and contract negotiations. Frau Merkel was suspicious of these negotiations. She designated them as nationalist…She whistled back her Health Minister; she wanted that these negotiations be led by EU Commission President von der Leyen for the entire EU. I only say to you: Look at the state of the Bundeswehr, then you are able to form for yourself a picture of the capability of the Commission President. 

The humiliation of Jens Spahn was nevertheless not enough for the Chancellor. She compelled from the four health ministers a letter of apology to the EU Commission President. Here, we should grant credibility to the “Bild” newspaper, even when in this letter Bonn stands in as the sender. That leaves me personally somewhat doubtful, yet it is to be credited in any case. 

A cold-blooded demonstration of power and a new false decision with wide-ranging consequences for one’s own people – as already in regards the currency policy, the energy transformation and the refugee crisis, ladies and gentlemen. 

With his efforts on behalf of the vaccine procurement, Health Minister Spahn had in view care for the existence [Daseinversorge] of our citizens. The Chancellor apparently does not know this term. These were undesired and unhelpful, as she so often stressed in her speeches. And why? Because the Chancellor prefers to put the vaccine procurement in the hands of Brussels, because she prefers to hand over full power to the Brussels centralized EU ruling body instead of to the health ministers of the national states, ladies and gentlemen – as if Brussels was now already the capital of Germany. What was the result? The Daseinversorge for the citizens of our country was neglected. It amounts to a failure of the EU’s socialist planned economy philosophy. And why, ladies and gentlemen? Because at the EU level, the decision process demands much too much time, because with 27 individual interests it can never arrive at a rapid result. 

Here, where it is about the lives of the citizens in our country, in their view Brussels is the completely wrong decision level, ladies and gentlemen. 

            Anton Baron (AfD): Speed, speed!

Ladies and gentlemen, while other countries, like for example Israel or the U.S.A., by the end of the first quarter of 2021 want to and indeed will vaccinate a large portion of their population, the EU, and primarily Germany, move at a snail’s pace. It they continue the pace of the first two weeks, they will require in the best case six years, and in the worst case ten years, to have in fact vaccinated all those who are willing in this country. 

            Hans-Ulrich Sckerl (Greens): Such nonsense.

– Figure it out.

Ladies and gentlemen, those responsible in our State and in our nation have here to a grave degree violated their oath of office to avert harm from the German people.   

Ladies and gentlemen, an investigating committee in Berlin in regards these vaccine procurement failures of the Federal government, the Chancellor and the State executives, is the least which must be demanded. 

Another aspect which also this morning was still not cleared up: Concerning the whole debate over vaccination, we should more intensely bring into focus voluntary vaccination. The government ever again expounds on this aspect; if one however listens to members of the ethics council, like Herr Professor Henn who wants to make available no intensive-care beds to vaccination opponents in case of a Corona infection, then one may be justified in asking: For what should such scientists be on an ethics council?   

Christina Baum (AfD): Exactly!

Ladies and gentlemen, besides voluntary vaccination there is the question of the safety of the vaccine. It has quite astonished us, the AfD, that even the developer of the BionTech vaccine, Ugur Sahin, does not trust his development. He presently does not want his co-workers to be vaccinated because he fears failures resulting from side effects. That is not very reassuring, and provides the vaccine sceptics with fresh breath. Ladies and gentlemen, it must be left to each citizen himself whether he wants to live with or without vaccination. 

President Muhterem Aras: Herr member Gögel, do you allow an interim question from Herr member Dr. Fiechtner?

In the second round. At the moment, I want to bring my address to an end because the speaking time is running. 

Many citizens perceive a vaccination as an intrusion upon bodily integrity. 

            Christina Baum (AfD): It is an intrusion!

This opinion is worthy of respect. No law can and may disempower people’s free will, ladies and gentlemen. It may under no circumstances come to a discrimination of vaccination opponents. I here cite Jean Jacques Rousseau: 

The freedom of man does not lie in that he can do what he wants, but that he need not do what he does not want.

            Christina Baum (AfD): That is very good!

Let us come to the latest decrees, which you today will ratify with your governing majority, not in fact presently at hand but which will nevertheless emerge, and which next Monday will enter into force. 

We, the AfD, as before hold your preventive measures to be wrong and not purposeful. Now even the Federal government indirectly concedes that your previous preventive measures were not to the point. And you, Herr Minister-president, also must concede that the danger of infection exists not, as was supposed before the second lockdown, principally in lodgings and retail business, but principally in workplaces, in private households and the much affirmed ÖPNV [public transportation network]. Please explain here to the citizens in our State why such apparently senseless preventive measures were decided on and their currency now still prolonged. 

Ladies and gentlemen, a household shall now be allowed to meet with one other person. Well and good, yet 50 examples could be brought here over which you yourselves would burst out laughing. 

Let us take one, a household of five persons. When any of these persons have met with one additional person, they have all together met with an additional five persons. That would be allowed. Where please is the logic here? 

            Christina Baum (AfD): There is no logic there!

A better example: A family member who wants to take out the garbage meets in the corridor persons from three additional households. Since it is forbidden to these people to meet, the family member must set down the garbage, probably midway, and take himself back to the dwelling. Yet on the way from and to work, this man – let us call him Herr Mustermann – sits in an overflowing ÖPNV with 40 additional persons who belong to 40 other households. That is desired and permitted. 

            Winfried Mack (CDU): Then where is there an overflowing ÖPNV?

– Look at the practice. You do not ride the train. 

            Christina Baum (AfD): Because all drive autos, right? 

If anyone in his free time wants to meet with friends, he may do so with one other person. 

            Christina Baum (AfD): Pure chicanery! 

Ladies and gentlemen, that has no logic; that yields not sense. That may become no long-term situation.  

            Heinrich Fiechtner: That is a sadistic chicanery! Pure sadism! 

Let us come to a further, in our view, senseless Corona preventive measure. As a consequence of unreliable numbers, data, facts – neither the RKI [Robert Koch Institute] nor health officials with their testing centers could deliver reliable data over the holidays – the school openings will be further shifted back. Now it is said that possibly from January 18 the children might again be sent to day-care or to in-person instruction in the Grundschulen. Whether that will actually happen – the Herr Minister-president has pursued that – will be decided next Thursday. The people must thus again adjust themselves to quite short-term alterations. It will be done as if to regulate simply everything in the families. 

Why cannot the children be separated – a portion at school, a portion digital at home – for instruction? Because for one, two decades we have slumbered through digitalization in this country. Your statements do not place it foremost. You have for decades swept this topic under the rug and have not brought it forward decisively. Here, other countries are further. 

            Christina Baum (AfD): Clearly! 

In Germany, we have WLAN in 25% of the school buildings – 25%!  Why were the citizens of our country tested less during the holidays? Because the test centers and health offices had closed. Closed! They also had a holiday. 

Surely if you speak of a catastrophe on a national scale, surely if you take these and those preventive measures and reduce the rights of the citizens, surely if you disempower our Basic Law, then for that you should be most obliged to concern yourselves so that you receive reliable and valid numbers from the test centers and health offices, even during the Christmas holidays, ladies and gentlemen. That is quite decisive.   

            Christina Baum (AfD): Exactly! 

            Heinrich Fiechtner: Yet it is still not right! 

Ladies and gentlemen, to make perfect the chaos of decrees, you want to further reduce the radius of movement. If in a city or district the incidence figure rises over 200 positive tested per 100,000 inhabitants, people may move from their place of residence only up to 15 km. I am happy that in the Enz district now, the figure has again gone below 200; I can therefore speak here this morning. 

Our Minister-president quite quickly perceived that his decree could be senseless and absolutely harmful for his re-election and therefore declared himself prepared to be unwilling to implement it. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we, the AfD delegation, had already at the beginning of the first lockdown held your preventive measures to be false. We had already then indicated that the hotspots and possible dangers of infection lay elsewhere; not in the restaurants with their excellent implementation of the hygiene prescriptions, and not in the hotels and not in the barber shops, but in the industrial workplaces, in the household areas and in the ÖPNV. We therefore demand of you: End this unspeakable lockdown, finally put forward a long-term concept of how you want to protect the especially endangered groups of people, finally relieve the lack of personnel in the hospitals, stop considering the further closing of hospitals. 

            Christina Baum (AfD): Yes, that is decisive! 

Go on the offensive, advertise for care and hospital staff. That would be a sensible preventive measure. Make available medically-certified FFP3 masks without cost to the vulnerable groups, create shopping times for vulnerable groups and seniors and inform the citizens in our State of that, 

            Anton Baron (AfD): Exactly! 

how they can best defend themselves against the virus and best be able to strengthen their immune systems. Relieve the ÖPNV – the area where so many people meet one another – with additional taxis and buses for seniors. As an example, I commend your Oberbürgermeister Palmer in Tubingen. 

           Anton Baron (AfD): It is so! 

The citizens of our State should for the present change to their own vehicles – that is now the safest means of transportation – so to protect themselves from infection. 

Ladies and gentlemen, on the whole the AfD stands for self-determination before external determination. That is the essential aspect. With your fear and hysteria debate, you have lost every perspective. 

            Heinrich Fiechtner: Absolutely! 

You ever again forget to mention that in regards to serious cases of illness, measured by the entire population, we are moving on a scale of thousandths. 

            Christina Baum (AfD): Yes, exactly! 

You mention not a syllable of this aspect. 

Finally procure valid numbers, especially for the present degree of infection for the entire population. These data are indispensable, together with the vaccinations, and in view of the percentage of those willing to be vaccinated, to ascertain a foreseeable end to the pandemic. That is the light at the end of the tunnel – when you finally lay on the table these scientific numbers. 

We, the AfD delegation, call upon the citizens of our State to continue to critically examine the State government and at last – not only on grounds of the the recent failures in regards the vaccine procurement – vote them out of office on March 14, 2021, ladies and gentlemen. 

 

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

           

 

           

  

 

           

           

           

 

 

 

 

Joachim Kuhs, January 18, 2021, EU Court of Auditors

European Parliament, Brussels, P9 CRE PROV (2021)1-18(1-063-0000).

Frau President, Herr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, dear President Lehne.

Many thanks for the Court’s two general reports. I must say, they’ve really got it. I suppose Commissioner Hahn must initially have gulped when he saw the promised audit opinion on expenditures. But that is good – only thus does financial control work. It must hurt. As the reporter for the discharge of the 2019 Commission, I am naturally quite especially interested in the reports; indeed, well instructed therein. And I am very grateful for the clear structure. I thus can more easily write my report.

Nevertheless, I do not want here today to speak of your reports. We have already quite often and quite basically and thoroughly done that in the CONT [budgetary control] Committee. I want to refer to a specific problem: I have the impression that the Court of Auditors is certainly respected by us in parliament, yet it does not receive the support needed to fulfill its duties. I fear that too many of us are thereby employed to consider where we may require yet more resources or which program we could yet issue. In my view, it would be much more important to ask of proposals [Überlegungen] how to deal more carefully and frugally with the taxpayers’ money.

Actually, the whole parliament should be a control authority. We however prefer to shift this duty onto the few colleagues who here sit on the CONT Committee – who are all there certainly super engaged, and who will then set it right. Dear colleagues of the entire EP [European Parliament], may I for once place before you this small but effective committee? It is one of the most diligent. Please allow that it can better look after its general control duties.

Dear Commission, give us access to all information relevant to the budget and also in regards to the GD SANTE [director general, health and safety]. And then, honored colleagues, let us also please then strengthen the Court of Auditors with personnel and substantial means – the President has appealed for it – as well as with a general examination right of the EIB [European Investment Bank]. We cannot increase the budget by 85% as well as conclude six new sources of our own revenue, and then hope that the Court of Auditors could manage that with its previous personnel. He only can want that who wants less control. Let us not only respect the good work of the Court, no, let us strengthen it and concern ourselves with that so that it is not a rider without a sword, but a real weapon in the fight for the defense of the EU’s financial interests. I am sure that not only President Lehne will rejoice over that.

 

[trans: tem]