Peter Boehringer, February 11, 2021, Debt Brake

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/209, pp. 26335-26336.

Herr President. Honored colleagues.

A legal error is not healed so that it is again to be committed a few months later. Now, in the third budget for 2021, the coalition tears up the debt brake [Schuldenbremse] conforming to Article 115 of the Basic Law and justifies this with an emergency situation. Yet the Covid-19 problem by definition cannot continue for years. We thus must today again bring in a motion [Drucksache 19/26549] on the control of legal norms. The questions raised in our motion cry out for legal clarification. Courts incidentally must also examine a parliament’s majority votes when these misuse its authority, which we amply set forth in the complaint.

So as to forestall the reply of foreseeable yet false accusations of succeeding speakers: The demand for a clarification of constitutional conformity is a fully legal procedure and a democratic right of minorities. We nevertheless heard in regards to comparable AfD motions for control of norms – as two weeks ago and also in the year 2020 – sentences like: You nevertheless obtain no majority. – That came from SPD colleague Franke. Now, that is the arrogance of power. With this attitude, the opposition is denied any recruitment of a majority or even a 25 percent quorum conforming to Article 93 of the Basic Law. In parliamentary terms, this is very dubious and I fear we hear the same again. If it thereupon proceeds on how great the chances of a majority are, then evidently the opposition, in the view of the coalition, may no more place any motions.

And the motion’s formulation which we have chosen – “The German Bundestag welcomes…” – , is completely normal and was already many times confirmed by the current parliament’s advisers. To ever again ridicule this is merely evidence of the old parties’ lack of willingness to substantively discuss the arguments of our complaint.

First. The government wants to take up 180 billion euros of new debt; the permitted borrowing in conformity with the Schuldenbremse will thus be exceeded by 164 billion euros. At this sum alone is the excess not justified, since the government also in 2021 does not use the asylum reserve. One cannot at the same time have reserves and borrow emergency credits. It is so required by the economic precept in conformity with Article 114 of the Basic Law and §7 of the BHO [federal budget order].

Second. I already said here in September 2020: “Herr Scholz will certainly not be able to issue means of debt in 2020…It was also certainly not planned because one wants to hold the money for the 2021 election year.” So far my citation. And then it occurred exactly so. That however was abusive of the law. The formation of reserves financed by credit is forbidden. Something similar now occurs in the 2021 budget in which the reserves will once more  be strengthened. That is a violation of the per annum precept in conformity with Article 110 of the Basic Law and §4 of the BHO.

Third. No place in the budget will be economized, and many of the programs are certainly not in causal relation with Corona. That would naturally be a prerequisite for laying a claim under the borrowed indebtedness rule of the Basic Law. The borrowing based on an emergency situation may not be used to implement a policy which should moreover be pursued independently of the emergency situation.

Fourth. A health emergency has not been continually present; at no point was there an overburdening of the healthcare system. The mortality rate in Germany in the year 2020, contrary to the adverse propaganda, was not above the expected value. The narrative expounded for months by the coalition whereby only decisive state action had led to a limiting of cases of illness is furthermore completely unsupported, even if it is here ever again repeated. Quite on the contrary, the persistent over-reaction of the state just since April of last year has brought about the greatest economic crisis of the postwar era. With the onset of economic emergency in the government’s third Corona budget, the control of the state was quite surely not be withdrawn. And this Basic Law prerequisite for laying a claim under the borrowed indebtedness rule is thence in 2021 no more present.

The true reason for the debt orgy is this: Only so can Minister Scholz cushion the lockdown effects until the Bundestag election. The Basic Law will here be mis-used for boundless debt-making. It is now even to be feared that you may make permanent the emergency situation – until 2022 and presumably even beyond. The Chancellor’s Office has demanded precisely this, even if it was immediately denied. That’s right. Yet in the end, Chancellery Minister Braun was simply being honest. “The Schuldenbremse is not to be observed in coming years.” And he is thereby unfortunately right if then nothing is saved. Only with savings would the Schuldenbremse be observable, and that primarily only with an immediate end of the lockdown. That is the conditio sine qua non.

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Or yellow!

Na, ja, perhaps also yellow. We still see it.

It will be tense prior to the cornerstone draft for the 2022 budget. Officially, the government wants to return to the Schuldenbremse for the year 2022. Yet now already at the Finance Ministry, it sounds different. With Braun’s views opposed to the Schuldenbremse, the Union may – cite – “finally arrive at reality.” The test balloon indeed has initially burst. In the meantime, Herr Braun said, in a spectacular about-face: “Ich liebe die Schuldenbremse.” That is approximately as believable as Erich Mielke in 1989.

Beyond all the state theatricals with stability hypocrisies, the united block parties are quite agreed: It is much better to govern at the pump. – Nevertheless, debts unfortunately are tomorrow’s taxes.

Presumably all of this state theatre will also suffice to the Bundestag election. After that, unfortunately, insolvencies and mass unemployment will take the upper hand. It will then be no more possible to prevent debt-financed, long-term subventions. Therefore, we must now draw a line: This is constitutionally and economically imperative.

In case, dear colleagues, you see it otherwise, then I despite that and more than ever demand of you as good state-of-law men: Bring the cause for clarification to Karlsruhe. This is not contradictory. Complete the 25 percent quorum today. Our motion’s basis is already almost identical with the complaint. It is thus entirely prepared. If you are so secure in your case, then you have, ja, nothing to lose in Karlsruhe.

Hearty thanks.

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

René Springer, February 10, 2021, West Balkans Regulation

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/208, pp, 26255-26256.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

As a result of the Federal government’s Corona preventive measures, the German labor market has fallen into a deep crisis – not to be overlooked. Besides hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed and millions in part-time work, now also threatens a never before known wave of insolvency.

We hold it to be irresponsible that the Federal government in these difficult times wants to continue to attract by the West Balkans Regulation a labor force from the former Yugoslavia to Germany. In that regard, the West Balkans Regulation is entirely other than a model of success. In past years, out of 356,000 employees owed social insurance, already came 117,000 Hartz-IV recipients. Thus, of three employees from the West Balkans, comes one social benefits recipient.

Yet there is still another problem. By means of the extension of the regulation, the government now further attracts to Germany, by tens of thousands of times, the most severe wage competition for our domestic employees. The workforce from the West Balkans states works for us at an average of 900 euros per month less than the German worker. The consequence is a wage dumping in fact promoted by the state; and you all look away.

            Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): This nevertheless does not concern                                     the people! This incitement!

While almost 17 percent of German employees presently work in the low-wage sector, over 33 percent of the workers there are from the West Balkans, thus twice as many. All of this besides corresponds to what the German Institute for Economic Research wrote already in 2016. I cite:

            In a modeled economy…immigration increases the domestic labor supply and                                              leads to lower wages for the domestic population…

Yet the West Balkans Regulation promotes not only wage dumping in Germany but also the large-scale emigration of a qualified workforce from the West Balkan states to Germany.

Some of the heads of government of the countries concerned in some cases complain of this. Serbia’s President Vucic last year even demanded of Minister Spahn to no more come to Serbia to there entice care personnel. And in Kosovo, the emigration of doctors and care personnel to Germany meanwhile has alarming effects on the healthcare system: Once operational doctors’ centers have transformed into ghost clinics, writes the Austrian “Standard”. According to the Balkan Barometer, 71 percent of the young people are considering leaving their home countries. Even Foreign Minister Maas – Is he still here? I no more see him – said just in October to the Deutsche Welle: We cannot close our eyes to the continuing brain drain in the Balkans.

The West Balkans Regulation thus promotes a form of immigration which violates our social interests, harms employees in Germany by means of increasing wage pressure and solely and alone reduces the people to its role as mobile human capital.

Like the Federal government’s entire immigration policy, the West Balkans Regulation follows a market radical and globalistic logic, according to which the only concern is the complete mobility of the factors of production. A workforce should be able to wander from place to place like nomads, whereby people become import goods and the affected societies and families are torn apart. And the German Left bestows on the whole an emancipatory little cloak and thereby candidly reveals itself as a vehicle in the interests of capitalists and great combinations.

We of the AfD delegation do not make ourselves out to be the parliamentary bailiff of globalist interests. The fundamentally wrong shuntings in the German immigration policy and the soon to be one year long lockdown crisis oblige us as responsible politicians to end without delay the West Balkans Regulation. We demand [Drucksache 19/26543] precisely that as the Alternative für Deutschland.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armin-Paulus Hampel, February 10, 2021, Russia

German Bundestag,  Plenarprotokoll 19/208, pp. 26247-26248.

Many thanks. – Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

We should now quite quickly come back from feelings TV to reality television.

            Elisabeth Motschmann (CDU/CSU): And that out of your mouth!

            Anton Hofreiter (Greens): You do not at all know what reality is!

In the state’s lexicon on the topic of foreign policy is found the entry: Just as a building is more than a heap of bricks because it has at its disposal a ground plan, this is also valid for the foreign policy of a state.

            Elisabeth Motschmann (CDU/CSU): What is that then for a lyric?

According to this general guideline, a Grand Strategy is needed, eine Grosse Strategie, a role concept from which to draw its impulse to act. Nevertheless, one seeks in vain for this maxim in the behavior of the Federal government.

Your speech just now, Herr Maas, had reminded me that a large number of Social Democrats – and this does pertain to your speech – probably listened attentively, since many of your party friends are not in agreement with the course which you pursue. I always have the impression: On one side, you want to pacify your party friends; on the other side, you do everything so as to damage German-Russian relations.

Neither in regards Herr Maas nor in regards Frau Merkel is a German Russia strategy discernible. Worse yet: Had Russian President Vladimir Putin until recently seen Germany as one of the last remaining translators which could be trusted, Frau Merkel and Herr Maas in the past weeks have destroyed this last bridge of trust. They have done this frivolously [leichtfertig] and they have thereby violated the principle of foreign policy management; namely, to look after German interests vis-à-vis Russia and by means of negotiation balance with Russian interests.

Instead, we fall into a case of domestic policy and apply to the Russian president a standard of measurement not incumbent upon us. Since how else is to be explained that we at the highest level threaten Russia with sanctions in the Navalny affair, want to levy additional sanctions and endanger the Nord Stream project worth billions? Yet at the same time we undertake nothing to sanction, for example, the murder of an Iranian scientist or to denounce the murder of a Saudi journalist in Turkey who already here found mention. Chancellor like foreign minister here measure – by permission – with a double standard.  

You can recall how Herr Colin Powell, with a fake story, persuaded the world community at the UN Security Council. I had not heard the outcries from the Union circles – ; a terrible war with hundreds of thousands of victims was the consequence. It subsequently goes exactly so in Libya. Yet here also I have not heard your outcry.

               Michael Brand (CDU/CSU-Fulda): Then you were not really tuned in! Here                           again you have not listened!

Worse still: In Moscow must arise the impression that the West – and primarily Germany – undertakes everything so as to generate in Russia a Maidan atmosphere [Stimmung] – and this also you want – and to choose as leader a hitherto completely unknown blogger who earlier – colleague Gysi has correctly mentioned this – sounded radical nationalist tones and of whom we do not know what are his true political goals and, before all things, who are his backers.

I agree that the maxim of the KSZE [Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe] process, namely, that no state is to meddle in the internal affairs of another, fundamentally must also have continuity in German foreign policy. It is the only practicable and correct way, ladies and gentlemen. Of course, were we to apply the same standard of measurement to the German-Chinese relationship, and thus to a Communist state without any democratic structure but with thousands of executions of dubious legality, then we must in relation to China conduct the same sanctions policy as in relation to Russia. I can say to you: The German economy would immediately stand in front of your door and cry murder if you would do that.

My delegation and I are most deeply convinced that every country – my friend Alexander Gauland has mentioned it – has the right, in its way,

            Elisabeth Motschmann (CDU/CSU): Your way of human rights violations?

to follow the Pursuit of Happiness, that is, des Strebens nach Gluck.

            Michael Brand (CDU/CSU-Fulda): Human rights violations are not internal                            affairs!

That might not always agree with our set of values; yet that also need not.

In the case of Russia, there is in addition a further, important aspect. Our great eastern neighbor was for centuries governed by the czars,

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Our great eastern neighbor is called Poland!

and there followed for almost 80 years a Soviet dictatorship in part contemptuous of mankind. For 30 years, thus for one generation, Russia attempts to develop structures in the democratic sense.  

            Elisabeth Motschmann (CDU/CSU): You nevertheless do not seriously                                    believe that!

Besides, with us, the first attempt went awry after 15 years and after 1945 also the Germans had taken long until democratic thinking gained entry in all social structures. How presumptuous and arrogant it is vis-à-vis our Russian friends

            Elisabeth Motschmann (CDU/CSU): Friends?

not to give to this time of development its due!

Instead of issuing continual reproaches, we should preferably recognize what in the last three hundred years has developed positively in Russia. In the sense of German foreign policy, we should recognize how stabilizing – now catch your breath – the Russian president has been for his country in the past years. It must lie in the German interest to support this policy of Vladimir Putin. Since – again a quick breath – I can say to you one thing: You do not know and probably have no idea who comes after Vladimir Putin.

Many thanks.

            Michael Brand (CDU/CSU-Fulda): The Moscow visit worked!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

Alice Weidel, February 11, 2021, Covid-19 Pandemic

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/209, pp. 26315-26316. 

Right honorable Herr President. Frau Chancellor. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

This undignified spectacle goes to the next round. 

            Katrin Göring-Eckhardt (Greens): It begins with your speech! 

A round of wheeling and dealing in the backrooms, unforeseen by the constitution, decides wide-ranging interventions in the life and freedom of the citizen. The Chancellor lays down beforehand what shall come out of it, the Minister-presidents on the periphery conduct a PR of their own, play at opposition, and nevertheless ultimately acquiesce. The parliament, the voice of the sovereigns, notwithstanding may afterwards debate a little on it, like today, yet is not included in the decision-making. What an embarrassing mise-en-scène, what an impudent display of the arrogance of power, right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

And what open disregard of the citizens who suffer under your unilateral decisions and whom you treat like vassals, whose life, rights and fates you believe to be able to dispose of at whim. What the Federal government pursues here is unconstitutional. 

You play with our children’s future. It is not the virus or the pandemic which robs an entire generation of students and children of the opportunity of an education – it is your false policy which appears to know only prohibition and force, which takes valuable lifetime from young and old people, families and professionals, self-employed and businessmen, which drives them to depression, solitude and ruin. 

Three months of a wave-breaker lockdown and you still want to hang a month on that. The collateral damages of your blockade and shuttering methods grow immeasurably. The German Heart Institute fears a massive increase in the number of cardiac fatalities because shut-in patients may not go to the doctor. A lack of preventive care examinations will also allow the number of cancer fatalities to increase. 

This lockdown policy leaves behind in the labor market its trail of devastation: A half million more unemployed, millions in part-time work, 175,000 businessmen and self-employed who stand before insolvency, restaurateurs and merchants whose life’s work shatters, retail tradesman who have long since consumed their last resources, who sit on a mountain of debt and unsold goods, yet of the grandiosely announced assistance have still seen nothing – this you have, ja, plainly granted. 

I ask myself: Do you want to annihilate the Mittelstand, the backbone of our prosperity? Do you want to bring us to the state of a developing country? Then please say it quite openly. The people want to know where you are when they next time go to vote, right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

You cling to the lockdown, hostile to economy and constitution, as if there were no intelligent alternatives. And instead of offering to the citizens a reliable perspective for a return to normality, you continually and arbitrarily change the parameters: Doubling time, R value, seven day incidence. For to simply progress from preventive measures decided at 200 incidence to an incidence value of 35 is a renewed violation of the law. That must be quite clearly said here. 

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Which you however do not decide! 

Your government has grandiosely ruined the rapid vaccination of a major portion of the population, which you likewise had declared to be a target value, because you, in violation of the subsidiarity principle, delegated the competence to Brussels. And now there are newly detected variations of the virus – you say “mutations”, that sounds more threatening – which must stand in as justification for the lockdown. The citizens are full – I must quite clearly say it to you – of this to and fro, of this policy in suspense. They justly feel themselves sold for dumb when they learn that your Interior Minister, already before the first lockdown, had demanded the most dramatic as possible scenarios from compliant scientists so as to be able to claim harsh restrictions, or when it comes out that the Chancellor’s office, with hastily jotted-down, arranged and compliant opinions, has worked toward rapid and long-term school closings. 

Where you install your favorites – so as to say it to you quite clearly – there these fail: Herr Altmaier, in regards the compensation of businesses affected by the forced closings; and Frau von der Leyen in regards the organization of the vaccine procurement. It is just breathtaking to set forth and maintain that on the whole nothing has gone awry and that the government is doing its best. I certainly do not want to imagine what all must happen before you have finally for once taken responsibility for failures. Inconceivable! 

The Corona policy in our country must be fundamentally straightened out again. We need the speedy and binding withdrawal from the lockdown. The way therein must be openly deliberated, and with the inclusion of the parliament. For that must the entire breadth of professional and scientific expertise, without defamation and exclusion, be heard. The goal must be to especially protect those advanced in years and those with pre-existing conditions in the public establishments, 

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): To lock up, or what? 

to make possible a self-responsible self defense for all others endangered, to prepare sufficient vaccine for those willing to be vaccinated, to strengthen the healthcare system so that it is ready for unavoidable illnesses and to make possible for all citizens a normal as possible life. For that they of course pay taxes and for that they also pay into the social insurance system. 

The basic rights must again come into force. They are guaranteed by the constitution and are not allotted by the government. A restriction requires substantiation and not your reconstruction, right honorable ladies and gentlemen. That is naturally not as easy as threats, prohibitions, and the distribution of money in long-term exceptional situations, yet for precisely that have you been elected. Thus turn back to a constitutional politics. 

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Babble! 

Many thanks. 

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): Not a word for the dead! How shabby is that then? 

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Man, man, man! 

What else does not occur to you? 

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): In regards the speech, nothing occurred                        to you! 

Nothing occurs to you in any case. 

 

[trans: tem]

           

 

 

Wilhelm von Gottberg, January 27, 2021, Agricultural Market Law

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/205, p. 25833. 

The draft law debated here concerns the agricultural market structure law of 1969. Originally, the law contained 14 provisions. Presently, there are still 11 comprehensive provisions of an extent thoroughly friendly to business and citizens. 

Due to EU standards, Germany must now implement into national law by May 1 the UTP guidelines referring to unfair trade practices. The aim of the guidelines is to reduce the financial pressure on farmers and other food producers by means of a stronger regulation of unfair trade practices.The member states can without replacement delete or retain national provisions on unfair trade practices which exceed these guidelines. 

The ban on unfair trade practices – itemized in the so-called blacklist of the UTP guidelines – changes nothing in the structural commercial imbalance and the weak negotiating position of agriculture vis-à-vis the food industry and trade. Quite the contrary: The price pressure on German farmers will probably still increase. Since the trade, for which arise greater risks, will compensate by means of still more severe price requirements. The food industry firms will need to engage in this and pass on the price pressure to the end of the chain; namely, to the farmers. 

If one wants to strengthen the market position of agricultural operations, the supply must be more strongly bundled to the supply side. This enjoins that agricultural operations must strongly unite themselves with producer organizations. Since only so are they exempted from §1 of the cartel law and are allowed to reach price agreements and price fixing [preisbindungen]. Only so do the agricultural operations have a real chance to negotiate eye to eye. 

That alone however will not suffice. For years, German agriculture struggles with continually increasing production costs. It is primarily the fault of ever new administrative impositions. It is plainly and palpably unfair that German farmers must fulfill the highest standards, yet at the same time massive amounts of cheap food can be imported from foreign countries which need not fulfill these standards. 

The UTP guidelines foresee that in every member state will be installed an enforcement authority with investigative and sanction competences including money fines. It is to be hoped that this point will be realized by the Federal Institute for Agriculture and Food and that the UTP guidelines for the fruit and vegetable sector and in the dairy, meat and crop sector will be transferred; since only so is possible a sustainable balance of farming with the retail food trade.   

We welcome that a hearing will be given to the draft law on February 22. This will facilitate the discussion of drafts in the Agriculture Committee and on the whole provide more clarity.

 

[trans: tem]