Stephan Brandner, January 28, 2022, “Dare More Democracy”

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/15, pp. 1018-1019.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. And, out of the given occasion, here from the upper house: Right honorable Herr Max Otte, candidate for the office of Federal President, the only candidate in no way located left, but a bürgerlichen candidate for the office of Federal President.

            (Members of the AfD rise.)

For us, the only electable candidate for the office of Federal President, although he is since 1991 a member of the Christian Democratic Union. Herr Otte, a hearty welcome, much success and before all many votes at the Federal Assembly on February 13!

Ladies and gentlemen, “Dare more democracy”, that was on October 28, 1969, an initially little noticed saying of Willi Brandt. “Dare more democracy”, that belongs to us of the AfD not only as a saying but it is the living DNA of our party. This conviction of ours, “dare more democracy”, stretches like a blue thread through our work in the States. “Dare more democracy” pertains to us, for example, in regards the demands for more direct democracy, keyword “referendum” [Volksentschiede]; in regards our demand for terms limitation of the Federal Chancellor; in regards the demand for the abolition of parliamentary secretaries, keyword “separation of powers” [Gewaltenteilung]. Dare more democracy, ladies and gentlemen, that also belongs to our draft law today [Drucksache 20/198, 410] which foresees at the time after next, that is, from the year 2027, directly electing the Federal President.

According to our conceptions, what in many states is self-evident should become possible. Each shall receive the opportunity to have himself presented as a candidate if he gathers behind himself 0.5 percent of eligible voters, and from the presented candidates will then be elected directly. That would be a democratic leap forward, ladies and gentlemen, supported by 70 percent of the German population. How nice: No more scheming in backrooms, no consensus candidates of the German democratic delegations. The absolute dominance of the parties would be broken, would be passé. An election campaign would occur which could discover: Who stands for what?

Let yourself for once play out our fantasy of what could here take place. We have on the one side, for example, one candidate, an apparatchik, in his lifetime anyhow located on the left, from extreme to presentable [salonfähig] – active for a leftist newspaper, observed by the Constitution Defense, grunt worker, informer for leftist functionaries, never won an election. Who would vote for such a man, ladies and gentlemen? 

Let yourself continue with our fantasy. We present an opposition candidate, graduated from a top university in the United States – let us say, Princeton – then professor at universities, at colleges, in the U.S.A., Austria and in Germany – let us say: for example, Boston, Worms, Graz – then not drawn back to the actual official status, but a voluntary withdrawal from public service, successful business man, author, speaker.

            Kathrin Vogler (Linke): Which makes clear who are your clientele!

            Konstantin Kuhle (FDP): All of no use!

For whom of these two candidates would the hearts of the people out there take flight, ladies and gentlemen? For me, the decision has in any case taken place.

So now we have multiple candidates, one of whom is more promising, one of whom is less promising. It was also thus in regards the election of the Chancellor that a fully unpromising candidate like, for example, Frau Baerbock – she is just not sitting in the Foreign Minister’s chair – then became Foreign Minister, and was invited to that. I now expect from the public broadcasting, I must quite honestly say, that here yet again a slobbering takes place. We have here three candidates: One from the total left, one from the middle-left – the consensus candidate of the German democratic delegations, as I previously said – and a candidate whom we of the AfD support, who is located in the CDU. Dear CDU, here also we expect support from you.

Ladies and gentlemen, to make it possible that any citizen from the people can become Federal President, our draft law is required. “Dare more democracy” – let us begin at the top of the state! Do what Willi Brandt would also do today: Please vote in favor of our draft law.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

Carolin Bachmann, January 28, 2022, Right of First Refusal in Housing

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/15, pp. 1030-1031.

Frau President. Valued colleagues. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

We are occupied today with a motion of the Linke for the communal right of first refusal in the protection of milieu areas [kommunalen Vorkaufsrecht in Milieauschutzgebieten]. What is it about? An investor wants to purchase a house, renovate it and put it in shape. Actually something nice! Yet the Linke regard the investor basically as a greedy real estate shark. They want to introduce the exercise of the right of first refusal by communes with a suspicion of intentions to use contrary to preservation. They nevertheless ignore the verdict of the Federal Administrative Court of November of last year. It already subsists as a legal certainty. Your motion reveals your distorted relation to the administration of justice and with it to the state of law.

What would actually change in the housing market if your motion was carried? Would the relation between supply and demand change? No. Would the protected milieu houses demanded by you shine in brightness? No. Who wants to know how the nationalization of real estate affects the housing stock should book a trip to socialist Cuba.  

Your false interpretation of the right of first refusal again hits the taxpayer, creates not a square meter of housing space and does not stabilize rents.

The actual question is: Why is the housing market in the cities under pressure? There are three principal causes: First. Ever more one and two person dwellings are demanded. Second. People flee from the country to the cities. Third. The uncontrolled immigration additionally increases the demand.

            Kathrin Vogler (Linke): I well expected that that comes!

            Bernd Baumann (AfD): It is so!

Yet who are the needy who are referred to favorable housing space? They are the single parents, they are the solitary grandparents and they are the small and middle earners. And your solution shall be the protection of the milieu? How many protected milieu areas do you want to identify in Germany in the future so as to help all the needy? Do you really want the state to buy up house by house until we have a Cuban situation? While you build red-green castles in the air and dream of favorable housing space, you prevent investments and produce socialistic hovels.

Housing needs to be payable by all. I expect from politicians, exactly the same as from doctors, first the right diagnosis and then the right therapy. Do not continue to tinker with the symptoms. Finally go to the principal causes on the ground.

The AfD professes the social market economy and the protection of investments. We want to eliminate the principle causes of the housing emergency, you do not.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

Marc Bernhard, January 28, 2022, World’s Dumbest Energy Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/15, pp. 991-992.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Minister Habeck now wants to construct the so-called renewable energies three times faster, withdraw from coal by 2030 and never again allow the CO₂ price to fall below 60 euros per ton. Herr Minister, is it actually clear to you what that means for the people and the workplaces? Your Ministry proceeds on the basis that our electricity requirement will triple by 2030 because in the future we should drive and heat with electricity. In the last year alone, eleven coal power plants and three coal power plants with a total of 9 gigawatts capacity were shut down.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Gut so!

Germany is the only country in the world that withdraws from coal and nuclear energy at the same time.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Gut so!

The Wall Street Journal designates that as the “world’s dumbest energy policy”.

            Enrico Komning (AfD): So it is!

Alone in Green-governed Baden-Württemberg, the energy supplier EnBW wants to shut down in this year an additional 6 gigawatts – over 60 percent of the electricity required there. Even if the Green State government in Stuttgart could realize its unrealistic wishful thinking of 1,000 additional wind industry installations, these would achieve just an insufficient 1.5 gigawatts. So-called alternative energies thus cannot cover even nominally the necessary electricity requirement.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Complete nonsense!

And what do you actually do when it is night and no wind blows, Herr Minister? An industrial country plainly cannot be managed with wind and sun alone. On account of the electricity incapacity, EON chief Birnbaum warns of, besides many other things, the danger of the shutdown of entire cities; that is, of blackouts.

The world’s dumbest energy policy has led to that we in Germany have the world’s highest electricity prices – twice as high as in our neighboring countries. You are thus forcing businesses to shift their production and workplaces to foreign countries; as for example, Daimler and BASF to China because there energy is secure and of good value.

Each year the electricity will be shut off at 400,000 households and 7.4 million people will freeze in their dwellings

            Beatrix von Storch (AfD): That is asozial!

because they can no longer pay the high energy prices. The explosion of the gas prices, in regards which the state receives around 60 percent, is not allowed to remain hidden even from you.

Put an end to this madness! Finally concern yourself that in Germany one no longer freezes and needs sit in the dark. Stop the world’s dumbest economic policy!

Hearty thanks.

 

[trans: tem]