German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/48,
5184-5185.
Right honorable chairman. Right honorable ladies and
gentlemen.
Rasha Nasr
(SPD): Präsidentin!
Right honorable Frau President. Excuse me.
The reality in our country is no longer to be passed by. In
the allegedly best Germany of all time are there more poor people than ever
before; the poverty report of the Paritätischen
Wohlfahrtverbandes says so: The poverty becomes greater.
Almost 14 million people in our country are affected by
poverty; the poverty rate is thus at almost 17 percent. If the EU statistics
are peeked at, then is seen that is over 20 percent. That means: Approximately
one-fifth here are poor. And the consequences of the current inflation and the
looming gas emergency are still not figured in. That means: With greater likelihood we will become still more poor. The trade balance surplus
turned negative confirms this decline in a horrifying way. There thus results a
completely different picture than which those in government hitherto always wanted
to arrange for us.
And the media have diligently taken part in that. A well known journalist just recently objected to me that for us in Germany it no longer goes so good. The media must put up with the reproach of having propped up the Potemkin village of a rich Germany. For this development is nothing new; indeed it only accelerates. Yet for over 15 years it was hid by the prosperity.
The reproach needs to be made exactly so of the present
Federal government as before of the unfortunate Merkel governments: They did not
want to acknowledge the problem. In their megalomania, they have preferred to
devote themselves to saving the world instead of applying themselves to the
needs of the German citizens. That no longer goes; now not even the Ampel can shut its eyes to the suffering
in our own country.
The gas emergency – over 50 percent of our heating depends
on gas – is doubtless an extreme, additional aggravation which will increase
poverty in this country. Many people in today’s situation can no more make
their heating payment. Many now already omit meal times – which was already
stated; many freeze. Real hunger will follow – and then great mental depression.
Depression meantime has become one of the most frequent
illnesses of older people. Their suicide rate is by far the highest of the
population groups. And the increase of the suicide rate has developed
considerably in parallel to the increase of old age poverty.
According to the EU statistics, almost 30 percent of our
elders are poor, most of them pensioners. Our pensioners are poor because their
pensions are so low; they are among the lowest in western Europe. On that
account, we urgently require an effective pension reform which is not content
with holding lines but which again allows to our pensioners a worthy old age,
as is already a self-evident given in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy,
even in France, and of course first of all in Switzerland.
Yet if the government would simply use all the money which
you put into saving climate and planet, our old people could again participate
in social life, again drink a cup of coffee outside the home, perhaps even
sometime again be able to go to the movies or the theater – that would be
something. Participation besides is for them so important – not only for
marginal groups, participation must also be intended for the large group of
people who built our country, whose resources you now so blithely squander.
For long is it known that also many children among us grow
up in poverty. Many of our single households are poor, even so as almost 10
percent of our employees who work part or even full time who are not able to
live thereon.
Migration also has increased poverty here. It has in two
perspectives become a great burden. On one side, it leaves behind many migrants
in poverty who hoped to find their fortune here; on the other side, it
increases the wage pressure in the low wage sector of our economy and thus also
increases poverty in other population segments. Immigration in an economic perspective
can only function if the incoming people are well qualified and migrate
directly to a presently available job.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is thus time, high time, to newly
order the priorities and again place the citizens at the center of politics. That
works by shaping up the economy, by strengthening the economy; since it is the
economy and not the politics which creates prosperity.
And a little tip: The announced gas emergency would very
well be avoidable. You have two opportunities: Either you turn on Nord Stream 2,
or you take back the missing turbine for Nord Stream 1, despite the objections
of the Ukrainians.
Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): We already know your record. That is nothing new!
Then we all have gas again.
Thank you.
[trans: tem]
