Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, September 8, 2022, Agriculture Budget and Hunger

German Bundestag, September 8, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/51, pp. 5559-5560.

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

The Agriculture Ministry’s budget has in the last years regrettably received much too little attention. In the present crisis at the latest is shown how destructive was this assessment.

Right honorable Herr Minister, you in your speech in June of this year recounted that we needed changes, pragmatic solutions and planning security for the farmers – all demands to which my delegation colleagues and I directly subscribe. Yet honestly said, when I look at the numbers in your estimate, I see absolutely nothing of this. You simply continue to administer the status quo, otherwise nothing. And that in these times is a fatal policy.

What do the numbers show us? The biggest plus – and generally the only plus worthy of the name – is booked in the Agricultural Social Policy chapter. Sound good? Yes? I certainly see how the Ampel coalition writes this on the flag. It however is a fallacy; since this has nothing to do with your policy. That of course is reflected in the law’s mostly automatically advanced addition. Otherwise said: Here, your ministry certainly has no discretion; these numbers need be reset.

Note well, this plus comes in that there was a powerful minus last year. Here, where you within this chapter in fact have freedom of action, perhaps in regards the funding of the Agricultural Accident Insurance, you have again decided for less expenditures, contrary to the express and now so often repeated demands from the side of the farmers, from the Accident Insurance itself, and from our delegation. You still prefer to hang an additional millstone around the neck of the farmers – in these times, an absurdity.  

If your draft budget is further browsed, it is confirmed: It works according to the principle “left pocket, right pocket”. Many titles are simply re-parked and abbreviated; as for example with the special area plan “Promotion of Rural Development”: Whack – 30 million euros gone. This 30 million euros then lands in insect protection. Who believes that thereby operates any special nature conservation is disillusioned. No, the greater part of the extra expenditure will be employed so as to moderate the extra costs in regards the farmers which arise due to the provisions of the insect protection – the extra costs which you impose on the farmers themselves. Find the error!

A further example are the well-known expenditures for the community exercise “Improvement of Rural Structures and Coastal Protection”, GAK. Here, from the total title, 150 million euros will be withdrawn so as then in the GAK area to re-designate them with the new name of “Animal Welfare Reconstruction” – once again “left pocket, right pocket”. What exactly this new re-naming means, one can only riddle. It appears to me as if generally where “eco” and “animal welfare” is to the fore, a bit of money has been simply shifted so as to manage a little greenwashing – greenwashing: That in the Green doctrine sounds good, yet is fatal for the farmers. The best example of that is provided by the so-called aids for farmers. Here, the aids will be unnecessarily tied to the so-called greening premium. Here, the German government in Brussels is again more papal than the pope. However, it can also therein lie that your priorities are somewhat otherwise set than as with the rest of the population. I thereby mean your statement, Herr Özdemir, “…it may”, meaning hunger, “not be misused as an argument to make cuts in bio-diversity and climate protection”.    

Herr Minister, who in all seriousness puts climate protection ahead of the avoidance of hunger falsely sets his priorities. Something like that is simply destructive.

I certainly do not want to get started on the idling of acreage, the crop rotation and the eternal attendant procrastination, and also not on what this one-time exception with umpteen buts means for the farmers’ planning security.

That the Federal government is completely de-coupled from reality is also shown by your answer to the AfD delegation’s inquiry of a few days ago. Questioned as to the consequences if ever more fertilizer manufacturers close their plants, nevertheless came the serious answer – I cite: The substantial consequences for the domestic agriculture’s fertilizer supply are still not  recognized. The development of the gas prices and the reactions of the fertilizer industry referent to this continue to be closely observed.  

Ladies and gentlemen, for the farmers, that is just bare-faced scorn!

On other pages you plan almost 25 million euros of extra spending for the Agriculture Ministry and the subordinate officials, and all of that after already in June of this year, with the budget for 2022, you prepared an entire 80 million euros extra for this administrative apparatus. That means that in the good half year since you undertook the ministry, the expenditures for your ministry and its subordinate officials alone grew by fully 100 million euros. Those are your real priorities.

Dear Ampel, finally wake up! We are stuck in a crisis, and we cannot permit ourselves to dream and to administer the status quo. Outside in the real world, the prices are going through the roof. Not only the farmers no longer see a future. If here nothing is done,

            Vice-president Yvonne Magwas: Please come to a conclusion.

            Gero Clemens Hocker (FDP): Yes, please!

we will awake in a Germany which we simply cannot imagine.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Rüdiger Lucassen, September 7, 2022, Defense Budget

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/50, p. 5382.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The government puts forward the largest defense budget in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany –  a good 50 billion euros, more than nine times as much as the Ukrainian defense budget before the outbreak of the war. And like every year, we need ask ourselves: What does Germany receive for this money? How defense-ready is our Bundeswehr? To the greatest defense budget since the foundation of the Federal Republic is added the greatest injection of money in the history of the Republic: A 100 billion euro special facility for the armed forces. Yes, Frau Minister, the money is needed. At the same time, this enormous sum shows how greatly the Federal governments of the last two decades have economized and made our armed forces kaputt.

            Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): Yet it was steadily increased!

Now it could be said: Let’s forget it! The Ampel coalition is tackling it – and in fact on February 27 of this year one could have had the impression that the Federal government understands what is now to be done. Chancellor Scholz announced a “change of times” for the Bundeswehr. Yet for a good defense policy is required not only money but primarily capable personnel, determined by the political circumstances, so as to be able to wisely invest this money. And with all respect: Such a personnel I do not see on the government bench.

Frau Minister Lambrecht, Herr Chancellor, the defense budget which you put forward here is a document of failures. Of the enormous sum of 50 billion euros, only 19 percent goes for procurement and innovation. The rest goes to current operations, pay adjustments, supply capacity, material receipts, barracks management, to contractors, or is lost in inflation. The latter hits the area of defense with full force. The 100 billion euro special facility at the end of next year is worth only 90 billion euros, in five years just 62 billion euros. That is the result of your policy.

Ladies and gentlemen, Frau Lambrecht has directly effected that the government has shoved many armament projects onto the special budget. Were I in her place, I would not be proud of that; for she thereby discloses two things.

First. Despite the removal of many investments from the regular budget – over 2.3 billion euros – the total expenditure increases. That means: Still more money for the current operation of a non-mission-ready Bundeswehr.  

Second. The investments from the special facility are increases in the future operations costs; since any equipment you now procure by means of the special facility moreover additionally increases the large portion of operating costs. What the Federal government puts forward here is a ticking time bomb for the Federal budget of coming years.

Herr Chancellor, your change of times is no change of times. You continue to do exactly so as a cabinet minister under Merkel. You have not the power to commission capable personnel and to attempt a structural clearance. Instead, you deceive the public with giant sums of debt, yet the required investments in the build up of the Bundeswehr are lacking. Germany does not thus become more secure and also not more independent.

Ladies and gentlemen, this defense budget is basically an administrative budget. Just 19 percent goes into combat strength and continued development. Frau Lambrecht said in committee: What the soldiers need will be procured, and not what the industry wants to sell. – Yet the converse has occurred.

Gesine Lötzsch (Linke): That’s right. He’s right there!

You order, among other things, additional K-130 corvettes of the so-called Kahrs class, which goes back to a deal of your faded SPD comrade. Yet these corvettes are utterly unfeasible for national and alliance defense. And this is just one example.

The Defense Ministry is apparently incapable of adapting itself to the new situation. You continue to purchase for your failed intervention policy even though the security situation in Europe since 2014 has changed drastically. National and alliance defense is called for. Come about! This defense budget is not suited for that; it is only one thing: More expensive. As a Bundeswehr and and foreign security party, we must reject it.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): The Reichwehr perhaps!

I thank you for your attention.

            Falko Droßmann (SPD): Exactly! Reject any money for the Bundeswehr!                                                Embarrassing, embarrassing! Resign!

 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Martin Hess, September 9, 2022, Islamism and Free Speech

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/52, pp. 5610-5611.

Right honorable Frau President. Dear colleagues.

An Interior Minister who considers her most important duties and wants to guarantee security and protection for the citizens of our country must convincingly conduct a situation analysis free of ideology and then take all necessary measures for the strengthening of domestic security. Yet you, Frau Interior Minister, steadily and persistently do the opposite. If your actions are examined, it need be quite clearly stated: Never before was the office of Federal Interior Minister occupied by a person so ideologically narrow-minded and almost completely ignorant of reality.

Jamila Schäfer (Greens): The opposite is the case!

For example, Islamism. By no one can it be seriously doubted that political Islam and Islamist terror present a massive security danger for our country which must be sternly and resolutely fought.

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): And the AfD!

Yet what does the Interior Minister do? She positively stops the work of the political Islamism experts’ circle at the Interior Ministry. Who previously thought that you were merely incompetent, dilettantish or in other ways over-charged with your office will now be better instructed. You knowingly and willfully reject the effective struggle against Islamism in our country. That is equivalent to a capitulation before the Islamist criminals and you are thus completely intolerable as an Interior Minister.

Just so irresponsible and basically nonsensical is your conduct in the area of migration policy. You continually complain – quite correctly – of the violence against, as named by you, queer persons; yet year by year let tens of thousands of people into our country who on the basis of their mostly Islamist socialization bring and act out exactly this hatred in our country.

Just recently, the trans-man Malte was murdered. The perpetrator was – it meanwhile has become a pattern in our country – a Moslem refugee convicted of violent crimes. Had this violent criminal never been let into the country, or at least had been deported, then Malte would today still be alive. Finally acknowledge this.

And you are warned of the exploding knife crime in our country. Yet what you persistently ignore is that the portion of foreign suspects in Baden-Württemberg is for years over 50 percent. The fact is: Your migration policy worsens day by day the security situation in our country. More effective border protection and deportations are the order of the hour and must now finally be implemented.

Stop continually defaming citizens’ protests. That, by means of the introduction of the field of “Delegitimization of the State Relevant to the Constitution Defense”

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): You are the model for this field!

now nearly every citizen who hard and emphatically criticizes the government can be in danger of being observed by the Constitution Defense, is not acceptable by convinced and upright democrats and must most quickly be corrected.

Julian Pahlke (Greens): You are scared of the Constitution Defense!

For the reasoning that by means of all too sharply formulated criticism of the government trust in the state is lost, is just tendentious. Note one thing: Trust in the state is not lost by criticism of the government, but by your disastrous policy which has catastrophic consequences for the citizens of this country.

If in the autumn and winter, as a result of your wrong decisions, living becomes unaffordable for thousands of citizens, countless firms go bankrupt and unemployment explodes,

            Filiz Polat (Greens): Yet which you want!

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): Yet which you want! It’s your buddy                                           Putin who does that!

then it is the vested, basic right of every citizen of our country to go into the street and certainly in an unsparing and direct form show the red card to the government.

Who defames and even prevents these justified protests as “right-wing extremist”, as you constantly do, yet at the same time welcomes on ideological grounds the actions of Fridays for Future or Black Lives Matter, damages our democracy and conducts herself in a way unworthy of an Interior Minister.

Frau Minister, you are not only an ideologically deluded, security policy wrong-way driver and thereby plainly miscast; no, you are essentially more! You are a danger for domestic security and democracy in our country.

Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): Shamelessness! The AfD is the greatest security risk for our country!

The sooner you resign, the better for us all!

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Bravo! That was a good speech!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Alice Weidel, September 7, 2022, Scholz Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/50, pp. 5321-5323.

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

Thank God the navel-gazing between Herr Merz and the Chancellor is over. They have thereby clearly shown that they lack the gravity for the situation in which our country finds itself. Germany steers into the worst storm since the foundation of the Federal Republic. Millions of livelihoods are in play. Countless citizens are threatened with impoverishment, the Mittelstand economy with collapse, the state finances with permanent ruin. And on the bridge of the ship of state stands the captain of the Titanic who wants to know nothing of icebergs and calms the people with hollow announcements. We have just heard it.

With such a crew, the journey can only end in disaster: A Chancellor who is involved in a tax and finance scandal and can remember nothing; an Economy Minister who fleeces the citizens to give to lobbyists and energy concerns, yet who has no idea at all of economic and technological relationships, and does not know what insolvencies are – as he himself acknowledged yesterday evening in a talk show; a Finance Minister who systematically disguises debts; an Interior Minister who is blind in the left eye, ignores Islamism, and misuses the Constitution Defense as a defense for those of the establishment; a Justice Minister who arbitrarily restricts basic rights; a Health Minister obsessed with a virus who continually gives gives himself over to confusion and nonsense; a Defense Minister who apparently can only be somehow occupied with military equipment if it used as a vacation vehicle; and finally a Green Foreign Minister who promises to stand at the side of the Ukraine, unconcerned by how hard and ruinous the sanctions policy becomes for her own citizens. “All the same, what my German voters think” – that apparently is the motto of this government.

Your oath of office to avert harm from the German people becomes a perjury. Ideological fantasies and arrogant adherence to false decisions are to you more important. The best evidence of that is your obstinate adherence to the disconnection of the last nuclear power plants. You are ruining this country economically so to serve the irrational dogmas of the Green clientele and lobbyists.

You have every reason to fear a hot autumn and winter; for the citizens have every right, Herr Merz, to go into the street against such a government and against such a policy. Naturally they have the right: Galloping inflation, a dying currency, and exploding energy prices mean more than a bit of a freeze for millions of citizens as has been patronizingly announced to them from above. Even for middle class households, it is about existence. They can no longer pay their accounts, their reserves, pension and assistance claims have been furiously devalued. They are threatened with impoverishment and dependence on public assistance; yet that is at an end, as we already today see in the fleecing of taxpayers to the point of extinction. Many, who today are still able to feed their families, will lose their work. Now already, one after another Mittelstand businesses stop production because they can no longer support the energy bill, such as bakeries and fertilizer plants, porcelain and glass makers, foundries and aluminum plants. Inflation and energy crisis are destroying the business Mittelstand­ and the bürgerlichen middle class.

Your relief package besides has nothing for our Mittelstand and for our middle class. You promise supplements which the working people themselves must pay for. You distribute money which multiple times you have taken away from the citizens, and present that as an act of charity. 60 percent of German households need to commit their entire after-tax income to maintain the living standard; for savings, nothing more remains. A savings bank study shows this: You among the Greens need not shake your heads, you simply need to read the study. That you do not want that, and also have no idea of that, you demonstrate that with your politics. If this is the Green economic miracle which was advertised in the election campaign, then thanks for nothing. And your hypocritical appeals and calls for perseverance to the citizens to restrict themselves, to make sacrifices and cold showers, to use wash cloths for the Ukraine, for the energy transition or for the climate, these you can spare yourselves. The people do not want to hear that.  

So as to withstand this crisis, our country needs to address the origins of inflation and energy crisis. Of that, I have heard nothing from you in this discussion. Inflation and energy prices rise for well over a year and a half. Both developments are the direct result of a bad, decades-long policy. The energy crisis is homemade. It is the direct consequence of the energy transition which, with your disconnection mania and horrendous taxes and duties, has artificially made electricity scarce and expensive and led us into a one-sided dependency on Russian natural gas. That is nevertheless the truth. The Greens shall nevertheless do nothing! It is their aspired goal to drive energy costs to the heights and thereby to restrict the demand. That goal you have thereby, ja, now attained.

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): Can you stop screaming so?

The inflation is in addition the result of the ECB’s limitless creation of money and zero interest rate policy for the financing of highly indebted and inflated state budgets. Two and a half years of a lockdown policy and a brainless sanctions policy as a reaction to the Ukraine war have collapsed the house of cards. The consequences are at hand. Only your government does not want to see them and take hold of the corresponding measures. 

First. Taxes must be reduced; a reduction of energy taxes, the added-value and income taxes, elimination of the CO₂ duty and a real elimination and abolition of the unspeakable EEG.

Second. The ECB must be obliged to fulfill its mandate and to concern itself for a stable currency.

Third. State expenditures need to be concentrated on the essentials: Domestic and external security, a securing of the state of law and public order, an end to ideological policy, to clienteles and to money distribution to all the world.

Fourth. Illegal migration and immigration into the social system is already again above the level of 2015. Yet you open the last of the sluices and send new migration signals by means of an almost conditionless naturalization [Einbürgerung].

Fifth. The energy supply needs to be expanded. We need to stop moralizing energy generation and energy imports. That means in clear text: An end to the resource squandering for windpower and photovoltaic. They are not fit for crisis and are not a secure supply. Windpower contributes only a fraction of the installed capacity, nuclear power nearly 100 percent.

Sixth. Normalization of gas imports from Russia and, if necessary, an opening of Nord Stream 2. – Yes, of course.

Seventh. Prolongation of running time for the still active nuclear power plants, reactivation of the recently idled, and naturally the construction of new nuclear power plants. We require nuclear power for a clean, safe and affordable energy.

It’s nice that the CDU also now at last appears to grasp this. Herr Merz, it is your party, which for 16 years danced to the red-green pipe, which we have first of all to thank for this misery. The energy transition into nothing is the result of your policy and of 16 years of Merkel. The continuation of the energy transition and the abuse of the crisis, such as you still enforce, clearly ends in ruin.

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): How many pages still?

The citizens of this country, the working people and the Mittelstand, the industry, require freedom and air to breathe and not ever new prescriptions and manipulation. And they certainly do not require – and not in this situation; it only needs be imagined – a new infection protection law. In most countries, the Corona virus is already being treated like a seasonal viral flu, without a preventive measures chaos, compulsory masks and mandatory vaccination. The law which you want to put to a vote tomorrow makes the state of exception into a permanent arrangement and the restriction of basic rights into a rule. Shame on you!

It is the pauper’s oath for the FDP that it gives itself over to this; a Herr Kubicki has no use for it.

Yet perhaps – it is my hunch – you now already want to secure a pretext so as to forbid demonstrations against your policy through the backdoor of infection prevention. Frau Faeser certainly omits no opportunity to put demonstrations critical of the government in the corner of rightist radicalism.

            Omid Nouripur (Greens): No, no, no! They are there already!

            Till Steffen (Greens): They are there already!

What a declaration of bankruptcy for this government which treads underfoot the freedom of demonstration and opinion!

End the German wrong way drive in Corona, energy and migration policy! Return to the ground of facts! Correct your false politics instead of reaching ever new wrong decisions!

            Till Steffen (Greens): If you want the wrong way drive to end, stop speaking!

- Yes, that’s good in your eyes, the mockery of the Greens! Note that!

The people will take note of how you here react, how this country drives straightaway into the wall as a result of your policy. And if you are unwilling or incapable of changing your course, then please resign; since that would be the best relief package for our country.

 

[trans: tem]