Enrico Komning, July 6, 2023, Maritime Industry and Energy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, pp. 14130-14131. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable Herr Minister. Ladies and gentlemen. Colleagues. Dear visitors from my constituency up in the gallery. 

It was once earlier said: The future is good for us all. – Yet that now is certainly at an end. Your Scholz Zeitenwende [change of times] lacks a “d”; it needs be said, Zeitendwende, if not to say: End times change. 

            Enak Ferlemann (CDU/CSU): Oh Gott!

Ladies and gentlemen, German shipbuilding lies prostrate. The insolvency of the Genting Werften in my home State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions on account of bad political decisions. 50 percent of the entire worldwide ship production meanwhile takes place in China, 40 percent in South Korea. And do you know how high is the portion of German shipbuilding worldwide? I will tell you: At just 0.3 percent. That is the result of your maritime industrial policy, ladies and gentlemen of the Ampel, yet also previously of the Union. 

Investors in droves flee from Germany – see the net 125 billion euro capital flight of last year. With your energy disaster, you drive the still halfway functioning Mittelstand supply industry to foreign countries and into bankruptcy. And what is your idea? A “climate neutral Federal fleet”, an environment symbolic “environmentally friendly sea-going ship design” 

            Lukas Benner (Greens): Super!

and the regulated examination of Federal waterway sluices. Na, hearty congratulations. Your Ampel motion is more a threat than an assistance for the maritime industry. 

Nevertheless, you now want to investigate the adjustment of the import turnover tax collection in other European states. Ja, good morning, ladies and gentlemen! We of the AfD proposed that already in May 2019! You assert keeping as much as possible value creation in country, yet, at the order of the Chancellor, sell off a part of the port of Hamburg to China. The truth nevertheless is that primarily large foreign concerns, which finance Habeck’s lobbyist network, make a fortune, while the people in Germany no more know how they can pay their electric or gas accounts. 

            Felix Banaszak (Green): I am sorry about your constituency.

You promise a growth of 400 gigawatts of offshore wind output in the next 20 years. Herr Westphal presently speaks of an output yielding 8 gigawatts. And in view of the just 38 new installations in the past year with a nominal output of 342 megawatts, that is nevertheless just a dream wish. At that tempo, you need 1200 years instead of 20 years. 

You assert to want to make the seaports into hubs of a renewable energy system, yet build an LNG terminal for expensive and before all dirty U.S. fracking gas in the middle of a nature preserve area at Rügen. Not even your expert, Felix Heilmann, – besides, formerly active for Graichen’s Agora Energiewende – holds that to be a good idea. 

And the Union motion clearly shows how you, ladies and gentlemen of the Union, are as before imprisoned in the woke embrace of the Greens. 

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): We? Since when? Now I do not                                    understand that! 

            Enak Ferlemann (CDU/CSU): That is just ridiculous! 

Colleague Westpahl has also just approved of your motion. The Union motion throughout breathes the insecurity between compliant green obedience and the public pressure of needing just once to play at a little opposition. 

            Christoph Ploss (CDU/CSU): Name for once an example!

The crisis of the maritime industry is the crisis of German industry – a crisis created by all of you. Affordable energy: That is what Germany needs before all. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague, your speaking time                            is at an end.

            Felix Banaszak (Green): Yes, finally! 

And finally put an end to your bureaucracy crusade in unholy alliance with the EU.           

             Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr colleague.

I thank you. Many thanks. 

            Michael Kruse (FDP): Rubbish Comedy Club for free!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kay Gottschalk, July 11, 2023, Cum-Ex

AfD Kompakt, July 11, 2023. 

The transparent and comprehensive investigation of the Wirecard scandal is of great importance. Nevertheless, this presents merely a drop on the hot stone in relation to the explosive tax scandal of 2020. Since the citizens’ trust in the state of law is shaken to the limit and not only due to the latest scandals of the so-called “progressive coalition” of SPD, FDP and Greens. What is more, investigating committees were rejected for the clarification of the attacks on “Nordstream” as well as the Cum-Ex scandals. A motion for the appointment of a “Cum-Ex” investigating committee will again be brought in and decided, presumably in the middle of September. The Ampel’s postponement is the to highest degree alarming, since an appointment before the summer pause would have led to that already possible evidentiary motions are able to be presented so as to summon possible witnesses in September. Investigating committees are the sharpest “sword of the Opposition” and are not allowed to be blunted so as to perhaps destroy possible evidence. 

 

[trans: tem]

Bernd Baumann, July 6, 2023, Criminal Clans

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, pp. 14233-14234. 

Frau President. 

Across all Europe, the consequences of a catastrophic migration policy are setting in. In France, the inner cities burned for one week long. With us, such an outbreak of violence has not yet arrived. Yet migrant violence and parallel societies are long since here also. Example NRW [Nordrhein-Westfalen]: 500 armed men go at one another with iron bars and knives, countless victims lie in the streets with serious wounds. In the midst of our homeland, newly immigrated clans from Syria fight against long established Turkish-Arab clans. It is a fight for territory, a fight for mastery in entire quarters of the city. The Germans can only look on helplessly, they fear what is happening to their homeland. All of you here are to answer for this situation, ladies and gentlemen! 

The latest numbers indeed show: Clan criminality is rising; in Lower Saxony alone around 40 percent in just one year. 

            Dunja Kreiser (SPD): Please use absolute numbers! Absolute numbers!

How could it have come so far? In Germany there is just one, single scholar who for decades  researches the theme of clans: Dr. Ralph Ghadban. He is an Islam researcher and political scientist and himself comes from Lebanon, 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Therefore he is an expert?

the place of origin of many clans. In the past weeks, he was questioned from ARD to ZDF. Ghadban said: The large families or clans form the basic unity of social life in all countries of the Near East and North Africa. Here, a man’s loyalty is directed primarily to his own large family. They thus form complete unities. Ghadban, further: When these large families come to us, then they bring these structures. Perhaps single individuals can still be integrated; in regards complete, large families, that is scarcely imaginable. 

Ghadban himself has lived it – at the end of the 70s, as a social worker – how several of the large families unfortunately developed as criminal. He himself saw how they began their predations; first, in a small grocery store with their, as Ghadban says, herd tactics [Rudeltaktiks]: One diverts the owner, the others rob him. When the police arrive, all are long since gone. Ghadban saw this and warned the Politik. Yet the multicultural fanatics, he said, did not want to acknowledge this, they looked away. – You are responsible for what has happened here!    

The clans learned therefrom: So easily does money come to hand in Germany. Now they rob quite large supermarkets. The criminal police wrote heated letters [Brandbriefe] to the Politik, demanded support. Yet the Politiker did nothing. Worse still: They did not once permit the police to even name the ethnic origin of the perpetrators. That for once needs to be brought forward, ladies and gentlemen. 

That of course strengthened the clans. They now entered into drug dealing, forced prostitution, extortion of protection money, spectacular break-ins, as in the Dresden Grüne Gewolbe. Through open borders, they coalesced into giant mafia organizations with hundreds of thousands of members. They live in luxury villas without ever having worked. They drive ostentatious limousines through German cities while on the side of the road pensioners, who toiled a lifetime, search for bottles in the trash. – What have we come to, ladies and gentlemen? Guilt for this frightening development is borne by those who permit all of this: CDU, SPD, FDP, Greens. Those are the ones responsible! 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): The Linke also.

More than a year ago here I put forward an 18 point plan [Drucksache 20/7576] for fighting the clans. Much of which the criminal police also demanded. Yet all of you here in the Interior Committee rejected every single point. 

Recently, the Interior politician Sebastian Fiedler of the SPD, 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Very good man!

himself a police officer, was asked in a ZDF talkshow: “ Why then have you politicians all the years done nothing about it?” Do you know what he answered? “We all of us simply did not dare to name the thing by name.” 

Herr Fiedler, did not dare? You as a police officer have sworn to defend the population, and as a Member to avert harm from the German people. Here is seen how irresponsible and cowardly the Politik can be. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Do not scream so! 

           Johannes Fechner (SPD): Do not bellow!

Take an example from Herr Ghadban! Ghadban named the thing by name – and for that, needs to live for decades under police protection. His courage shows that many migrants help us in Germany more than all the cowardly governing parties put together! 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): And you harm our country!

            Dunja Kreiser (SPD): Horrible! You can pat yourself on the back if you want.                                        No fine speech!

            Marcel Emmerich (Greens): Impossible!

 

 

[trans: tem]

           

 

 

 

 

 

Alice Weidel, August 16, 2023, Olaf Scholz

AfD Kompakt, August 16, 2023. 

In Germany, failure of the state has a name: Olaf Scholz! The result of the latest survey of the German people’s trust in the state is a ringing slap in the face for Chancellor Scholz and the Ampel government. These office-holding failures of the state ultimately bear the responsibility for that ever more people are losing their trust in our state. All state services and institutions in comparison to last year were evaluated as worse and on the whole miserable. That can and may not so continue! We of the AfD are doing all to reverse these fatal mis-developments. We are putting an end to open borders, escalating criminality, a desolate transport infrastructure and the destruction of Germany as a business venue. 

 

[trans: tem]

Rainer Kraft, July 6, 2023, Emissions Decree

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, p. 14242. 

Esteemed President. Valued colleagues.

 The 31^st decree presented for the enforcement of the Federal emissions protection law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Duty-bound, the protection of labor and environment is addressed, and you promise the new, the healed world. Yet, thought through to the end, your assessment means the zero harm strategy, that the safest workplace is no workplace, and that the most environmentally friendly production is to be a production outside of Germany. 

Chemistry, ladies and gentlemen, chemistry is life; life which you gladly wish to comprehensively control and regulate. Your planned economy shall thereby be in reality implemented by legions of self-named consultants, institutes and agents. You create entirely new job descriptions without any productive activity – to the harm of the entire nation and its citizens who everyday stand at the value-creation front.    

I know, you can only with difficulty imagine; solvents in industry are indispensable. They make possible the manufacture of chemicals, undertake cleaning chores, support the production fabrication, and assist in the optimization of the surface area; in regards corrosion protection, phosphating, chromating, anodization, etching, painting, and in regards to thousands of additional uses which you want to restrict and make more expensive. 

You assert that an intensification of the emissions protection would have no effect on the consumer prices. That – and it needs be said quite clearly – is a lie, and a bad one at that. For of course added certifications cost money. Of course additional expertise costs money. Of course additional bureaucratic positions in Brussels cost money. And of course the unnecessary re-equipment of industrial installations costs money. 

It is the taxpayers’ money which you here, with your dream of an eco-socialist Utopia, throw out the window by the handful. Many, many small and mid-sized businesses require in one form or another simple solvents. What else remains for these businesses as a result of your price hustling than to shift the costs onto their customers? 

As if that were not enough, the product quality will also suffer. The quality of paints and colors will diminish. Metals will rust sooner; woods will more quickly rot. Your reducing plan is the way back to the Dark Ages. That has something to do neither with sustainability nor with environmental protection. It will simply cost money and workplaces. 

We of the AfD say no; no to your irrational fear of everything which human ingenuity and the urge to create has brought forward; no to your agenda hostile to economy and freedom, and no to measures which serve environmental protection only on paper. The Federal emissions protection decree should serve the German people and not put together an additional stimulus program for India or China. We, the AfD, want to export goods, not workplaces. We reject the decree.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

  

 

 

Klaus Stöber, July 6, 2023, Business Tax Reform

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, pp. 14107-14108. 

Right honorable Frau President. Valued colleagues. Dear guests in the gallery. 

I first want to express my gratitude to the CDU/CSU, that they have brought this theme into plenary session. Yet the fact is that we on the Finance Committee have concerned ourselves far too little with the theme of taxes. 

Some have thereby appeared to forget that without tax revenues simply nothing here could get underway: Frau Baerbock could not give away millions in foreign countries; for the EU, we would fail to be the most important payer of contributions; and even the grandiose subventions and ostensible grants, which you here in connection with the heating law wanted to distribute, would simply be impossible. Yet the heating law has,  ja, just now been taken down from the daily order by the Federal Constitutional Court. I think that was a good decision. 

The question is naturally: Do the citizens perceive the present tax system as just, and does the high tax burden restrict the competitiveness of our country? I find interesting in this connection a look at the tax rates in international comparison: Bulgaria, 10 percent; Hungary, nine percent; Lithuania, 15 percent; Roumania, 16 percent; Czechia and Poland, 19 percent; and Greece, 22 percent. 

When one looks in comparison at who are the principal receiver countries within the EU, one sees: They are precisely the same countries which are on this list. It is thus interesting that the countries which exact the least taxes from their citizens are those receiving the most money from the EU. That means we are in principle financing the tax programs of the European countries. And that, I think, is not the purpose [Sinn] of the EU. 

It is thus not to be wondered that Germany as principal payer with around 22 billion euros net has comparatively the highest tax burden. And here also, in answer to the big question, is referral to the minimum tax of 15 percent not helpful; for if you have comprehended the tax rates which I have just read out, you may see: Most already lie well nigh at or above the limit of 15 percent. Which corresponds exactly to this corporation tax which we have in Germany. 

Only, what you always ignore: In Germany – which is unique in Europe – besides the corporation tax, we even pay an excise tax [Gewerbsteuer], and the excise tax of course clearly drives the total tax rate of businesses to the heights. We are then overall at around 30 percent, and that is the highest value in Europe. It especially most harshly affects the Mittelstand economy. 

While France last year clearly reduced its business tax rate, we here in Germany are far distant from that. The excise tax is a foreign body in international tax comparison. If we want to reconstruct the competitiveness, we need to reform or even abolish this. I know, the excise tax is the principal source of budget income for many local governments. On that account, we of course need to find adequate instruments; for example, a higher participation of the local governments in the income tax and in the sales tax [Umsatzsteuer]. That would essentially help in local governments; for we have just seen in regards Corona that even the business tax has a high variability, and therefore the local governments have naturally met with greater difficulties.   

Now of course Schlaumeier could say: Each businessman can himself freely choose whether he founds a GmbH [limited liability company] or a sole proprietorship. Right, yes. Yet a sole proprietorship of 63,000 euros income is already at the top tax rate of 42 percent, and that again in the European mean is the top value. 

We thus require no continual poking around in whichever existing system; we require a unified business tax [Unternehmenssteuer], independent of legal form, which relieves especially small- and mid-sized businesses. We require a distinct increase in the basic allowance, a distinct extension of the rates table in which the top tax rate is very much later implemented, and we require, before all things, a simplification in tax law and the abolition of many special cases. Here, I gladly invite you to get underway in common with us a real business tax reform. 

Many thanks.

            Kay Gottschalk (AfD): A very good speech! 

 

[trans: tem]