Rainer Kraft, April 10 2024, Energy Policy and Politics

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/162, pp. 20812-20813. 

Right honorable President. Valued colleagues. 

After many errors and confusions, the Union again professes nuclear power. This could be debated long, wide and sarcastically. Yet I simply leave it and say: Welcome back to the rational side of German energy policy. 

This is besides an energy policy represented by the AfD since 2013, thus from the time of our formation. Your obligatory expressions for an acknowledgment of the renewables of course still appear in a motion, yet have already retired from your demands, and that is a step forward. Finally recognized is that a reliable and economic electricity supply with contingent energies, dependent on season and weather, is not feasible, and is thus a risk for Germany as a business venue. 

Herr Träger, last weekend, electricity customers needed to pay up to 56 euros per megawatt-hour in electricity disposal costs so that the German excess electricity production could be dumped in foreign countries. 

Generally, a comparison with foreign countries, for example France which you so readily criticize, is eye-opening. German is faced with around 500 billion euros in system integration costs for the massive construction of the network. France does not need this construction. France will not need a hydrogen core network for 20 billion euros. 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Nevertheless!

France does not need 16 billion euros every 20 years for large electricity storage facilities. And electricity disposal costs for excess electricity no French electricity customer will ever need pay. 

            Beatrix von Storch (AfD): Hear, hear!

Yet what France does have, Herr Träger, are emission values of around 20 grams CO₂ per kilowatt-hour of electricity. I venture in this place a prognosis: With your energy policy, Germany will never achieve this value. 15 million tons of CO₂ – for the science-adverse Ampel coalition, the most dangerous substance on Earth – since the final exit from nuclear power in 2023 will each year additionally be emitted in the German energy sector. 

             Harald Ebner (Greens): Wrong! Wrong! Less than ever!

To 2030, that will total up to around 90 million tons of CO₂. For the Ampel, it’s all the same. 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): No, that’s simply not right! Fake news!

Dear colleagues of the SPD, Greens and FDP, finally admit that, for you, CO₂ emissions are all the same! For you, it’s only about an ideology, business nepotism for the re-distribution of tax billions, and the patronizing of the citizens. Throughout Europe, the hydrogen preliminary projects are dying:           

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Remain with the atom!

Lately, the H₂ Sines Rotterdam project in the billions; earlier, the German lighthouse project “West Coast 100” in Heide. Other projects like Uniper in Rotterdam are put off for the present. Nevertheless, billions in tax monies, provided for in means of promotion, die in one project after another. Yet in the BMWK [Economy and Climate Ministry], one continues to ride the dead hydrogen horse. 

It is thus right and important that the Union sees it as does the AfD, and that the society-splitting firewall falls in the energy policy. Doubts are nevertheless brought up, dear Union. The Union demands forbidding the decommissioning until a new government can conclusively clarify the question. It naturally needs be said more precisely: Until a new Chancellor and his coalition partner decide this. Since it well needs be asked, dear Union. How, with a Green coalition partner, do you want to introduce the fundamental, required change of direction in the German energy policy? 

Dear Union, if you seriously mean it with the return of nuclear energy and an end of the catastrophic green energy policy, then one thing is clear: The firewall must go! 

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Oje, oje!

To sum up. Dear colleagues, your motion goes in the right direction. We agree with it, even if it is faint-hearted and lets miss precisely what this country in the present economic situation urgently requires: A basic avowal for a fundamental, long-term and reliable change of direction in the German energy policy. Since the contingent energies with immense integration costs do not deliver what our industry and citizens need. You thus have a choice: Either you sell out the welfare of our country in an ideological coalition with the Greens, or you decide for cooperation in energy policy with the AfD. 

 

[trans: tem]

Markus Buchheit, March 26, 2024, Compulsory Refurbishment of EU Buildings

EU Parliament, Written Question to the Commission, E-000948/2024. 

The Commission has ordered the compulsory refurbishment of all public buildings in the EU. 

Can it therefore say which of its own or rented buildings in Brussels and Luxembourg, and those of its delegations and agencies, meet which energy standards? 

How much will refurbishment cost until single-glazed glass fronts, revolving doors, open garage entrances and draughty gaps between window panes and frames all meet the highest level of insulation it has prescribed?

Peter Boehringer, March 21, 2024, Debt Brake

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20611-20612. 

Frau President. 

For the umpteenth time the Linke wants to abolish the debt brake, this time disguised as a “reform”. Meant, however, is the cold abolition; Herr Görke was certainly at least honest. Since 2020, we clearly have a great coalition of all old parties for a boundless making of debt. In addition, we know that the tax money will not be sufficient for the government even in 2025. And the SPD’s speaker has confirmed that a great left-green debt coalition thoroughly sympathizes with this “reform”, or with the abolition idea. 

What does the Linke now concretely propose? In the future, a “transition phase” of precisely one year shall increase the possible excess indebtedness, which diametrically contradicts what the Federal Constitutional Court permitted just last November: Very clearly, a setting aside of the debt brake only for the year of a catastrophe itself. Any time exceeding a year was explicitly forbidden by the Federal Constitutional Court. That does not interest the leftist writers of the motion. 

In the motion’s second demand, the single hard guideline of Article 115, namely the structural deficit limit of 0.35 percent of GDP, shall be annulled. That however would be no “reform” of the debt brake, but a material alteration of the Basic Law’s wording, which may not proceed with a simple motion but only with a law to amend the Constitution with a two-thirds majority. The motion is thus also badly written. 

With the third demand, the besides already highly mathematical finding procedure for the debt brake’s business cycle component shall be still further complicated. Who for once takes a rudimentary look at the formulation [Formelwelt], and the arbitrary scope of valuation which will be used for this calculation, knows that a self-indebted government chronically short of money can thereby vastly exceed the permitted limit of indebtedness – even today. The aim of the Linke, to receive still “greater fiscal scope”, as it is in the motion, is thus absurd, since this scope today already is enormous. 

Clearly, the terms in Article 115 of the Basic Law are very spongy. There are therein named arbitrary expectations without clear deduction criteria, free of parameters as a result of unclear entities, certain cyclical norms, gaps in production, estimates of potential and cyclical settlement procedures, all without binding definitions. And the number in the end will determined by technocratic procedures and legal decrees. 

Dear Linke, you should here just simply love the already existing planned economy, instead of wanting to reform it. Precisely that of course already is your vulgarized Keynesian theoretical model of a world. Simply enjoy it as long as you are still permitted to sit here and play with a national economy. 

Many thanks. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Nothing missed there!

 

[trans: tem]

 

Christine Anderson, March 20, 2024, Democracy Promotion Act

EU Parliament, Written Question to EU Commission E-000861/2024. 

Germany is in the process of bringing in a ‘Democracy Promotion Act’ designed to establish additional tools for promoting democracy. There are considerable concerns, however, as regards the act’s constitutionality and whether or not it runs counter to the EU’s core values. The criticism centres around potential government overreach and the creation of structures that threaten to curtail the freedom and independence of civil society in breach of the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). 

1. What is the Commission’s assessment of the compatibility of Germany’s Democracy Promotion Act with the EU Treaties, particularly in view of the reservations raised by the Bundestag’s parliamentary research service concerning its potential unconstitutionality and violations of the EU’s core values laid down in Article 2 TEU? 

2. Does it consider there to be a risk that the Democracy Promotion Act would quieten or silence opposition voices and critical civil society representatives? How does this square with the principles of freedom of expression and democratic pluralism enshrined in the EU Treaties? 

Beatrix von Storch, March 21, 2024, Internet Censorship

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20448-20449. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The DDG [Digital-Dienste-Gestez] implements the EU’s Digital Services Act: EU-wide internet censorship. The Ampel has decided that for this censorship the Federal Network Agency is responsible and coordinates it. No joke: The officials, who hitherto have regulated the transmission and competition in the gas and electricity network, are also responsible for on-line censorship, 

            Tabea Rössner (Greens): A lie! Impudent! 

instead of, for example, the Federal Justice Ministry. 

At the top stands Klaus Müller, former Green minister from Schleswig-Holstein, exactly so as his Green chief, Robert Habeck. Green clique! Yet before the law is at all in effect, Herr Müller openly threatened in January 2024 – cite: 

“When I catch anyone the second or third time…then I need to say with all distinctness: The Digital Services Act then has very sharp teeth.” 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): That’s right!

The threat is not a fabrication. Herr Müller or the coordinating office at the Federal Network Agency can impose penalty payments against on-line platforms which do not sufficiently censure. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Are you nervous on that account?

Six percent of the worldwide daily revenue, millions of U.S. dollars in penalties – without being imposed by a court. Ergo: The platforms will censor, and the Green coordinating office will therein no doubt give rise to what is to be censured. 

             Tabea Rössner (Greens): Such idiocy I’ve never heard!

For a brutal deletion practice by the platforms suffices this danger of penalties in the millions. 

Yet the coordinating office may do much more than what a judiciary or police in a state of law may do: Conduct investigations, gather evidence, hear witnesses, examine witnesses, inspect places of business without a court order, seize property up to three days without court authorization. And for support, the coordinating office is allowed to name civil law organizations for so-called trustworthy whistle-blowers [Hinweisgebern] whose indications of censorship [Zensurhinweise] are to be preferably implemented. We all know who that is. Stasi Kahane for laughing no longer sleeps. This army of leftist on-line denouncers shall cull and report disliked opinions, and the data of people of wrong opinion will then be passed on to the BKA [Federal Criminal Office]. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): So that you cannot thereby spread all your hatred!

This law paves the way to a digital police state. 

            Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): No smaller does it get now!

For that, the Ampel now massively arms the BKA. Money is there, but not for the fight against organized criminality, clans or terrorism, but so as to persecute expressions of opinion on the internet. The number of officials in the reporting office shall be increased more than ten times from today’s 39 to 430. And the BKA states on page 64 of the proposal, Herr colleague Mordhorst, 

            Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP): Preamble, Frau von Storch! That is not the text                        of the law! 

that the test cases [Prüffälle] will increase by more than a hundred times, from 6,000 to around 720,000. The overwhelming majority of test cases will affect blameless citizens who have been denounced by the left-green on-line Stasi. 

Who on Facebook insults Habeck’s heat pump is – Schwupp – a test case for the BKA. Hundreds of BKA officials need to occupy themselves with that. 

You use this proposal from Brussels for your ideological fight against all and anyone who is not left. The more its backing in the population dwindles, the more the Ampel employs surveillance, intimidation and repression – see the Democracy Promotion Act. 

            Renate Künst (Greens): You need to pay attention that the features do not slip!

This state has lost every measure, writes the NZZ [Neue Zürcher Zeitung]. With this coordinating  office, it creates a Green species of directed censor officials; and proudly writes, they are completely independent. That means, they are without any democratic control. This censorship monster belongs in no democracy. On that account, all democrats will today reject this attack on our free democratic basic order. 

Many thanks. 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): What do you want then?

 

[trans: tem]

 

Gunnar Beck, March 11, 2024, Climate Excommunication

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV(2024)03-11(1-242-0000). 

In 1633, the Inquisition excommunicated Galileo for helio-centrism – that is to say, for his renunciation of a Church dogma that the Sun circles around the Earth. Last month, ECB director Elderson threatened all co-workers with discharge who – cite – “deny the reality of solely man-made climate change, or that the climate change endangers the price stability.” 

Now, as a conservative, I rejoice over anyone who believes that earlier was much better. However, the ECB should preferably exchange its climate inquisitors for good economic historians, who know that not the climate change but the expansion of the money supply accelerates the inflation, just as Hans de Witte and Wallenstein managed it without limit in Galileo’s time. For its climate dogma and monetary policy are the greatest hocus-pocus in Europe since the geo-centric world view. 

 

[trans: tem]