Peter Boehringer, September 13, 2024, Delayed Bankruptcy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/186, p. 24196. 

Frau President. 

Following this week’s debates, it is increasingly confirmed: The government attempts everything to drag itself through to the autumn of 2025. And furthermore, no clarity is created for the central questions of the draft budget. 

How perchance should one deal with the giant gaps in the two fully distinct military estimates? For one with the regular costs for a Bundeswehr for the defense of Germany: Legitimate expenditures, yet even today and first of all, quite unclearly financed in the finance planning time frame. For another with the expenditures for misguided foreign missions, primarily for the Ukraine war which in addition is not our war. Billions in costs for direct and indirect German participation in war, concealed by an EU peace facility, a 50 billion EU Ukraine facility and in a Federal budget by the so-called post-procurement [Nachbeschaffung] of material, which however means nothing other than the physical donation of Bundeswehr material for use at a foreign front. German weapons will be given to Zalenskyi and then post-procured; that is in x places in the budget: Pro forma for the Bundeswehr. Here, the Bundeswehr is misused as a transshipment warehouse for an unfortunate and lost war which needs to be solved diplomatically. 

Then your sustainability budget for 2024. That the Ampel on account of the fully “unexpected” worsened business cycle still brings in the autumn of the current year a sustainability budget is a novelty in the history of budgets. Thereby will now be obtained the indebtedness margin, increased 11 billion euros by purely technical formula, ten months after the issuance of the original budget. That is not serious, particularly as the Ampel embezzles transaction proceeds from the sale of the Bund’s silverware – over 4.1 billion euros –, simply illegal in the accounting, so that then the debt brake will no longer be observed for the fifth year in a row. 

Colleague Bury plainly said something correct, and for another reason is this budget again not constitutional. 

The Ampel here besides profits from the evil fruits of its own policy. Since of course the origins of the worsened economic activity were the years-long oppressive and fraudulent Corona preventive measures, the world’s dumbest energy policy, and the omnipresent, false incentive which you set above all with the planned economy CO₂ religion. Only that allowed you, on the basis of the somewhat questionable debts logic of Article 115 of the Basic Law, to today also obtain an extra 11 billion. 

There still continues to be some billions in risks in the budget which you yourselves have created. The risk of still further excess EEG compensations due to the planned economic guaranty price, the risk of a further exploding citizens’ wage [Bürgergeld], the risk of an abolition of the solidarity surtax, soon to be prescribed by the Constitutional Court, of course also the risk of a dramatically broken down economy. In the auto industry, that risk is already a reality. In July 2024, an orders breakdown of minus 29 percent vis-à-vis the previous year was to be written down; in regards E-autos, even a minus 69 percent in comparison with the previous year’s month. 

The Ampel apparently just plans precisely until the election date in September 2025. With you, it is therein clear, even if you deny it, that at the precise point after September 2025 there will be no more money. Any new Finance Minister will need to immediately order a budget embargo. Or then the Ampel or a successor perhaps proclaims yet again an emergency situation, so as to be able to conceal and compensate their own self-made budget emergency yet again by means of an ostensible external catastrophe? That is not academic. The coalition’s speakers in this week have explicitly not denied a new budget emergency on the basis of – cite Habeck – a historical struggle in the Ukraine. Whenever those governing trouble themselves over the pathos of endurance and historical dimensions, it becomes dangerous and expensive for the citizens. 

Yet then Herr Habeck also says what for an Economy Minister is a legendary sentence: The “Budget is not the center of the world”. Indecent numbers are thus to the Economy Minister all the same, – unbelievable! – all the same to him also is presence at this budget debate. 

The Ampel in any case is from the summer of 2025 no longer interested in the entire misery; Germany unfortunately still needs to be interested. In business, delayed bankruptcy is a criminal act; in this government, a common practice. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, September 11, 2024, Government without a People

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/184, pp. 23875-23876. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen. 

75 years Basic Law, 75 years German Bundestag – with the attempt of a celebration yesterday – and 75 years Federal Republic of Germany. The year of jubilees following the straining, successful years of construction in west and in east, after years of Cold War, the east-west conflict – and now 35 years after the fall of the Wall, the Ampel Federal government fights only for the hold on power, we again have war in Europe, and the people’s trust in the political leadership sinks incessantly. You can now again say: The AfD only pushes doom-saying and has no concept. – With that however, you would fall short of the necessary self-criticism. For I want to yet again state one thing: For the desolate situation in Germany, you alone on the government bench bear the responsibility. 

For a re-appraisal of the election results, let us take a look at the east of the Republic. In the 35^th year after the fall of the Wall, the  portion of the eastern Germans amounts to 19 percent, and the portion of eastern Germans in top positions in business, administration, science and media is presently at 1.7 percent. The economic situation still differs immensely, as well in regards to  pensions and incomes – and for women and men – as in regards investments in the economic area. That the lives of eastern Germans differ from those in the west, we know. Therefore has this Federal government again called upon an eastern commissioner, Herr Schneider. And here I ask myself, Herr Schneider – in this debate, it’s certainly about eastern Germany: What actually do you contribute to this debate? The citizens in the east are continually denigrated, tutored and not taken seriously. Herr Merz thinks more needs be explained in the east than in the west, and he gladly does this. Frau Esken does that every day on the television. You treat the people in the east like difficult to teach citizens, and actually understand nothing. 

The elections in the east thus have shown – and this you really should take seriously – eastern Germany is the thermometer of the Federal Republic. The denigration besides is related to the Green system. Massively punished by the voters in eastern Germany, you overtook not the least responsibility, but denigrate the opposition. Proposals even so as persons and parties are defamed and placed in the extremist corner. You also denigrate the voters and sympathizers. You thereby damage democracy. 

You no longer at all want to take up with or win over the people. What then are your goals? For you, what actually should Germany be in 10, 20 or 50 years? The current legislature still has exactly twelve months. Three-quarters of your time you have consumed so to drive our country into the wall and de-industrialize it with your mal-economic climate change policy. Your overflowing ideology intervenes in everyone’s private sphere, even when it is certainly not wanted. Your policy wants that we should all bathe less, heat less, eat less meat and drive less with combustion autos. 

            Anja Reinalter (Green): Perhaps more education!

You want to regulate with whom we meet – see the Corona times – and what we think. And when we do not obey, we are divided into good and evil. 

Your concept for the budget deficit is non-existent. Despite that, non-work and feedings will be ramped up. I ask myself: Why actually should the citizens still pay for all that? Moreover arrives a zero growth economy and special debts – in regards, named by you, “special assets” – inflation, price increases for consumer goods and for energy; end consumer prices decrease, if at all, slowly. The citizens are bound by contracts, and need for long to bear the high costs. Not to forget: There is an energy deficit as a result of a deficient supply of nuclear energy and advantageous gas from Russia. 

The infrastructure is exhausted for transportation – we’ve seen it early today in Dresden where bridges collapse – for education, for example in regards the lack of teachers, or for the healthcare system. The hospital reform shall be brought underway with all ministerial power, and be borne on the backs of the citizens, the contribution payers. Doctors continue to be missing. Contributions to the statutory sickness insurance, and also the added costs of wages, continue to rise incessantly. 

Lamya Kaddor (Green): Ask yourself why doctors are missing!

The reappraisal of the Corona time is for long not at all pursued; and, if so, then insufficiently. All of that is unacceptable. On the other hand, only our delegation and party concerns itself across parliaments. 

And I ask again: When finally will an audit be made? Since the beginning of this legislature, I remind for examination how much money we actually, concretely make available for which expenditures. Since we definitely have sufficient state income. Let us look at the numbers: In the year 2014, thus just ten years ago, tax income contributed 296 billion euros to state income. Just ten years later, we are meanwhile at 489 billion euros of state income. And nevertheless the money does not suffice: We nevertheless need to take up 50 billion euros in new debt, at the cost of our children and grandchildren. That is an absolutely irresponsible policy of this Ampel government. 

In addition to that, since 2015 around 300,000 people – good, well-educated skilled labor, Germans – have left our country; Herr Merz has correctly addressed it, he has nevertheless scarcely described the causes. Those are meanwhile almost three million people who in the last nearly ten years have gone. In this time, the CDU and CSU besides also governed. Immigration can never compensate for that. 

In addition, the costs for the state and taxpayer are higher when the immigrant persons initially need to be educated in language, culture and expertise. Primarily, I ask: By whom then? A successful and for both sides well done migration is of course not in the interest of the Ampel government. Your hyper-morality and your values compass have led you completely into error. Go into the States, simply speak with your party friends at the basis. Form a comprehensive opinion, and finally correct the expensive failures of your policy. 

It’s about Germany, our Heimat, and our citizens. We pursue a goal-directed immigration, but no immigration into the social system. The presently active, arbitrary and purposeless policy has not helped the German economy. On the contrary: You have even set and raised false expectations. 

Yet even to the people who come to Germany, the real skilled labor, you offer no perspective at all. In that regard, we certainly do not speak of asylum themes. Your policy enjoins violence and death. You have managed that migration not only has become the theme of the summer of 2024; much more, migration is connected with nearly all political fields: Domestic security and foreign policy, diplomatic relations, labor and social policy, economic and financial policy, etc. etc. 

In all named political fields, you can show since 2021 as good as nothing, no success. Germany and thereby the German Bundestag are after three years of Ampel government ridiculed in foreign countries, and in the country treated by our own people with more than great doubts. You are a government without a people. 

Nevertheless, humility and insight belong exactly as little to the great ones of this Federal government as does the honest dealing with Germany’s difficult situation. From economic leaders, Herr Habeck has made us into economic losers. Your attempts at policy have failed, Herr Habeck. The businesses run away and close the plants in Germany. 

You have overburdened this country, the businesses and the tradesmen. Obvious losses you take without further ado. Obvious gaps will be stopped up and plastered over with tax money, subventions, special debts. You and your policy offer the citizens in Germany no perspective. We require a conscientious dealing with all resources, with the people even so as with Nature. Your absolute and narrow-minded approaches and bans split the society, drive the citizens (those who can afford it) out of the country, and thereby destroy the social peace in your own country. 

It is the same with the Ukraine theme: Weapons deliveries, construction assistance, and no investments in a rapid end of the war, further escalation and a rhetorical fight for war and against peace. I therefore say to you: Continue to do it exactly so. Try to continue so indecently to hold fast to your power, and defame the opposition. Continue to play the master teacher, and denigrate the citizens in the east. Your credibility will further dwindle, day by day. You thus simulate policy for its own sake and against the citizens’ interests. We want in common to make policy for the citizens at home and for Germany’s interests. For we, the AfD, are the future. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, September 11, 2024, Economy, Immigration, Democracy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/184, pp. 23858-23861. 

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

Almost three weeks have passed by since the horrific, terrorist knife attack by a rejected Syrian asylum applicant in Solingen. Ten days have gone by in the country since the crushing election defeat in Saxony and Thüringen which has degraded your Chancellor party to a splinter party. 

You still want to make believe that the voters run away from you in droves because you did not well enough explain to them your policy. The opposite is the case: The citizens have quite sufficiently grasped that your policy means prosperity destruction, de-industrialization, mass migration, and loss of domestic security. You are the Chancellor of decline, Herr Scholz. 

For the erosion of Germany as an industrial nation also stands the decline of Volkswagen. For the ostensible climate protection, you destroy the German economy. Yet the Volkswagen disaster is only the tip of the iceberg. The statistics record 500,000, a half million unemployed since you overtook the government. That is a hundred thousand families, millions of people who need to fear for their future. 

It affects all branches, especially the automobile industry and all that depends on it. Supplier ZF eliminates up to 14,000 positions. At SAP, 10,000 jobs fall away, at Ford 4,600, at Bosch 3,760, at Bayer 3,200, at BASF 3,300, at Michelin 1,500, at Miele 1,300, at Continental 1,200. The most resonant names axe workplaces in Germany and remove them to foreign countries because they are no longer competitive here. 

Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Which of those which you have counted up have been threatened by Herr Höcke?

The list becomes daily longer. Thyssenkrupp’s steel branch proves to be unmarketable because it is uneconomic, and stands before the downfall. 27,000 workplaces are in danger. The number of insolvencies in July reached a ten-year high, 40 percent more than in the previous year. A dramatic balance, and it is your balance, Herr Scholz. 

Your Heat Pump Minister Habeck, whom I miss here today – where actually is Minister Habeck at this debate? – 

            Saskia Esken (SPD): He has Corona!

– wants to compel the threatened private households to pay for the politically demanded demolition of perfectly functioning gas networks. 

The budget which you have put forward after many vain starts is as dilettante and cobbled together as your entire coalition government. You take from the citizens tax money and duties in record sums, and despite that nothing comes. You pile up mountains of debt and for you it does not suffice. To say it clearly: This budget is an insolence and a frivolity not to be surpassed. 

While you seek to soothe the citizens with alibi politics and migration summits, everyday ever more knife attacks and rapes by migrants occur. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): By rightist radicals, too!

You celebrate, shortly before the State legislative elections, an absurd luxury deportation of an entire 28 most serious Afghan criminals and on the way endow them with a princely pocket money of 1,000 euros. That is two years wages for an Afghan: 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Unbelievable!

The pay for murder and rape and a further invitation for illegal migration. 

At the same time, the Federal Interior Ministry under Nancy Faeser finances a portal which in newspeak calls for tips and tricks against its own authority so as to elude deportations. This Federal government sabotages deportations in that, at the cost of the taxpayer, it allots residency permits for legal residence opportunities and creates additional legal assistance for those obliged to leave. The Solingen assailant could for months evade his return to Bulgaria because a Green Minister thwarted deportations and a CDU Minister-president indulged her. More than half the year, the taxpayer works for the state which entices illegal migrants into the country and robs the citizens of the security which it owes to them. 

The Solingen victims would still live and be uninjured, had those responsible acted according to law and statute. That is to say, first and foremost, not to just let illegal migrants into the country, but to close the borders and turn back everyone who wants to break into Germany without a legal claim and without papers – not temporarily, but forever! 

That is besides no option, that is a legal obligation which you have. Article 16A of the Basic Law clearly says: Those entering from secure third states have no claim to asylum. §18 of the asylum law states that the turning back of these illegals is not only permissible but ordered. No European legal obligations sets this regulation – 

Can you behind me speak a bit more softly? Yes, it does disturb. That, we do not do. 

            Dorothee Bär (CDI/CSU): How thin-skinned you are! 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): You are screaming!

Thus: No European legal – 

With you, it’s the purest kindergarten, and the next election is coming! – 

For a third time, I begin so that you may know the law: No European legal regulation disempowers that. No sovereign state can be compelled to tolerate entries counter to its law and its intent. 

And then came a CDU Kanzlerin. This Kanzlerin nine years ago wiped away with a stroke of the pen this applicable law and established the rule of injustice which has ruined Germany. It is thus all scrap paper which the CDU tells you today, and Herr Merz will later tell. 

The CDU’s  Realpolitik we besides see in Berlin. Here, in CDU-governed Berlin, the number of naturalizations explodes. There are few rejections of those seeking naturalization: 60 percent more naturalizations in Berlin in the first eight months of this year than in the entire previous year. So looks the CDU policy! 

Mass migration and a migration policy renunciation of control have deadly consequences. We need the migration change, and indeed immediately! 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Yet you want deportations!

Non-Germans grab a knife six times more and commit sexual crimes seven times more than German citizens. Thus has the chief of the Federal Police, Romann, summarized the situation. 

Since 2017, as stated in the BKA numbers, more than 52,000 women are victims of a sexual crime by asylum migrants. The principal countries of origin: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq. The numbers of gang rapes last year rose to 761, more than two of these horrific crimes every day. Of the 209 gang rapes in the State of Nordrhein-Westfalen are almost three-quarters of the suspects non-Germans or have a declared migration background. Around two-thirds of the suspects in criminal bands are non-Germans. What are you waiting for? Finally deport these criminals! 

Against exploding migrant criminality, only immediate, robust measures help: A strict moratorium for immigration, a stop of reception and naturalization of all migrants for at least five years and no naturalization of people who are dependent on our social system, a closure of the borders, a turning away of all illegals without exception, an immediate identification of all illegals and criminals, limitation of all financial, legal and social state incentives, benefits in kind instead of money, and finally the overhaul of the asylum law. That, a responsible, AfD-led government would do now. 

You all in the last years have driven forward the migration policy failures of the state. Still more: You have stamped out the way of reason and instead divided society. You have systematically defamed critics and, with noxious comparisons and wicked scatological and Nazi language, dehumanized and set the secret service on them. Herr Hofreiter of the Greens, with his demand to ban the platform X, has shown the hateful grimace of the totalitarian malignant spirit which you command. 

That is also to say: You hold freedom of opinion to be more dangerous than the boundless import of murderers and terrorists. Instead of seeking in fair arenas the best solution, 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Fair? That doesn’t go together with the AfD!

you rob the opposition of important parliamentary rights. To this day, you deny to us due positions in the Bundestag praesidium, in decisive bodies, in the committees. You thereby rob six million voters of their full parliamentary representation. You are those who truly scorn democracy and the state of law. 

With threadbare manipulations, your comrades in Saxony and Thüringen want to continue this election fraud and, with all means, keep the power, to which a third of the voters have given a quite clear mandate, away from the government and its rights. Your democratic middle, which you constructed for that, is as democratic as the middle D in the DDR. In the election campaign, the CDU copied from the AfD, yet rejected all of our motions – comical – and after the election they close ranks with the leftist unity front. 

Yet that changes nothing of our resolution, in the interest of our country, to put a stop to this grotesquerie, and at the latest in the next election period which hopefully does not just begin in a year. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Where? In Switzerland or here?

Since Germany can no longer wait so long for reforms, and so long may our country no longer endure it [und so hält das unser Land auch nicht mehr aus]. Who wants authentic change and reforms, votes for the Alternative für Deutschland. 

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]

Enrico Komning, July 5, 2024, Coal

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/182, 23650-23651. 

Right honorable Frau President. My ladies and gentlemen colleagues. Dear Herr State Minister. Right honorable Herr State Secretary. My ladies and gentlemen of the Union. 

Herr State Minister, there is no overall social consensus for a withdrawal from coal. That is an illusion. That is a fairy tale. And it hurts me so: The Union tells these tales in tune with the left-greens. 

This coal withdrawal is a political project by-passing the people, primarily the people in the eastern German coal regions. The structural change, other than in the Ruhr, is not organic, not a result of technological progress, but solely a result of political intent. And the worst of it is: You of the Federal government have no concept. You come with the wrecking ball and then leave the people standing in front of the dump. 

Johannes Ardt (SPD): Och!

The Ampel would even most preferably move up the withdrawal to 2030. What you do here is irresponsible, dear Federal government. The people in the region need security, and not fear of the future. 

The decision for a coal withdrawal was a fatal failure. We need the coal, at least until we again have extensive gas- and, before all, nuclear-power plants. Look for once at how many coal power plants were in the network at the end of 2020, before the final atomic exit. There were 74. And today? Today it is 130. And in 2022 were just three nuclear power plants in the network. Your withdrawal from nuclear power made Germany still more dependent on coal, and now even that shall go. You transform Germany back into the Stone Age. 

In terms of climate technology, the withdrawal is completely superfluous. The total output from the German coal power plants contributed about 40 gigawatts. That is clearly less than China alone in the year 2023 started in new coal power capacity. Germany, with this government, is for no one in this world a model – on the contrary: The other countries just laugh over this energy nonsense. 

To the Union’s motions. Some of it, what is in the motions, – independent of the coal withdrawal – is, ja, reasonable; for example, the construction of the rail infrastructure. Nevertheless, it well needs be asked: Who deconstructed the rail infrastructure? That was the case under the aegis of the Union. 

            Sepp Müller (CDU/CSU): Just look at the record books!

Yet it is right to build up the rail infrastructure. Establishments from research centers: Right. And it is also right to create a highly qualified employment structure. 

The mainstay of the economy in the coal region in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thüringen is however the Mittelstand, especially small and very small business, manufacturing businesses. An attractive trades economy would be an authentic jobs motor. Finally free the trades from the Ampel bureaucracy! That would be more sensible than subvention orgies. 

We can nevertheless not agree to vote in favor of your current motion; since you also hold this unspeakable eco-socialist transformation to be correct; you hold fast to it, dear colleagues of the Union. 

Hydrogen is a wrong way. Hydrogen is not economic and will let the energy prices continue to explode; my colleague Dr. Kraft has directly explained that in the previous debates. The energy value of hydrogen is below par; it is of no use. You cannot simply convert the available gas pipelines to hydrogen. Here, you needed two or three times the pipe capacity. That, my ladies and the gentlemen colleagues, has now already been thoroughly plundered by this government, 

            Johannnes Ardt (SPD): Och!

and for future generations is not a financial expectation. Leave to the people their coal, in a literal and figurative sense. 

And, dear citizens in the eastern German coal regions, be smart, and in autumn vote blue [seid schlau, und wählt im Herbst blau]! 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Stephan Brandner, July 4, 2024, Voting, Escrow and Shakespeare

German Bundestag, July 4, 2024, Plenarprotokoll 20/181, pp. 23593-23594. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

It is, so to say, the Shakespeare of the AfD who now again has the word. A pleasant good evening, I wish you. Yet an exciting point is on the daily order for today’s debate. It is a high point, and a high point of every Berlin trip – this goes for the guests in the gallery – when one can occupy oneself at 2240 with the professional law of the registered professions – notaries, attorneys-at-law, patent attorneys and the tax consultants. Thus it crowns each day. 

            Jürgen Coße (SPD): 2236!

2240, I said. It is 2236. You can still read the numbers, in contrast to me. That distinguishes you, and you are with the SPD. Congratulations that it functions! 

Thus, it is about allowing possibilities, which there were during Corona; for example, of being able to hold principal proceedings [Hauptverhandlungen] in hybrid or virtual form. Do you now continue to count, or can I continue talking? 

            Jürgen Coße (SPD): I’m listening, even if it’s difficult.

Okay. Or, there is the possibility to continue mail-in voting or also to bringing about decisions by means of the post office. That, we find quite good. I say, there can be nothing against that. 

Nevertheless, we look critically upon the possibility of conducting virtual or hybrid association assemblies [Kammerversammlungen]. It is also undemocratic in regards associations if they can or must be held exclusively. As a result, we therefore reject that. In regards the conduct of the assembly, the flexibility should indeed be strengthened, and be given the possibility to lower the threshold of being able to participate; in the lived, German practice – you all know the construction of our networks – those affected may expect all possible forms of technical imponderabilities which can and will make impossible the orderly conduct of assemblies. You all know of software problems, connection and network problems, to the point of a complete break of connection. All is conceivable in Germany. Everyone knows that who more or less regularly takes part in such on-line conversations. 

It should not remain unmentioned that you – God be thanked – have turned a corner concerning the originally planned possibility to scour without cause attorneys’ escrow accounts and so be able to massively encroach upon attorney privilege [Mandatsgeheimnis]. 

            Otto Fricke (FDP): Collective accounts, Herr colleague! 

            Jürgen Coße (SPD): Otto, he’s not familiar with that!

It would have been a systemic break. There would have been considerably more administrative expense. It’s therefore nice that you in the last meters have managed to eliminate that from the law. 

All in all: You now previously from here have heard a comprehensive, Shakespearean weighing of the pros and cons of this law. 

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): I believe you have never read Shakespeare.

We have wrestled with it, we have debated, and as a result come to the view: We unfortunately cannot vote in favor. That will not prevent this law, it also should not; we will with absolute vigor abstain. 

I thus for the AfD delegation dispatch or release, on a nice evening, you and the guests above in the gallery into the Berlin nightlife. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Jörn König, July 4, 2024, Digital Euro

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/181, pp. 23585-23586. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear savers. 

I affirm that the FDP and the Union have taken over our slogan from the first reading, “Cash is Printed Freedom” – very nice! 

            Enrico Komning (AfD): Excellent! Well done!

Our goal is namely to maintain cash as the only legal means of payment, and bind the introduction of the digital euro to a referendum vote according to Article 20, paragraph 2 of the Basic Law. 

The Union cannot do that; since the AfD is the only party which wants to introduce the popular referendum at the Federal level. The Union is thus restricted in its possibilities and thus “only” demands that the German Bundestag needs to agree to the introduction of a digital euro. More, the Union cannot do. 

The Ampel coalition is still much worse: They want to allow introduction of the digital euro by the ECB without any parliamentary control. 

Currencies – this, the German Currency Union of 1 July 1990 has shown – need to be a matter of the entire people, 

            Enrico Komning (AfD): That is true democracy! 

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Of that, you have no idea! 

            Enrico Komning (AfD): Yes, direct democracy!

and plainly not the decision of technocrats. Yet the ECB consists only of technocrats, and presently Germany as the largest nation in the ECB Council does not have a vote. 

            Frank Schäffler (FDP): No, we have a vote!

For many months, no vote; the voting rights rotate every four months. 

In the U.S.A. also the risks are recognized and the central bank by law is forbidden three points, among others: First, to issue a digital dollar without express approval of the Congress; second, to issue the digital dollar direct to an individual person; and third, to give up control over the digital currency policy to unelected technocrats. If indeed our hegemon U.S.A. warns of the surveillance by means of digital currencies, then there must be something to it. 

The digital euro is from our viewpoint a further step in the direction of the virtualization of money – away from the human haptic 

            (The speaker holds up a piece of paper)

to a virtual abstraction. 

Jens Zimmermann (SPD): Yet you think it is not too big! What then is done with 200 euro bills?

Together with the EU-ID, a possible programming ability and a social credit system, some horror visions could become true. 

            Frank Schäffler (FDP): Your friends in China do it!

The authorities could limit where, when and what one may be paid, they could observe any transaction and take note. 

            Johannes Steiniger (CDU/CSU): Nonsense! 

            Armand Zorn (SPD): Simply just nonsense!

The state could connect the account with the CO₂ exhaust and the social credit score. 

            Johannes Steiniger (CDU/CSU): Are you still reciting correctly?

Yet the ultimate horror would be that account could be completely frozen. We do not want all of that, since freedom is the only thing that counts! 

            Jens Zimmermann (SPD): Do the people in the Ukraine also think that?

For all who think that the euro is a success story: The euro since its existence has lost 80 percent of its value. An 80 percent loss of value, that is a catastrophe for the saver. The measurement of value in euros is as absurd 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr König.

as if one wants to measure length with a rubber band. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Come to an end. 

We are thus in favor of the measurement of value by money with a fixed, defined connection

Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your speaking time is up.

to natural resources. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your speaking time, Herr König, is up.

Many thanks for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]