René Aust, July 9, 2025, New Majorities

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)07-09(3-0018-0000). 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

I want to initially begin with something positive, for the national states have allowed a hint that they want to weaken the supply chain guidelines. Finally thus the Council too goes in the right direction, as it also often and increasingly happens in this parliament – unfortunately however always too slowly; for the world is changing, it changes rapidly, profoundly and irreversibly. Radical technological change, demographic shifts, geopolitical tensions – everywhere we feel the change. Only one continent in comparison to the speeds of other parts of the world apparently stands still, namely Europe. While China runs away in artificial intelligence, while India rises to be a global technology site, and the U.S.A. opens new growth centers, we unfortunately lag behind. 

What we experience is no accident; since as before this continent is fettered by a left-green ideology. Much too seldom do politicians in responsible positions have the courage to use the new majorities in this parliament, but also on this entire continent, to the benefit of a patriotic change. We are available for that. We know that Europe works when its richness is respected, and not when it produces egalitarianism; and besides, only when there is freedom of opinion, and it is not circumscribed, as you seek to do. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, June 24, 2025, Germany, the U.S.A. and Peace

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/12, pp. 986-988. 

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

Even following the ceasefire called for by U.S. President Donald Trump, the danger of an escalation of the Israeli-Iranian conflict into a wildfire is still not banished. In this situation, it is important to use all existing channels at one’s disposal so as to actually take leave from the dynamic of military escalation. A foundation for that is a realistic estimate of the situation. Israel’s right to exist thereby stands beyond any discussion. Israel has the legitimate right to a maintenance and guaranty of its security. An Iranian atomic bomb would not only be an existential threat to the State of Israel but also for stability and peace in the Near and Middle East and in the entire world. 

Iran, like every other country in the world, has the right to peaceful and exclusively civil use of nuclear power. It needs to not only acknowledge a renunciation of the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons, but also to open all facilities and establishments of nuclear development and research for independent international control. With the removal of Iranian nuclear capacity and rocket launch facilities by Israel and the U.S.A. lapses a central reason for the further pursuit of an exchange of military strikes. This opens the opportunity for a diplomatic solution which takes into account Israel’s security interests. The U.S. American Vice-president J. D. Vance has expressed himself in this sense and thereby indicated the way which now needs be taken. That will not be possible without the participation of world nuclear powers allied with Iran, especially Russia. The Israeli-Iranian war forcefully demonstrates how severely [bitter] necessary an American-Russian understanding for peace and security would be in this world.   

The EU states and Germany have needed to painfully experience that in this discussion also they  play no role. For mindless action for action’s sake, and embarrassing false estimates, the German Foreign Minister Wadephul, his European Office Minister and the overwhelmed EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner are thoroughly to blame. A European Union which is primarily occupied with itself can play no serious role in the world. Who harms himself with a ban on combustion engines and a climate planned economy, squanders his resources in the manipulation and restriction of citizens’ rights, and is grimly fixated on the prolongation of war in the Ukraine, takes himself out of the game. 

Still a word to you, Herr Chancellor: Unserious tough talk over supposed “dirty work” damages Germany’s image, primarily in international matters. I could not believe it as I heard it. 

Germany and the European nations need to find a way back to a realistic estimate of their own possibilities and limits so that they can credibly enter on the way of mediation; since it is most urgently in the German and European interest to quickly end the warfare in the Near East. It threatens commercial movement and supply of raw materials, and contains the danger of new migration flows which destabilize the European continent and especially Germany. 

Where we ourselves can act, we need to take the matter in hand. It is of concern to us to prevent, with robust border protection, a new wave of immigration of Islamists and those posing a danger into our country. It is within our power to put a stop to the import of conflicts and civil wars from other regions, in which we consistently deport foreign instigators and rigorously punish anti-semitic excesses. Therein ultimately depends the continuation of Germany as a democratic and freely constituted Republic of Germans. This existence right of Germany should be in the hearts of us all at least even so as the uncontested and legitimate existence right of Israel. 

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have already fallen in the Ukraine in this American-Russian proxy war. To quickly end it is in any case in the German and European interest. The key to peace lies in Moscow and Washington. That a new American leadership is ready in that regard signifies a grand opportunity. 

It is frankly absurd when, Herr Merz, in a grotesque self-overestimate, you believe you needed to take responsibility to continue the proxy war in which even the U.S.A. has for long lost interest. While you with martial rhetoric dig the graves ever deeper, the U.S. President long since sounds out the possibilities of future economic cooperation in Russia. 

You instead are enthusiastic that for the 17 EU sanctions packages against Russia an 18^th is to follow which will again harm the German economy. President Trump besides rejects new Russia sanctions because the U.S.A. would thereby – I cite – lose “billions of dollars”. The American President is right! 

            Markus Frohnmaier (AfD): German interests!

And on the other hand, your Foreign Minister as it happens says – I cite – “Of German claims there need be now no consideration taken”. This disdain for the interests of our country frankly appears to be the leitmotiv of your government. 

You are silent when the EU Commission plans, to Germany’s disadvantage, to completely forbid gas deliveries from Russia, and to thereby drive the energy prices still further to the heights, and you even signal agreement when the EU by law permanently prevents any restart of Nord Stream 

            Hendrik Hoppenstadt (CDU/CSU): Who turned it off?

and in this way wants to retroactively legitimate the criminal assault on Germany’s infrastructure. It would actually be a post facto witticism [Treppenwitz] if the exploded Nord Stream gas pipelines were restarted as it happens by a U.S. consortium. Advantageous pipeline natural gas from Russia is indispensable for the supply of Germany with secure and affordable energy. Expensive imports by sea of liquified gas are in the long-term no alternative. 

The foolish remark of your Foreign Minister Wadephul, Russia will ever remain our enemy, is revealing. The overcoming of the fatal hereditary foe thinking by the generation of Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle was once the foundation for peace and prosperity in Europe. And you regress [Sie fallen dahinter zurück]! Geography does not allow itself to be simply denied! Russia will in the future be our European neighbor. No way, short or long, leads past agreement with Russia and a new security architecture of all actors and their legitimate security interests. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Borders of 1937?

Now would be the point in time, Herr Chancellor, for a first step on this way to peace. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Mary Khan, June 19, 2025, Hague Judgments Convention

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)06-19(4-0103-0000). 

Herr President. 

This convention shows how international cooperation without Brussels patronization can work. Great Britain is no longer part of the EU. For that, we have to thank the patience and steadfastness of a free people; of that, the British can be proud. And yet it succeeded in creating legal certainty on an equal level. 

A sovereign state, a treaty of international law, clear rules, quite without expense in the billions of an officials’ apparatus, without ideology – precisely that is our way. We need to reduce the European cooperation to the essentials: Interior market, protection of exterior borders and voluntary, bi-lateral treaties between sovereign national states. 

Instead, we experience an EU which inflates itself into a political super-state which costs billions and which meddles ever deeper in national decisions. We will vote in favor because it shows how an authentic partnership appears: According to a state of law, voluntary and sovereign. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, June 24, 2025, Iran, Germany and Honesty

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/12, pp. 978-980. 

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

Once again we have an additional center of conflict. This now extends in the Middle East. And once again we stand as more or less silent observers on the margin, and nevertheless since Sunday are once again in the midst of the parties to the conflict. 

Our narrow knowledge is often confined to one-sided information. Our own news service sources are, as we in this house have heard, directed to friendly organizations. Even these now appear to need be scrutinized. Thus the U.S. American President let it be known that the information of his services in the case of Iran would not correspond to the truth. At the same time, there were reports that the attacked Iran would be apprised of the plans of the U.S.A. 

All of this makes an objective categorization for us all today endlessly difficult. That was clear yesterday morning in the briefing by the chief of the Chancellor’s Office, Herr Frei. In so brief a time frame of events, just a little conclusive information is presented. For the open and informative atmosphere, I want in this place to thank the Chancellor’s Office. 

Yet clearly remains one thing: The possibility especially of a danger of atomic war needs to be excluded. Should the one-time attack by the U.S. Americans have been successful, and potential sources of damage for the security in the Near and Middle East eliminated, this could help prevent the resulting retaliation by Iran of a widespread fire. One reason for additional attacks would thus no longer be present. One question which arises from the past days is of course whether or not any country which has at its disposal such potential abilities should voluntarily submit to international controls. 

In the end, one again comes very quickly to the truly most important categories of politics: Trust and credibility. Besides all matters of interest, these need to be on hand so as to be able to conduct honest negotiations between individual persons, yet also states. In that regard, comes the position of mediators who moderate the speaking process. Here, Qatar for long takes an important role in the region, concerning which I myself in conversations could be convinced. So far, the efforts are certainly not estimated highly enough. It is now for the parties to the conflict to maintain the ceasefire. 

There remains, valued colleagues: Each state has the right to exist, and thus the right to defend itself. The relation here also lies in international law. Like no other, this stands before the challenge to assert itself in the present time. Here and today it is the agreed guideline, and is valid for all. 

All of us here are the representatives of the German population, and stand first of all on their side and on the side of our country. We always place ourselves behind states and their peoples. They decide – like us also – sovereign in elections, over governments and relationships. Yet what we as politicians may and need do when good relations to other states are attended to, is to confront them with the consequences of their actions. It is thus logical and correct to ever again refer to the importance of diplomacy as a guarantee for peace, and ever again remind. 

Beyond that, every advice needs be well weighed and decided here in the German Bundestag. Exactly for that reason, we stand even so on the side of Israel as on the side of all other states with which we share common interests. Anti-semitism has just so little place with us as a blanket valuation of other religions. 

Herr Chancellor, terms like “dirty work” are in the situation completely inappropriate and superfluous, even if they are overtaken from others. Therefore is one thing clear: Double morality brings no one together, but builds evident contradictions, divides and alienates. 

In a particular instance, as always, the future will judge the writing of history. In so far as the so-called Twelve Day War had the potential to contribute positively to a contemporary end point of a long line of conflict, I follow the call of the Chancellor to all participants to therein maintain themselves. 

Which contribution the United Nations, especially the Security Council, can make to this needs  to be discussed – which the Chancellor today did not mention. Along this way are required comprehensive talks, multi-faceted respect and mutual recognition. Discussions of overthrows and regime change in this regard completely lack standing. Ladies and gentlemen, should the Iranian people vote for a change of government, it needs be done from their own power. We are not in the position to determine its future. 

And we need ask ourselves, for example, how well-connected and desired by the people is a crown prince who now appears to almost stand in the starting blocks to have himself perhaps placed, generations after his father, at the head of this country? Do we have an understanding of that or, much more, reliable securities? 

And to call upon our experience: Do we have, as part of the world population in the last decades, really good experiences in strongly intervening from outside in a change of power? What were the consequences of those actions? In that regard, think of Iran, of Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria! Have we really pacified the region and made it safer? Or have we thereby generated trust in us and our actions? 

The core or our alternative policy in the German Bundestag is guided by the basic program of my party: No intervention in the internal affairs of other states. No delivery of weapons to war zones. And the central point is in diplomacy. 

These are our guidelines with which we also want to maintain and primarily advance the domestic security and the economic power of Germany. In that regard, the greatest obstacles are well known to us, one of which is and remains Islamism and the terrorism proceeding from it. This is to be fought by consistent measures in the area of information and prevention, just so as with equipment of security officials and border security, with repatriations, yet naturally also with deportations. And he who does not want to identify himself with the values of our Basic Law can have no place in our society. 

That – I emphasize it ever again – does not stand in contradiction to labor migration, to student residency in Germany, or to the cooperation in cultural-scientific areas. All of these people come because they esteem or want to get to know German Kultur and identity. For the Alternative für Deutschland, it’s about returning to their homeland people who are violence-prone, already convicted of violent acts without a basis to remain, or already refused admittance. Precisely that is only legitimate, and it protects everyone who thinks well of Germany. 

It therefore applies in the present situation to ever again put the question: In which interests occur such events? For the whole and named reasons, it is in our own interest that in the Near and Middle East the weapons finally be silent. We can and want to accept no additional waves of refugees. Any further destruction to infrastructure therefore needs to be avoided. The Federal government needs to commit itself to that. 

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Then speak for once with Putin, Herr Chrupalla! How would it be with that?

We all know that here diverge the interests between state and economic thinking. Reconstruction measures create economic opportunities, yet these would again burden the German taxpayer with special funds, special debts; see Ukraine. 

We are again at the point of credibility. Chancellor Friedrich Merz accuses the SPD of a policy of debts and high taxes, and himself speaks of low energy prices and a strong economy, and again today. Of that, not much has remained. Only, where do we stand today? Friedrich Merz is the Union’s debts Chancellor in red clothes. A new indebtedness of, believe it or not, over 846 billion euros up to 2029 the coalition wants to bring through the Bundestag. The goal should be economic growth. 

Let us take for example 100 billion euros for a comprehensive climate and transformation fund. There is ever still a theme of green hydrogen. Planned was the manufacture of green steel. Only, for whom do we still require these expensive forms of energy production? Besides, we of the AfD have ever again indicated these are fantasies. The German steel industry lies prostrate. When once the furnaces are extinguished, there is no more steel from German production. Therefore, finally take leave of these fantasies! 

And the 5 percent goal of NATO has been agreed, and it is desired to fulfill it. Ladies and gentlemen, one cannot vote for it. We need first for once to know for what the present investments will be used, and against whom do we arm ourselves? On the whole, to where does NATO steer? 

Herr Pistorius may recruit 10,000 additional soldiers. Are then within the Bundeswehr administrative and procurement channels cut back? Do we have sufficient functioning materiel? And before all: Have we sufficient qualified personnel to guarantee the defense of the country? We should all therefore hope that the alliance clause does not enter in. 

Much more important is and presently remains the Strait of Hormuz. It is in our unconditional German interest this commercial passage be kept free without restrictions, especially for raw materials. The oil price has meanwhile already reacted; the previously known highest prices for benzine and diesel are nothing in comparison to what the consumer can then expect. 

On the whole, the large countries of Europe need to come to an understanding of their role. We know nothing of the plans of the U.S.A. We were not drawn in, yet will be continually needed, primarily when the reckoning comes. Europe needs to be perceived as an active negotiations partner and finally clearly articulate its interests. 

Valued colleagues, all wars have one thing in common: They have losers on all sides and need to be avoided. We all for decades live in peace. Let us leave it as is. Let us not become weary of peace, Herr Pistorius, but much more fit for peace. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Sell, June 19, 2025, Germany Is Bankrupt

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)06-19(4-0038-0000). 

Herr President. 

Germany is bankrupt. The Pension Insurance is bankrupt; sickness and care insurance – bankrupt, unemployment insurance – bankrupt. We Germans pay with the highest taxes worldwide 1,000 billion euros per year and despite that, it is lacking everywhere. Bridges and streets decay, schools are unfit, over 7 million pensioners have less than 1,000 euros per month, residential property is scarce. At the same time, we also pay the highest contribution for the EU by far, almost 30 billion euros per year, even though we, according to the European Central Bank, are one of Europe’s poorest countries. 

Yet instead of relieving the German taxpayer, you want to impose ever new burdens on us. Moldavia, Albania or the Ukraine shall now become a member of the European Union because Frau von der Leyen hopes for more weight on the world political stage. That will not work; we Germans will no longer let ourselves be plundered. We will turn off the your megalomania at the money spigot. You can rely on it, since for that my party was elected. Please say to your Commission President: We who shall fall down, he first becomes proud, and pride comes before the fall.

 

[trans: tem]

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, May 15, 2025, Pensions Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/4, pp. 220-221. 

Herr President. Frau Minister. Dear colleagues. Honored citizens. 

The statutory old age provision in Germany is a renovation project. For millions of people, the pension does not suffice for a living. Even those who worked life-long, and always had an average earnings, need be happy if they just make ends meet – still. 

You all are acquainted with the numbers and know that the financing of the statutory provision is nearly marginal, and this in future will not be simpler but more difficult, even though the contribution already today is so high and even though the state takes so much taxes as never before. We here have often debated on it. The demography is in this regard only one factor, and you know that. Yes, the pensions crisis is a crisis of state legitimacy, and it needs to be solved. Yet how, as it happens, by the two parties which are responsible for the entire misery? As it happens, by the CDU and SPD, which without intermission have governed in the last decades, of which 15 years together? We thus here look at decades of pensions policy failure by SPD and CDU, according to the motto, “It could, it should, it would, it needed to” – decades in which the pension was piece by piece hollowed out and slashed. 

I want for once to tell this here because it is so easily forgotten: First in 1983, the pension sickness insurance contributions were payable, then later also the contribution for care insurance – first for half, then from 2004 completely. The same was then done for the company pensions and direct insurance, even back-dated from the 2005 tax year, to say nothing of being gladly doubled. And with all of this, the pension was ever further reduced. For that, the citizens were indeed promised an adjustment which however never came.    

That the Riester pensions do not work is known for decades. Despite that, up to today, over 86 billion euros in promotion sums were swallowed up. What one would have been able to do with that! Dear colleagues and citizens, in the entire time other countries have constructed large stocks of capital for their pension accounts, and are therefore better here than we. Perhaps also because their governments have not continually sold out to the contribution money of the insured. Since what was produced over the years, quite especially by the SPD in non-insurance benefits at the cost of the contribution payers – that goes into the billions. All of that is money which is lacking for the pensions. 

Now shall all be better with the SPD and CDU. Only, when I look at the coalition contract, then I see a further so into the blue. When I no longer know what to do, then I found a works circle. 

            Peter Aumer (CSU/CSU): You could make a proposal, Frau Schielke-Ziesing!

That means here a “commission”, and is the umpteenth pension commission following Rürup which is commissioned to square the circle. The last one, as is known, could not even once agree on a a common result. Yet the problem is nevertheless long since no longer the analysis but the lack of political courage for a decision. How wooly are the coalition’s proposals on the pension theme has already been shown regarding the first concrete proposal of the new Minister Bas, which takes on the inclusion of officials in the statutory Pension Insurance. That was again torn up, scarcely had the light of the Bild newspaper caught sight of it. Good, such a change of system may not be taken on in a heave-ho proceeding, yet in the long-term such a consideration is sensible. 

Yet perhaps one should begin with something smaller. We as the AfD already in the last legislative period brought in a motion for inclusion of politicians in the statutory Pension Insurance. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Sehr gut!

That would be a good signal and a first step – not here unconditioned by the financial volumes, but because then politicians themselves would finally be affected by the consequences of their policy. Perhaps then the pension policy also would change, namely for the better. 

             Stephan Brandner (AfD): Exactly!

Of course, you have rejected this motion on account of the firewall. 

We as AfD delegation in the last two legislative periods brought in a whole series of motions to stabilize the pension system, among which were measures for fighting poverty for pensioners in the basic security, for example higher allowances for pensioners, or the expansion of insured circles which are now sold to us by the other delegations as just the thing. Some of it you similarly copied from us, like the one-time payment for the victims of the DDR pension bridge. 

From the equities pension, the Ampel took its leave, Gott sei dank. This construct was a real barrel buster. Only it’s a shame that with your idea for an early start pension, you again jump much too short. I do not understand that: Ten euros per month, and the remainder the insured himself should then set aside? That is still much too little. With our junior savings deposit, we have long since put forward a sensible alternative. There, you can re-read and reconsider how, with straight-forward contributions for today’s newborn children, is saved in the long run an authentic asset – without debts, financed by taxes, without a social contribution. So goes long-term pension policy. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]