Michael Kaufmann, September 11, 2025, Research and Economy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/21, p. 2096. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable Frau Minister. Honorable colleagues. 

I have the impression that the governing delegations have placed this extra theme on the daily order in the current hour because they have nothing else to present. But let us look more closely. In your Hightech Agenda is initially one positive thing: You finally admit that we in many areas of research and innovation no longer stand at the top of the world, and that we in many fields are in danger of losing the connection. That is honest, and that distinguishes you from earlier governments which ever only spread the rally cry of carry on. Only he who unsparingly describes the starting point can at all achieve improvements. 

But then: Much paper, little plan. Your Hightech Agenda is full of programs, roadmaps and hubs, yet without clear measurable goals. Who wants to, can lose himself in this wasteland, but it does not indicate the way to the future. Just quite at the end, there will be a few more concrete – for all that – yet too few. Explanations of intention are no strategy. 

I do not want to contest that you have good intentions. Yet your euphoria I share not at all; for all of your predecessors have promised one thing: Dismantlement of bureaucracy. And what has happened each time? The opposite. Each year new prescriptions, new formulas, more bureaucracy. You, Union and SPD, have shown in the last 20 years that you cannot do bureaucracy dismantlement. Why should it this time suddenly be different? And, hand on heart: Have you ever dared in Moloch Brussels to defy a new bureaucracy? 

            Holger Mann (SPD): Come still to the theme?

And in regards the financing, there remains disillusionment. The means in the core budget stagnate for years, and a couple of billion euros of special debts alter nothing of that. You speak of a “big heave”. Yet where is it? With the 2025 and 2026 budgets, half of the legislature is already committed. 

            Florian Müller (CDU/CSU): Ja!

Thus when does the game-changer come? In the second half, or not at all? 

You yourselves speak of deficits in regards transfer from research to the economy – fully right. Yet you conceal the origins: Research in Germany, yes; foundings, no. In Germany, research still pays, but foundings long since no longer pay. The highest taxes, ruinous energy costs, bureaucracy without end. So long as it remains so, value creation emigrates to foreign lands. So long as you change nothing of that, your technology transfer remains an illusion. 

The fact is: Our research landscape is exploited so as to create value elsewhere. This is no longer allowed to remain so. You talk of gigafactories in Germany. But you tell me: Where actually is the announced megaplant for chips in Magdeburg? Not even the sponsored 10 million euro subvention could move Intel to this investment. 

            Holger Mann (SPD): You wanted it just so not!

And now gigfactories for giga euros, only with billions from the pocket of the taxpayers. Under today’s conditions, no energy-intensive plant comes to Germany. 

Without fundamental reform, your promises remain illusions. A change of the economy with you, honored colleagues of the CDU/CSU, is not for the making. That, you showed yesterday as in regards TOP 5 – Economic Change for Germany – precisely five CDU/CSU members sat in the plenary session. The Hightech Agenda should be your business plan for the future. Yet quite frankly: Would you approach a bank for credit with this paper? Ich nicht; since explanations of intention replace no concrete measures; vague sketches are no strategy. We need no colorful roadmaps. You need an authentic plan, and which I do not see here. 

            Stephan Albani (CSU/CSU): You need only use the eyes!

You’ve recognized many problems. That is the first step. But now you need to deliver; otherwise, our country’s future is in danger. And, for that, you bear the responsibility. 

Thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Volker Schnurrbusch, October 8, 2025, EU Digital Rules

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)10-08(3-0217-0000). 

Frau President. Valued colleagues.

The core of the EU is the Common Market. Yet what does this Commission do? It builds one hurdle after another. It would be nice if we too had a Silicon Valley. Yet instead of complaining that a few U.S. firms dominate the tech market and the platforms, it would be the duty of the EU to promote the entrepreneurial spirit which first made this dominance possible. Why does the risk capital flow to California and Texas and not to Germany and France? Why do IT professionals emigrate from Asia to the U.S.A. and not here? Why do we experience the emigration of our programmers? 

Because this Commission is hostile to business and growth; because it constructs ever higher bureaucratic hurdles; because it understands the market not as the exchange of ideas but as something un-regulated which is to be surveilled. Thus it invents tools like the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act. The EU wants to control, it blocks entrepreneurial freedom, and it wants to censor freedom of opinion on the internet so that only its own propaganda will be spread, as in Roumania, as in Moldavia, as in Georgia, and lastly also in the Ukraine. We reject that. 

 

[trans: tem]

Michael Espendiller, September 16, 2025, Fiscal Policy, II

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/23, pp. 2316-2317. 

…We here in Germany need to do our household chores, and we require the money, much too much of which at the moment is being transferred to the European Union, in our own country. We therefore reduce our contribution to the EU by about 18 billion euros. And now one may call  me out, that it does not go, there are binding treaties. Then good, it agrees with the treaties. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Ach!

Yet treaties are not laws of nature and can be changed. Best example: Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of Great Britain. When it was very bad in her country, she negotiated with the EU and extracted the so-called “British rebate”. Great Britain thus every year saved billions in contributions to the EU. Why should that not also work for Germany? Germany is ultimately the largest net payer to the EU and the stability anchor in the euro area. When Germany falls, the euro also falls. And against this background, we are very optimistic that the EU would prefer to agree with Germany rather than lose us completely. It thus may go, if one really wants to. 

Where do we save? The Federal government provides a large portion of its new debts for military expenditures. As you know, we have ever criticized the bad equipment of the Bundeswehr and committed ourselves in recent years to corresponding budget increases. Yet the present Federal government here exceeds every reasonable measure and schedules for this year debt-financed increases which, in fact, it simply cannot expend this year. For this reason, we in an AfD budget expend 10.7 billion euros less for military spending and thereby come to a total outlay in the defense area of 76.9 billion euros. And that is again very much money. Yet also in the following years, the Federal government in the military area simply wants to expend too much and too quickly. Decades-long shortcomings plainly cannot be compensated with a wave of the hand. 

Yet you not only thereby worsen Germany’s position, but also with delivery of military material to the Ukraine. In 2025, you want to spend all of 8.7 billion euros for the weapons deliveries to the Ukraine. And these costs we eliminate completely. You only prolong the unnecessary dying in the Ukraine. Besides, the Ukrainians themselves have meanwhile grasped this, which is why the number of deserters ever further increases. Yet that interests no one in the government, because reason is on vacation. 

Less reasonable besides are the exorbitant costs for a misguided climate policy. We do not at all save the climate with the deconstruction of industry in Germany. Here too, the red pencil. And we therefore can save with the elimination of the senseless climate projects of the climate and transformation funds around 37.6 billion euros, and indeed completely. 

Still what? The Sozial budget of Bärbel Bas is next, which blows up in our faces. It is absolutely right that we support the pension account with tax monies. That, our pensioners after a life of hard work have honestly earned. Yet it is wrong that we extend it, at the cost of the working middle, to millions of Bürgergeld recipients who are fully capable of earning. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): That’s just not right! What nonsense                                                are you then telling?

Moreover, it thus comes to that around 50 percent of the Bürgergeld recipients have a foreign citizenship. That is further evidence for the uncontrolled mass immigration into our social system. By means of a corresponding adjustment of our laws, we may end this social injustice, and here save an additional 14.6 billion euros. 

And still more money is to be found in the Federal budget: One billion euros as a “reconciliation payment” to Namibia can, for various reasons, go. 

In regards the political foundations, we eliminate means to the sum of 444 million euros. In addition, the Federal government plans to expend one billion euros for the performance of integration courses. The driver’s license in Germany needs to be paid by oneself; we can thus expect a German course will be paid by oneself if then one wants to have the German citizenship. 

The Union-led Federal government in addition herein continues to breed its own political opponents and carry on the financing of the leftist “Democracy Lives” programs. With its abolition, we save an additional 200 million euros. 

This and much more we can eliminate and, except for a few lobby groups, no one in Germany would notice. 

Yet what millions of people in Germany would notice in the purse are the reliefs of our AfD budget, the key points of which I want to here go into. 

We are of the opinion that the present climate policy damages the economic position and burdens the consumers with charges. The CO₂ price and the CO₂ emissions trade we therefore eliminate completely. 

And the trucking fee we cut by around 2.25 billion euros so as to lower the transportation costs in Germany. Everyone who drives to work with an auto, or who plans the next large purchase for the family, will notice that in the supermarket balance. These alone are 23 billion euros of relief for the consumers in Germany. 

And while we’re especially on the families: When both parent spouses are earning so as to feed the family and somehow pay for their own home, the budget account also suffers under the enormously high non-wage costs [Lohnnebenkosten]. This money does not at all land in one’s own account, but goes directly to the state. In our finance planning, enough money is available so that we can stabilize the social security system with 7.7 billion euros. This would prevent that in this year the contribution rate and with it the non-wage costs increase, and that keeps workplaces in Germany. 

Yet not only duties, but also taxes we in our AfD budget can properly save. Alone in regards the wages tax, that is one billion euros. With the income tax, we come to around two billion euros on top of that.  And the enormous burden on our Mittelstand we can reduce with three billion euros in the corporate tax. And the solidarity surtax with 12.45 billion euros we can completely eliminate. Work shall again pay. 

And we also want that good earners continue to remain in the country and plainly not – as presently – in large numbers of around 200,000 men and women each year leave our country, and thereby as contribution- and tax-payers permanently fall out of our social system. 

By means of the lowering of the CO₂ duty and the wage tax, together with the other measures, the small earners at the same time will be relieved by us, so that they can again live from their own income. 

All together, we relieve the citizens with 66.1 billion euros in our draft budget. That is impressive! 

In sum: Saving is something for the advanced. We have shown there is an alternative to limitless debt creation, and put forward a reform budget which we will also still further construct. We are convinced: This is the draft which Germany now needs, and which has what it takes to kindle a dynamic and again bring our economy into the running. 

The AfD is ready, and we hope the Union soon gives up its failed experiment with the SPD so as to include itself in the rescue mission for our country. We can, simply and profoundly, no longer afford this firewall. 

 

[trans: tem]

Marc Jongen, September 11, 2025, European University Alliances

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)09-11(4-0024-0000). 

Herr President. 

We’ve heard it from Frau von der Leyen: The EU wants more sovereignty, more power, more centralization. So as to achieve this, all will be instrumentalized, even education. 

Yes, student mobility by means of Ersamus+ is a good thing. Yet the true sense of the European University alliances is another thing; it shall give rise to a Europe-wide, post-secondary [Hochschul] education conforming to the EU, with EU study courses for ideological programs like green transformation, etc. And universities, once they are dependent on the EU promotion pot, no longer get loose – whose bread I eat, his song I sing. Where that leads, the Bologna process has shown: To a bureaucratic schooling of post-secondary studies which has driven out of the universities the spirit that made Europe great and upon which the EU unjustly calls. 

In fact, the European universities fall ever further back in the international rankings, and the level of our qualification [Abschlüsse] becomes ever worse. Authentic excellence is not achieved by such university alliances, but by optimal conditions for leading researchers, selection of the best students without quota mania and free from ideological guidelines.

 

[trans: tem]

Michael Espendiller, September 16, 2025, Fiscal Policy, I

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/23, pp. 2314-2316. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear spectators in the hall and at the screens. 

The budget consultations for the 2025 Federal budget lay behind us, and for us in the AfD Bundestag delegation, in regards these consultations, was precisely one, single question decisive: How can we financially relieve the citizens and the economy. For this of all is exactly the decisive question: What can we do for the citizens and the economy so as to finally relieve them from the high taxes and duties. This question we need to answer. And for my delegation, I can say: We have answered this question. 

Seen fiscally, the essence of our state, simply said, rests on two pillars. That is for one, the demography; and that is for the other, a functioning economy with sufficient jobs. 

As everyone in the country knows, the demographic development has for us as a state long since slipped away. The birthrate in the year 2024 has again fallen, and currently lies at 1.35 children which a woman has on average in Germany. That means for our levy-financed pension system, sufficient contribution payers are no longer available. And that, in turn, means that at some time sufficient people will no longer be there who generate for our people their pensions. 

For the pension is plainly no credit, but one pays with his contributions the pensions of others, and indeed in the hope that later, when one is himself at pension age, the younger may generate the pension for oneself. That this at some time for Germany becomes a problem is for long recognized. And for just as long was nothing actually done about it. Yet the day of the Big Bang is meanwhile no longer at a far distance, but one can now already very well see it. 

The 2025 Federal budget pension grant runs to, believe it or not, 134.4 billion euros. That corresponds to 25.8 percent of expenditures from the core budget; thus, an entire quarter. Taken from the total tax revenue of the Federal government, the quota for the pension grant contributes even 34.7 percent. That is to say, that from the entire tax revenue of the Bund, every third euro flows as an added contribution into the Pension Insurance. And we speak not of an upper, luxury pension, but of a pension level of 48 percent. 

In that the demography has long since slipped away from us, we are therein reliant on that the second pillar of our system functions: The economy. Without a properly running economy which offers enough jobs, I also have no more contribution payers who finance the pensions of our seniors, and I also have no more tax revenue from which every third euro can be stuck in the pension. 

In regards the health contribution, there is besides exactly the same basic problem; which is namely financed also by contribution payers. When we in Germany have fewer jobs, then we have fewer contributions for our sickness insurance, and then arise also the financing gaps. Since the number of insured and of treatments do not, ja, decrease. On the contrary, also here, everything becomes more expensive. Alone in the statutory sickness insurance in the coming year, 6.3 billion euros are lacking. In the year after, 12 billion are lacking, the year after 18 billion, and at the end of the legislature it is 24 billion euros. 

These holes I can either fill by which I increase the contribution amount for the insured. That would however make more expensive the labor factor which now already is no longer at a competitive price. Or I need also here again to go with tax money. 

The situation is in any case dramatic, and we are directly in a rapidly intensifying fiscal crisis. For us as the AfD delegation is it thereby clear as sunshine that a reasonable Politik needs now set everything, without compromise, on the stimulation of the economy, since that which in no case may happen is that still more jobs are lost to us which would have a consequence that we have still fewer contribution payers for our pension and sickness insurance systems. 

We in the AfD have told you all of this in the last ten years here, and said what you need do so as to prevent this downfall. Yet you did not want to listen. I have still well before my eyes the statements of the political competitors and of the mainstream press that the evil AfD paints the devil on the wall and with fear-mongering hunts for votes. That would certainly not at all agree with the bad economic situation. – Yet we knew that we were right. You needed to concede that this summer, since the Federal Statistics Office has subjected its numbers since 2008 to a “reappraisal”, and – hoopla! – it at once came out that we since 2023 are not in a situation of economic stagnation, but are stuck knee-deep in a recession. That which was plainly just Fake News has thus now become reality. 

During this phase of statistical denial of reality, valuable time has been lost in our country. The last three years, thus the time of the Ampel  government, was the time that the rudder in Germany would have been able, and needed to be, turned about. It needs be said quite clearly: Now for some comes any help too late; and from now on, it becomes really unpleasant; since the money is gone. It is gone, and it does not come again. 

The country’s citizens are fully right to rage over that. Yet the hard reality is: It helps not at all. We need to so deal with this situation as it now is, and here we all again sit in the same boat, whether one wants that or not. 

With our programmatic approaches we could in the last budget years still achieve savings relatively easily. Yet for us now will it become more difficult. Precisely here besides, the good, old debt brake would now come strongly to bear. Since it forces politicians who simply cannot say no to nevertheless give consideration to where one could then save, and what of all could then be structurally changed. 

            Markus Frohnmaier (AfD): So it is!

This Federal government freed itself from this constraint, as you know, with its debt putsch and unashamedly piled up the most crass indebtedness which this country has ever seen. Yet we of the AfD delegation have ourselves further enjoined this same restraint and maintain in our budget plan the original debt brake. 

And despite that, we would relieve the citizens and the economy. How do we do this? We have presented a total of 1,000 motions to amend the Federal budget: In Herr Klingbeil’s draft budget, we can dispense with 111 billion euros from his state expenditures in this year. 

Where then do we see the greatest savings potential? Let us begin with the payments to the European Union. In the 2025 draft budget, the Federal government plans payments in the sum of 33.7 billion euros to Brussels. This EU payment shall next year rise a further 14 billion euros to 47.7 billion euros – quite as if money here in Germany simply grows on trees. Yet each year there flows back to Germany just some 12 billion euros. And thus we finance every year with two-figure billions in contributions to whichever bureaucrat who regulates our cucumbers and deposit bottle caps. And from that, we have purely nothing. 

Far worse is that the EU in addition also wants to destroy our automobile sector with a combustion engine Verbot. 3.2 million jobs are here in play. What that means for our country, I have plainly explained to you. 

While the German economy thus shrinks, we in addition subsidize with our EU contributions our EU neighboring countries to which our firms now emigrate. Inquire for once at Schöneck in the Vogtland how one finds it that the firm TechniSat closes its plant there, all co-workers are laid off, and the production will now be shifted to Poland – and that, after the co-workers there for 33 long years have performed truly good work. 

That may no longer continue...

[trans: tem]

René Aust, September 10, 2025, State of the European Union

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV (2025)09-10(3-0025-0000). 

Frau President. 

Europe, that was once a dream: A continent in which families could win by work a house of their own; a continent which was the motor of worldwide progress; a Europe in which women could live safely, the poor were secured by good sozial legislation, and young people had the opportunity to build by their own work a good life. 

Yet this dream has been destroyed by politicians like Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen. While the world economy grew and new markets arose, Europe regressed. Who wants to know why, he need only attend again to the previous speech of Ursula von der Leyen. Not a single time did she mention the core of the market economy – business freedom – but, for that, a central planned program of billions – bureaucracy from above to below. Yet prosperity arises through work, through innovation, through entrepreneurial courage, not through Ursula von der Leyen’s five-year plan. 

And in the migration policy, the dreams of Europe have been severely damaged. Enrichment was promised. The reality: Knife attacks, terrorism, rape, drug gangs from Spain, Italy, through Germany to Rotterdam and Malmö. And in Brussels, where the EU ever still preaches diversity, the Belgian government seriously considers an army mission so as to at all be able to protect the capital city from the violence of migrant gangs. 

And Frau von der Leyen? She ever still speaks in melodious marketing phrases. She speaks of unity on our own continent. Which however will only be when finally on this continent the persecution of opposition ceases. In Roumania, elections were rescinded; in France and Germany, candidates were excluded from elections. 

If you want unity, then we need to return to democracy and freedom of opinion. On that account, we say: Yes to industrial workplaces which emit CO₂; no to chat controls and censorship; yes to remigration in all of Europe, and no to Ursula von der Leyen. 

 

[trans: tem]