Albrecht Glaser, May 19, 2022, Taxes, Debts and Democracy

German Bundestag, May 19, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/37, pp. 3531-3533. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The draft law aims at committing the tax law as the most important instrument for the stabilization and the strengthening of the business cycle – as it says in the grounds – so as to ameliorate the economic consequences of the pandemic. The previous speakers enumerated the several measures: Degressive AfA [depreciation allowance], loss deduction, tax-free nursing bonus, extension of the home office allowance, and many other things more.

The CDU/CSU delegation’s motion to amend aims in the same direction with numerous demands which in the last two years were proposed by the AfD delegation many times. As is usual in this house, they were all also reflexively rejected by the CDU.

In this time of political agony also occurs the senseless revival of the real property tax. That was tax memorial care, the opposite of reform.

            Frauke Heiligstadt (SPD): Speak on the theme!

In these days, the owners of 35 million pieces of land receive a mountain of paper so as to ascertain their real property values. Under supplementary point 1, urgently proposed by us, a time extension for overcoming this bureaucracy monster is hereby requested. Already in the Kirchhoff proposal for authentic tax reform of ten years ago, the real property tax no longer occurs, and in the head of every tax reformer it also no longer occurs.

In the grounds for the CDU/CSU motion, it further says that the persistently high inflation and the low growth of the economy could be indicators of a stagflation. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, that is in fact the state of understanding. The inflation rate of April of this year was at 7.4 percent. The energy costs have climbed in a year’s comparison by 35 percent; natural gas with 47.5 percent has contributed to the price climb, and the heating oil with 98.6 percent.

The ghost of inflation in the EU thus comes to life – which was to be expected. For years, we were told that inflation was defeated. Then an inflation of under but near 2 percent was the new price stability – the ECB’s own house definition. As the inflation rate moved over the 2 percent line, the narrative of the symmetric inflation goals was applied so as to somehow talk away this process. These days, the ECB divulges – I cite:

We believe that inflation in the course of this year will recede and in the next and following years will be much lower than in this year.

How can one explain this degree of denial of reality? The U.S. central bank certainly needed to raise the interest rates to fight inflation. The ECB instead manages commission work for the “Club Med” of the Romance states which for years command the ECB Council – of the ECB’s independence, there is not a trace. Frau Lagarde was and is a French politician. Of economics she understands, incidentally mentioned, nothing.

The only interest of this majority and its president is to protect the over-indebted Romance countries from state insolvency. If the European interest rates are raised, the costs climb for the state debts. If inflation remains or becomes greater, the state debts melt away. That is the leading maxim of Lagarde and her Club. There, a German central bank governor has not a chance. Better therefore that he resign to take his hat, as in the case recently of two German economists.

The stock of central bank money has increased since 2008 to the end of this year from 880 billion euros to 6 trillion euros; that is a sevenfold increase of the money supply. In the same time, the GDP in the eurozone has climbed by about 32 percent. That means a money supply increase of 600 percent in the face of an economic growth of 32 percent, a proceeding which would be inconceivable with a really independent Bundesbank.

The financing of state budgets by means of central bank presses, de-coupled from real goods production, has in the history of mankind always led to state crises. The zero and negative interest rates policy for years strengthens the effect of this unchecked debts policy. The ECB in large part co-financed the members states’ debts excesses, and thereby initially enabled it. The state debts of the euro countries have grown since the financial crisis from 6.7 trillion euros to 11.3 trillion euros; more than 200 times were the stability criteria ripped up, naturally without sanctions.

            Frauke Heiligstadt (SPD): Theme!

From this 4.6 trillion euro growth of debts which produces this inflation, with which you tinker, the ECB alone has taken 76 percent onto its own books by means of the purchase of state loans. It has thereby in a striking manner violated the express ban on state financing according to Article 123 of the AEUV.

            Nadine Heselhaus (SPD): Wrong!

The EuGH [European High Court] naturally sees all of that differently because there the majority of the judges is the same as that on the ECB Council and in the [EU] Commission.

            Frauke Heiligstadt (SPD): We are speaking on the Corona tax assistance act!

            Markus Herbrand (FDP): The inflation speech, that comes tomorrow afternoon!

The EU Commission accompanies the debts madness with an additional, even so counter to regulation indebtedness of its own, to the sum of 828 billion euros for so-called resilience measures for over-indebted states.

Why all of this? A breaking apart of the EU regime shall be prevented at any price – “whatever it takes”. Who wants to transform this Union into a great state, as it is foreseen in the coalition contract, must destroy many national democracies which were united to prevent such a development. He wants and will produce an ungovernable something which takes the place of national states, which can only be democracies; only they can be democracies!

            Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP) Oh!

Precisely that is what the EU conference has aimed at as a result, with 800 biased [gezinkten] participants: 800, of 550 million inhabitants. That had to have been a partial acceptance of representative opinion.

What will now be done by this government by means of placebos for energy costs, by means of short-term relief for energy taxes and even by means of delayed improvement in the area of business taxes, is the attempt to repair at the national level the failures of the EU and the ECB. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, this will not succeed.

The EU states find themselves in a dilemma. The inflation will lead either to a massive contraction of the population’s purchasing power and to a mass expropriation of savers, or we will again experience a state debts crisis which is not be mastered.

            Fritz Güntzler (CDU/CSU): Wrong speech!

I come to an end, Frau President.

            Fritz Güntzler (CDU/CSU): “Frau President”, that is good!

All of this will put into question the existence of the euro, whether it suits you or not. We will abstain from the draft law put forward, we will vote for the CDU/CSU motion.

Yet both, right honorable ladies and gentlemen, will change nothing of the general weather conditions which I have sketched for you.

            Fritz Güntzler (CDU/CSU): Herr Glaser, it is no longer a Präsidentin!

            Albrecht Glaser (AfD): Sorry! I cannot see behind!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

Alice Weidel, May 19, 2022, Economy and War

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/37, pp. 3495-3496.

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

Germany is stuck, politically, economically and financially, in one of the worst crises since the Second World War. Inflation has arrived at a long-term high level and strangles the Mittelstand and middle class. Today, not a word of that was mentioned. Our energy supply stands on the brink. In the autumn threatens a general collapse. The migration crisis is unresolved, the onset of illegal migration over the Mediterranean and over the land routes reaches new record levels. Russia’s aggressive war against the Ukraine is a catalyst which has heightened the crisis and reveals the deficit of our military and security policy. That your coalition cannot for once agree to put the 100 billion euros foreseen for the Bundeswehr actually into our own army shows that you still have not got the message.

The origin of the crisis however is quite other, and is in fact a false, misguided policy. The energy transition with the simultaneous withdrawal from atomic power and the use of coal has put the energy prices into high gear and caused the one-sided dependency on Russian natural gas. You sat in the government, Chancellor Scholz. Irresponsible debts policy, forbidden monetary state financing and the ECB’s zero interest rate policy, the consequences of which are the devaluation of the euro and thereby increased import prices, are nevertheless the actual origins of the inflation. And nothing of that was made mention of here today.

The repressive Corona policy and the not thought through sanctions have ruptured delivery chains and diminished supply while the money supply explodes. The decline of the euro robs citizens of purchasing power and prosperity.

Harsher climate goals and the forced build up of so-called renewable energies will not make us more independent, but will even more intensify the energy crisis. Harsher climate goals will plunder our household. They will burden our budget as we never before have seen.

And you will not be able to continue to make debts; since public debt ever more heats up the inflation and suppresses private demand.

The Russia sanctions packets are counter-productive. They harm Germany and Europe more than Russia. An oil and gas embargo against Russia would be completely ruinous; since a durable replacement for the omitted deliveries stays in the stars.

Highly dangerous are plans to abolish the unanimity principle in central questions. That is an anti-democratic interdiction of the national states.

Common debts for the reconstruction of the Ukraine are nothing other than a further construction of the debts union at the cost of the German taxpayer.

And under cover of the fight against disinformation and mis-use, the EU manages the total surveillance of private communication.

Beyond that is also planned an EU-wide assets register so as to encompass all private properties. That is a further step in the expropriation of the citizens so as to obstruct their flight from the diminishing inflation money to real assets.

Herr Chancellor, when you go to the EU Council meetings, your foremost duty then is to look after German interests and to oppose these efforts.

Give the highest priority to fighting inflation and to securing the energy supply. Inflation robs the citizens. It is the most unsozial of taxes. It is a cold tax on assets which affects before all the working and productive middle of the economy and society. Inflation is not fought with redistribution, but with less debt, tax reductions and a concentration on core duties of the state.

Thus forsake the wrong way of the energy transition. Take care that coal and nuclear power plants continue to run and shutdown reactors are again started up; since, according to the EU, atomic power is green and CO₂ neutral.

And before all: Do everything to quickly end the war in Europe. We share your concern over an escalation. You have stated that Russia is not allowed to win, yet as an atomic power should not be pushed into a situation without an exit. The war in the Ukraine is not our war. We are not allowed to let ourselves be swept away by buzz words, propaganda and emotions, but we need to represent our own interests – and which are an armistice and peace. The Ukraine war has reached a stage at which, instead of continual new weapons deliveries, the path of negotiations needs to be pursued so as to prevent a years-long war of attrition.

Position yourself against the extreme green feelings politicians who without further ado have switched from an infantile pacifism to a moralizing bellicosity.

And remind your Minister that content-free phrases are not foreign policy. Who goes to Kiev needs also go to Moscow so as to again take up the lines of conversation. Please pursue the path of reason.

Many hearty thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

Joachim Wundrak, May 13, 2022, National Security Council

German Bundestag, May 13, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/35, pp. 3333-3334.

Herr President. Valued colleagues.

Following these emotional themes, a more sober, political theme. For years, no, for decades is discussed in professional circles in Germany the theme of a lack of a national security policy comprehensive strategy. In times of crisis, the theme briefly attains the attention of the political parties and the media, and then again disappears from the discussion.

Up to today, the strategic reality was that Germany out-sourced its energy policy to Moscow, its economic policy to Peking and its security policy to Washington, and the rest for the most part will be decided in Brussels. The German security policy thus for long is lacking in setting long-term national security goals so as to do justice to the Basic Law’s promises to the German citizens of peace, freedom, security and prosperity. 

Germany thus increasingly is no match for the present challenges of a dramatically changing world order and an international competition of systems becoming ever harsher. The origin of this is the lack of a long-term, realistic, stringent national strategy free of ideology which clearly and distinctly formulates German interests. It is thus to be fundamentally welcomed that the Federal government has resolved in its first year in office to put forward a national security strategy. Nevertheless, the Foreign Minister’s estimate put forward in regards the initial event for the development of such a national security strategy clearly falls short.

To work up a national security strategy, to critically and continuously evaluate and update this in its entire breadth, and before all to survey and to enforce its implementation, cannot be the responsibility of a single department. This must unconditionally be the central point. The obvious weak points of the crisis management in connection with the Ukraine war emphatically underline this.

Domestic and foreign security policy developments already for long no more allow themselves to be considered separately. Present and future complex challenges can only be overcome when foreign, defense, domestic, economic and energy policy dimensions are incorporated and applied to well understood national interests.

Durable realpolitische solutions and strategic security policy decisions require a far look forward as well as clearly defined national security policy goals. If such a realpolitische interpretation [Durchdringung] of the world situation is not put forward, the Federal government in the best case can react in the short-term to critical events. We well enough know these passages by sight from the last years. Mid- and long-term, this policy nonetheless leads to further loss of freedom of action in foreign, security and economic policy and thereby to an increasing dependency on other powers. With the utmost pain, we directly experience this, especially in the failed energy policy in connection with the war in the Ukraine and its consequences. Germany thus needs to be in the position to prevent the threatening decline in the international concert and also to be able to enforce its national interests which have to serve the welfare of the citizens.

Against this background, we propose [Drucksache 20/1746] to comprehensively reconstruct the present Federal Security Council into a standing, inter-departmental [Ressortübergreifenden] National Security Council and with efficient and lean structures to build – not unconditionally according to the American, rather according to the French and Japanese and yet also to the Austrian model.

            Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU/CSU): That is an interesting mix!

This National Security Council is formed together with, in a broad sense of security, the relevant ministers and will be led by the Chancellor. A National Security advisor, who is placed directly under the Chancellor and whose staff is settled in the Chancellor’s Office, leads the daily business of this National Security Council. For that, it also has access to the relevant information, particularly to the respective central stores of all affected departments.

With this toolbox [Instrumentarium], the Federal government should be placed in the position to develop preventive and long-term strategies into a German national comprehensive security strategy and then to institutionalize and implement it. So as to democratically legitimate this distinct strengthening of the Chancellor’s position in the executive, an appropriate parliamentary control committee should be installed.

Valued colleagues, against the background of the increasing insecurity and risks in the world, I ask you to queue the partisan political considerations and vote for our motion.

Many thanks for your attention.

 

[trans: tem]