Jörg Meuthen, April 8, 2020, Corona Bonds

Jörg Meuthen

Corona Bonds

AfD Kompakt, April 8, 2020

[Jörg Meuthen is a national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland and he leads the AfD’s delegation in the European Parliament.]

The EU is shamelessly using the Corona crisis to procure for itself additional competences; thereby is the introduction of Corona bonds, which are nothing other than Euro bonds. Their introduction earlier failed, as may be read, due to the opposition of the Dutch and the Austrians. Tomorrow will be further negotiations. We demand that Finance Minister Scholz draw a clear line against any form of debt mutualization, since it is counter to law and constitution and economically harmful. Germany ought not allow itself to be lead around the circus ring by other states to the detriment of its taxpayers and savers.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Alice Weidel, April 1, 2020, Credit Guarantees for Family Businesses

Alice Weidel

Credit Guarantees for Family Businesses

AfD Kompakt, April 1, 2020

[Alice Weidel is a chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland delegation in the German Bundestag as well as AfD chairman in the western German state of Baden-Württemberg.]

The 180,000 family businesses with their nearly eight million workers are the heart and engine of our German economy. Particularly for the small and mid-sized family businesses, there must be planning for state support more intensive than hitherto, since they are threatened within the next three months with an exhaustion of liquidity. Tens of thousands of insolvencies and hundreds of thousands of unemployed would be the consequence.

So as to prevent this and safeguard liquidity during the coming, critical months, the Federal government must act quickly and undertake a 100 percent credit deficiency guarantee of state aid credit for businesses through their house banks. The deficiency guarantee of up to 90 percent so far planned by the government is insufficient, since the banks will require complex examinations of solvency of the businesses which may thus delay or prevent the credits.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Stephan Protschka, March 30, 2020, Farm Labor

Stephan Protschka

Farm Labor

AfD Kompakt, March 30, 2020

[Stephan Protschka is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria and is the AfD’s agriculture policy spokesman in the Bundestag.]

Each year some 280,000 seasonal workers and harvest helpers from neighboring European countries bring in the fruit and vegetable harvest in Germany. With the entry stop following the Corona pandemic, this will unfortunately this year not be possible. That is an acute danger for the economic existence of thousands of domestic farmers and for the important supply of fresh fruit and vegetables. The Federal government has failed to grant the entry permits for European harvest helpers and now sets up a job mediation platform to find sufficient domestic harvest help. The Federal government knows that is by far insufficient. Yet it appears to be indifferent to the dramatic consequences.

What is now most important is to do everything  possible to grant the entry permits for the relevant European harvest helpers. With a quarantine solution, that is a risk-free possibility. No farmer understands how refugees are permitted to come to Germany yet there is an entry ban on harvest help. Alongside that, a stimulus must be procured for farmers, domestic labor and the unemployed, as we have already demanded in our our motion (19/18115).

We should also consider during the emergency whether or not it would be possible to have school children from the 10^th grade and students help with the harvest. If we do not succeed in allowing the entry of European harvest help, then not only will the existence of thousands of fruit and vegetable farmers be destroyed, we will soon no longer have any fresh fruit and vegetables. That unconditionally must be prevented. I therefore demand decisive action from the Federal government. For that, we have laid the required measures on the table.

[Translated by Todd Martin]