What Markus spoke about.

17 Jun

2026

DE Speech

Electrification Action Plan (debate)

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Mr President! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have visitors from Germany sitting here today in the grandstand, and they think to themselves: Finally someone, the European Parliament, the Commission, got it. Electrification Action Plan; It's my electricity bill, finally the costs are reduced. No, that's not the case. It is again working on the demand side on the acceptance side; It increases the dema…

20 May

2026

DE Speech

Reviewing the ETS system to support European competitiveness (topical debate)

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Madam President, Dear colleagues! The EU Emissions Trading System has failed, in its entirety. It has neither saved the climate nor strengthened the industry in any way. What it has done, on the other hand, is to drive up energy prices, explode production costs and bring European companies to their knees – or to sell them off to non-European countries. We're talking about a review today. I'm telli…

10 Mar

2026

DE Speech

Presentation of the Energy Package (debate)

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Mr President! The European Commission is trying to provide us with its latest energy package and the so-called Clean industrial deal Scattering sand in your eyes again. It sells it as a relief for industry and affordable energy for everyone. The bitter truth, however, is that it is the continuation of precisely that misguided policy that exploded our energy prices and brought our industry to the b…

11 Feb

2026

DE Answer

Rule of law, fundamental rights and misuse of EU funds in Slovakia: the need for an EU response (debate)

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Mr Freund, I am constantly addressing corruption, for example in your case, when it comes to how your kind is financed in NGOs, cooperating with any smugglers' associations on the Mediterranean and the like. After all, you are the party that is most subsidized by this tax sump and benefits from it in the end. Take a look at the water heads in Berlin, Brussels and elsewhere. Who's sitting there? Af…

11 Feb

2026

DE Speech

Rule of law, fundamental rights and misuse of EU funds in Slovakia: the need for an EU response (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. What we are witnessing today in this debate is another example of what has become routine in Brussels: A sovereign member state is publicly denounced because its democratically elected government does not fit into the political worldview of the EU Commission. Slovakia, a country with its own history, its own culture, its own democratic decision, is treated li…

19 Jan

2026

DE Speech

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, We felt 30 tomorrow. Let's put Hungary on the agenda. We are all great friends of democracy and want to protect it, but nobody pays attention to what is happening in Germany at the moment. At least not here in the house. What about freedom of the press and freedom of expression? Unfortunately, it is especially my fellow Prime Ministers of the CDU who have been a…

16 Dec

2025

DE Speech

Phasing out Russian natural gas imports and improving monitoring of potential energy dependencies (debate)

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25 Nov

2025

DE Speech

Effective use of the EU trade and industrial policy to tackle China’s export restrictions (debate)

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Madam President, Commissioner! Don't worry, it's getting easier now. I think I'm making funny logical conclusions here, but that's a bit wild. China is strangulating our entire industry with export bans on gallium, germanium and rare earths. And often we do so, here in Brussels, as if it were pure coincidence. So now we are at the mercy of the Chinese, soon another de facto monopolist in another f…

8 Oct

2025

DE Speech

Europe’s automotive future – reversing the ban on the sale of combustion cars in the EU (topical debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 2019, as the Green Deal Just in the starting blocks and when Greta Thunberg was still walking through the corridors here, we already had studies that said that in the next few years alone in Germany we would lose 200,000 to 400,000 jobs in the automotive industry if the combustion engine ban came. Now we are here again today, and the question is asked: Man, the …

7 Oct

2025

DE Speech

EU political strategy on Latin America (debate)

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Madam President, Yes, when we talk about strategy here in the house, it's always a warning signal. Most of the time, it's tactical or operational at best what comes out of here. I do not wish to disagree with Mr Tertsch, I would never presume to do so. But we should be glad that we are talking about how we want to define our position on Latin America in more detail. The big problem is here: We tal…

8 Sep

2025

DE Speech

Circularity requirements for vehicle design and management of end-of-life vehicles (debate)

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Mr President! The EU regulation on the circular economy in the automotive industry threatens our global competitiveness. Requirements for recycled plastics, extended producer liability with high costs and new type approval procedures that deviate from global standards place a one-sided burden on our manufacturers. In the USA, there are no comparable binding quota or disposal rules, but flexible su…

9 Jul

2025

DE Speech

Lessons from Budapest Pride: the urgent need for an EU wide anti-discrimination law and defending fundamental rights against right-wing attacks (topical debate)

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Madam President, Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about Pride today, we are talking about pride. Where's the pride you're so proud of today? I was in Budapest recently, about four weeks ago, and I was happy about how child-friendly a city can be: That my daughter was really looked at from the street sweeper to the parliamentary staff, that you were proud of the families there and that you…

8 Jul

2025

DE Speech

Revision of the European Climate Law (debate)

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Madam President, Well, since a lot of people today have gone back to six years ago, I would also like to do that briefly – it was very exciting, especially here in Strasbourg. The EPP has been struggling to take a photo with various pillar saints such as Anna Greta Thunberg here. I don't know if these photos are still hanging, but the spirit of that time still beats through to this day. And when I…

18 Jun

2025

DE Answer

Electricity grids: the backbone of the EU energy system (debate)

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Reading, of course. I've also seen what happened in Spain before. I believe that if we had a solid base load capacity in the coal-fired power plant sector, in the gas-fired power plant sector, and also in the nuclear power sector, we would have been spared what happened in Spain. And you also know very well that it was the overcapacity, the overvoltage in the solar power plants that led to this pr…

18 Jun

2025

DE Speech

Electricity grids: the backbone of the EU energy system (debate)

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Mr President! Of course, when my Green colleagues speak of a good proposal, the alarm bells go off among industry and citizens, because they say that it is the next big heart project here in the European Union, the next big project of centralisation, the next big shrinkage for our citizens and businesses. Where are we now? €500 billion by 2030, over €2000 billion by 2050 – the next major project i…

2 Apr

2025

DE Speech

Energy-intensive industries (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. It becomes absurd and bizarre, almost paradoxical, when the Left and Greens, who have fought for years and decades personally and with their parties against industry, against capitalism and against the free economy, now want to think about concepts and recipes – Mr Executive Vice-President, you should not nod now – how they want to save this economy and indus…

12 Mar

2025

DE Speech

Accelerating the phase-out of Russian gas and other Russian energy commodities in the EU (debate)

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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, The diversification of our raw material connections is right and necessary and would have been necessary much earlier. Alone, now in this discussion, the question arises as to who is sitting here opposite each other: On the one hand, those pragmatic politicians who also want to think of a post-war order, and on the other hand, it seems, at least, ideologues. Lad…

12 Mar

2025

DE Speech

Action Plan for the Automotive Industry (debate)

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Madam President, Yes, ladies and gentlemen, one would almost like to say Better late than never. Unfortunately, it was already clear in 2019 – one or the other of us was perhaps already in front of the factory gates of various car manufacturers – that fleet fines, a lack of technology neutrality, the end of the combustion engine and other measures, such as the increase in the price of precursors s…

12 Feb

2025

DE Speech

Collaboration between conservatives and far right as a threat for competitiveness in the EU (topical debate)

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Mr President! Yes, you can almost say what a false discussion, what a false title here again. It's about competition problems in Europe, you said. You know exactly where these competition problems lie – in your failed Green Deal, in a commission riddled with left-wing and green ideology and in corresponding political guidelines that bring our economy to its knees. It's about something completely d…

21 Jan

2025

DE Speech

Geopolitical and economic implications for the transatlantic relations under the new Trump administration (debate)

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Mr President! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, one almost feels reminded of biblical quotations in these discussions today, because a great howling and rattling of teeth goes through the room, as certainly through the European Commission. Howling and clattering your teeth? Yes, because the time of Justin Trudeau, of Olaf Scholz and certainly also of Ursula von der Leyen is coming to an end. The time of …

20 Jan

2025

DE Speech

Powering Europe’s future - advancing the fusion industry for energy independence and innovation (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen! By 2100, our global electricity demand will rise to seven times that of the current one, albeit in the event that the Greens do not suddenly embark on their worldwide triumphal march of deindustrialization, which is fortunately not what it currently looks like. In the Federal Republic of Germany alone, we expect demand for electricity to double or triple by 2…

18 Dec

2024

DE Speech

Restoring the EU’s competitive edge – the need for an impact assessment on the Green Deal policies (topical debate)

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Mr President! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we were promised prosperity, growth and employment, we got deindustrialization, impoverishment and wealth outflow. In this respect, the question is, of course, funny that you are now dealing with a Impact assessment It is part of a €1,800 billion programme. We need this Assessment Don't buy it for expensive money, we can do it here today. Because the citize…

27 Nov

2024

DE Answer

Rise of energy prices and fighting energy poverty (debate)

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Mr Colleague, it would be nice if it were so. I think you're calling us right-wing extremists over here. If I may say: It would be very, very good for our parties if the power companies were a little bit on our side. In fact, we are committed to cheap electricity. But I'm with you. They were before with the merit order principle. I also see this as a big problem. You're absolutely right. But it re…

27 Nov

2024

DE Speech

Rise of energy prices and fighting energy poverty (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Sometimes you wonder where you landed. It's actually also a pathological degree of denial of reality when you hear in here right now: Green DealGreen energy is cheap energy. Ladies and gentlemen, one or the other may not have noticed that we had five days of darkness in Germany last week and that it is then not as favorable as is claimed here in the Saale. An…

8 Oct

2024

DE Speech

The crisis facing the EU’s automotive industry, potential plant closures and the need to enhance competitiveness and maintain jobs in Europe (debate)

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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Complaining and wailing from the executive floors and from the car companies – it's just as if you've only just come to your senses. The Green Deal is not a growth strategy at all, but a strategy of de-industrialization. But here the question is allowed: Who has been associated with this green prosperity destruction policy for years? It was precisely the exec…