What Gunnar spoke about.

—

EN Written Statement

EU funding allocated to NGOs incriminated in the recent corruption revelations and the protection of EU financial interests (debate)

In 2018, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) released a report about the lack of financial transparency of NGOs. In this report, the ECA remarks that the EU delegates 1.7% of its budget to NGOs, including 6.8% of the European Development Fund. That is a total amount of 11.3 billion euros over the 2014-17 budget that is attributed to NGOs. According to the ECA, the lack of a European legal framewo…

—

DE Written Statement

Objection pursuant to Rule 111(3): Amending the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act and the Taxonomy Disclosures Delegated Act (debate)

The EU Green Deal and the Fit for 55 programme foresee that the EU must become climate neutral by 2050. This, of course, will have an impact on investment. European financial institutions and businesses will have to invest heavily in sustainable technologies. But who decides what is sustainable and what is not? This is where the EU taxonomy comes into play: It classifies all possible economic acti…

24

Apr

2024

DE Speech

Watch

The sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive - Anti-Money Laundering Regulation - Establishing the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (joint debate - Anti-money laundering)

Mr President, Commissioner! Under the pretext of money laundering and the fight against terrorism, this is essentially about the introduction of a cash payment ceiling of EUR 10 000. In addition, the acquisition of gold and crypto is to be made more difficult and thus opportunities to hedge against high inflation and euro currency losses. All German cartel parties support this act of further finan…

23

Apr

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Effective coordination of economic policies and multilateral budgetary surveillance - Speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure – amending Regulation - Requirements for budgetary frameworks of the Member States – amending Directive (joint debate – Economic governance)

Mr President! When the EU decided on the euro, it said it would become a hard currency modeled on the low inflation D-Mark and a central bank that protects savings and small fortunes, forcing governments to take responsibility. Strict fiscal rules and an inflation target of less than 2% were agreed. But 30 years after Maastricht, we have high inflation, sick banks and record debt. Almost every sta…

10

Apr

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Screening of third country nationals at the external borders - European Criminal Records Information System - Third Country Nationals - Common procedure for international protection in the Union - Establishing a return border procedure, and amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1148 - Asylum and migration management - Addressing situations of crisis and force majeure - Establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of Regulation (EU) No 604/2013, for identifying an illegally staying third-country national or stateless person and on requests for the comparison with Eurodac data by Member States' law enforcement authorities and Europol for law enforcement purposes (recast) - Union Resettlement Framework - Standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection - Standards for the reception of applicants for international protection (recast) (joint debate - Migration and Asylum package)

Madam President, If the Dublin asylum regime had been strictly applied, Europe would hardly have had to take in illegal migrants and Germany would not have had to. This is why the Commission wants to replace Dublin with the Pact on Migration. The first aim of the Pact is to: Frontex to become a sea rescue agency for migrants. Secondly: extend the family influx to uncles, half-siblings and life par…

13

Mar

2024

EN Speech

Watch

The time the European Commission takes to deal with requests for public access to documents (debate)

Mr President, Max Weber 100 years ago wrote, ‘Every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge secret and by hiding its action from criticism’. One year ago, I asked the European Commission to grant me access to EIOPA’s report into the revocation of Euroins’s business licence in Romania. The Commission stated it never received the report…

13

Mar

2024

DE Speech

Watch

European Semester for economic policy coordination 2024 – European Semester for economic policy coordination: employment and social priorities for 2024 (joint debate – European Semester)

Mr President! The Commission expects stagflation for Germany this year and hardly any growth next year. Germany's inflation remains above the EU level and above the asymptotic 2% that the ECB claims to be aiming for. In fact, Germany has the lowest economic growth of any OECD country except Argentina. Even unemployment in Germany is only seemingly low because millions of sudden migrants are not re…

11

Mar

2024

DE Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, In 1633, the Inquisition excommunicated Galileo for heliocentrism – that is, for his departure from the ecclesiastical dogma that the sun revolves around the earth. Last month, ECB Director Elderson threatened to dismiss all employees who, according to the quote, "deny the reality of man-made climate change alone, or that climate change threatens price stability". As a Conservativ…

29

Feb

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Major interpellations (debate)

Mr President! The ID Group has requested a major question on EU migration policy. We ask for information on the exact number of illegal migrants entering Lampedusa every day, broken down by country of origin, gender and age. Because all this information would have to be determined on arrival. Under international law, no state is obliged to simply let illegal migrants ashore, and immediate repatria…

29

Feb

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Commission recommendation on secure and resilient submarine cables (debate)

Mr President! A Chinese ship is said to have cut a telecom submarine cable in the Baltic Sea in October. I am talking about alleged sabotage. The Commission is now calling on Member States to ban Chinese telecoms companies from accessing the EU or to stop granting them authorisations to install submarine cables. Let's talk about real sabotage: According to the Nord Stream sabotage files, some stat…

28

Feb

2024

DE Speech

Watch

The extradition and prosecution of Julian Assange and implications on freedom of the press (debate)

Madam President, Already in 2017, after the murder of a Maltese investigative journalist, this Parliament called for more legal protection for journalists and whistleblowers. Now you can put your words into action. Julian Assange, who has exposed war crimes in Iraq, runs the risk of being extradited to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison on questionable espionage charges. As earl…

28

Feb

2024

EN Speech

Watch

Regaining our competitive edge - a prosperous EU in a fragmented global economy (topical debate)

Mr President, in 2008, the EU economy was still noticeably larger than that of the US. Today, the US economy is more than a third larger. Year on year, the gap is widening because growth paths have been diverging. Even struggling post-Brexit Britain is easily outperforming Germany and France. So, why is Europe so manifestly and collectively failing? First, because of the Green Deal which assumes t…

26

Feb

2024

DE Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President! The sick man of Europe is a title that has been awarded to Europe's weakest major economy for 150 years. Now, as the actually Germany-friendly Guardian writes, Germany is preparing to secure this title for all time. Stagflation, industrial and human capital flight and open-job records for millions of unqualified migrants are the symptoms of the insane climate and migration policy wit…

7

Feb

2024

EN Speech

Watch

This is Europe - Debate with the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis (debate)

Madam President, Mr Commissioner, Your Excellency, Romania’s motor insurance industry has been in turmoil in recent years: 12 companies providing motor insurance have been driven out of business in just 12 years. A total of 12 insurance fails in 12 years should raise serious concerns about the regulatory environment in the Member State. In 2019, the Romanian insurance regulator ASF asked Euroins R…

6

Feb

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Conclusions of the European Council meetings, in particular the special European Council meeting of 1 February 2024 (debate)

Madam President, You may have a pistol, but we have the bazooka – this is how the London Financial Times described the EU’s stance towards Hungary at the last EU summit. The EU threatened Hungary with further sanctions, the end of all public and private investment and the collapse of the Hungarian currency. For example, Viktor Orbán was blackmailed to give the green light to the €50 billion financ…

5

Feb

2024

DE Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President! Since 2014, Germany has taken in between 6 and 7 million illegal migrants. According to Professor Raffelhüschen of the University of Freiburg, these migrants will cost the Germans at least EUR 5 800 billion or EUR 116 billion every year, because the migrants are underqualified, hardly work, but receive the same social benefits as nationals. We have a choice here: Either we follow the…

17

Jan

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Review of the economic governance framework (debate)

Mr President! With the introduction of the euro, the EU opted for a hard currency modelled on the German D-Mark, with low inflation and a central bank that protects savers and pensioners, complicates debt and promotes growth. They agreed on clear debt rules and an inflation target of less than 2%. Frankfurt became the seat of the ECB. After 25 years of the euro, we have record inflation and record…

16

Jan

2024

DE Speech

Watch

Implementation of the Treaty provisions on national parliaments - Implementation of the Treaty provisions on EU citizenship (joint debate – Implementation of the Treaty provisions)

Mr President! Without more migrants, the EU will starve to death, Commissioner Ylva Johansson said last week. Professor Raffelhüschen, Germany's best-known pension expert, disagrees: As before, migration costs Germany at least 5.8 trillion euros in total economic terms, far more than the German economic output of a year. This sum results from the integration and social assistance costs and the dif…

12

Dec

2023

DE Speech

Watch

Defence of democracy package (debate)

Madam President, The European Commission wants to protect European democracy from covert influences by foreign rogue states and undesirable regimes. My party and my group look forward to all sensible proposals in this regard. EU-critical politicians and parties are often accused of being financed by non-EU powers – to my knowledge wrongly. Thus, the criticism of the Commission's request does not c…

11

Dec

2023

DE Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, The US business magazine Forbes has named Ursula von der Leyen the most powerful and ECB chief Lagarde the second most powerful woman in the world. The criteria: the extent of power over human and financial capital and global political influence. So power is measured, not performance. So measured, the choice makes sense. Under the Treaties, von der Leyen is a head of administratio…

22

Nov

2023

EN Speech

Watch

This is Europe - Debate with the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Nikolay Denkov (debate)

Madam President, honourable Prime Minister, allow me to congratulate you on your decision to order an investigation into the 2023 Bulgarian-Turkish gas deal concluded by your predecessor. The Southern Gas Corridor, we all know, is used to launder Russian gas via Turkey, and to circumvent EU sanctions, which so far have had little effect on the Russian economy. The European Commission knows this fu…

21

Nov

2023

DE Speech

Watch

Proposals of the European Parliament for the amendment of the Treaties (debate)

Mr President! This House intends to implement the proposals of the Conference on the Future of Europe for an EU State. This includes von der Leyen's EU Migration Pact, which aims to facilitate migration and even accelerate naturalisation, so that fewer and fewer EU citizens will be Europeans in the future. To this end, they want to abolish the Dublin system. But Dublin doesn't have to be replaced,…

20

Nov

2023

DE Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Mr President! The German Constitutional Court ruled last week that €60 billion should not have been allocated to the Climate Fund to deal with the coronavirus crisis. According to the court, debts incurred for an acute emergency must not be misused – this is a breach of the debt brake in Germany. The German traffic light government must now find a new sleight of hand for its shadow budgets. Von de…

8

Nov

2023

DE Speech

Watch

One-minute speeches on matters of political importance

Madam President, According to official figures, the burden of migrants on public budgets in Germany amounts to almost 50 billion euros per year. In fact, it's at least $100 billion. Now the German government wants to accelerate deportations through migration agreements and establish asylum centers abroad. Well-known memoranda of understanding that do not turn into anything because courts prevent i…

18

Oct

2023

DE Speech

Watch

Fighting disinformation and dissemination of illegal content in the context of the Digital Services Act and in times of conflict (debate)

Mr President! Large online platforms and search engines such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Apple or Twitter have been subject to the Digital Services Act since August, which aims to control hate speech and disinformation on the Internet. Hate speech includes any critical expression of opinion based on national, ethnic or religious criteria. Ebenso zensurwürdig sind sogenannte Online-Desinformatio…