Speeches

Madam President, We are the winners of the war in Ukraine, not Moscow, Kiev or Beijing, but – at least at the moment – Paris, Rome and Frankfurt. In fact, the Maastricht rules should be reactivated after COVID-19. But the war in Ukraine means: Paris and Rome in particular do not have to save, and the ECB in Frankfurt continues to print billions every day. After the COVID-19 crisis, government debt in the euro area is close to 100% of economic output, while the ECB balance sheet total is above 82% of gross national product. That is, the eurozone countries spend much more than their countries generate, and the money supply expands without the economy growing. The result is devaluation of money. The Maastricht criteria should moderate governments, prevent waste of money and protect citizens and their savings. But here they deprive governments and speculators of great wealth and expropriate the citizens.

Mr President! The prices of gas and crude oil are rising faster and higher. Russia alone is to blame, because it is shortening natural gas and manipulating the price. Maybe. But the main blame lies with European Commission President von der Leyen. Firstly: Since taking office, she has replaced long-term supply contracts with spot contracts because she believed gas demand would fall. In fact, prices are rising. Spot prices, however, are not ridiculous prices, and spot prices hit consumers full. Secondly: The Leyens Green Deal. Spain's central bank simulated the impact of the carbon tax and transfer pricing. Conclusion: Spain's high inflation rate of over 6 percent will increase by a further 1.5 percentage points. According to German economic practices, ecopolitics contributes even a third to the inflation rate. Even ECB Director Isabel Schnabel admits that climate rescue is driving inflation. Today is International Women's Day, and contemporary women rule Europe. For 16 years it was Angela Merkel who decided to phase out nuclear power and save the climate in Germany. Von der Leyen, who provides the world's highest electricity prices in Germany and the highest gasoline prices in Europe, and Christine Lagarde, who finances the world rescue with negative interest rates, expropriates savers and gradually renders the euro worthless. By 2030 at the latest, we will be broke here. But then the three most expensive women in Europe with Klaus Schwab and Elon Musk have long since escaped into their transhumane future.

Madam President, The Kiev moment, according to this Parliament, shows that the citizens wanted more EU with a new EU migration pact to legalize all migration, more family reunification and safe access routes for up to 70 million migrants by 2035. In fact, Europeans want to help displaced Ukrainians. But, according to the results of the large INSA migration survey, 80% of Europeans also want more border security. More than 80% no longer want unqualified migrants, and 75% are convinced that migration will be a problem for personal security, the survival of social systems and/or our cultural identity. Dear colleagues, please finally take note: Many EU citizens want to help their neighbours, but they do not feel indiscriminately responsible for all the problems of the world.

Madam President, The ECJ decided today that the Commission could link disbursements from the EU budget to compliance with so-called rule of law criteria. In interpreting the concept of the rule of law, the EU institutions have very wide discretion. Specifically, payments to Hungary and Poland can now be withheld because both countries are accused of endangering the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. Three comments on this: First, the CJEU follows an ultra-flexible interpretation of the contract contrary to Articles 31 and 32 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This means that the ECJ does not attach priority to the wording, but often prefers other interpretative criteria that enable more EU integration. The Treaties are interpreted contrary to the wording. Right is what the judge says it is. Secondly: The Treaties do not provide a legal basis for conditionality in the allocation of budgetary resources on the basis of EU universal competence to enforce the rule of law, including against national constitutional law. Under the principle of conferral, all competences remain with the Member States, unless they have been explicitly and exclusively transferred to the EU. The judiciary and even fundamental rights are not such exclusively delegated subjects. Thirdly: Poland and Hungary, according to the ECJ, politicized the judiciary. In fact, both countries do not go nearly as far as Germany. Because in Germany, politics elects all constitutional judges, all judges are allowed to be members of political parties, all prosecutors are politically bound by directives and the opposition is supervised by the secret service. Germany has 19 secret services, and the President of the German Constitutional Court is a former deputy head of Merkel's parliamentary group. He is a business lawyer and partner of a business law firm that brings a lot of money and also likes to donate. Germany will not be judged, but Hungary and Poland will be judged. Let's sum up: The ECJ disregards methods of interpretation under international law, finds any goals and purposes in crystal-clear treaty provisions, renders compliant judgments and treats Hungary and Poland differently from Germany, because the rule of law has become the rule of links in Germany. What is called the rule of law here is nothing more than the continuation of the rule of links practiced here by other means, in this case those of the judiciary.

Mr President! The ID Foundation recently investigated the influence of NGOs on EU legislation. Out of 12 600 lobbyists in the EU Transparency Register, 3 500 are NGOs. NGOs maintain close contacts with the Commission and politicians and write draft laws such as lobbyists, but are hardly subject to disclosure rules. From 2014 to 2017, NGOs received at least 11.3 billion euros from the EU budget. That's at least 11.3 billion for pro-EU lobbying, as NGOs call for more migration, more climate rescue, minority rights and more EU. ‘NGO’ or ‘non-profit organisation’ may sound philanthropic and like ‘non-profit association’. However, multinational NGOs receive billions of financial investors and are financially stronger than medium-sized savings banks. But as so-called Not Owned Entities or privileged organisations are exempt from anti-money laundering and financial transparency laws. Their sources of money often remain in the dark. Last year, Hungary tried to tighten transparency requirements for foreign NGOs. However, the CJEU rejected the Transparency Act as a violation of the free movement of capital – unfortunately. A little modified, it would be a good model for the EU.

Madam President, The EU is planning a new EU migration pact with fast asylum procedures, new access routes for migrants, more family reunification and more reception capacities through relocation. This means: Tens of millions of new migrants by 2040, because climate change and the right to abortion are also to become grounds for asylum. All this, according to Mrs. von der Leyen, the citizens wanted. Really? According to a survey commissioned by my ID colleagues and myself, hardly a quarter of EU citizens know about the EU plans. 90 percent therefore want more data on the cost of migration, and 80 percent of citizens believe that migration threatens internal security, our national identities and/or the welfare state. Only 16% say migration is safe. Are you here either out of your mind or do you want to ruin Europe? Either, or - to regret is both.

Madam President, Commissioner, Madame Lagarde! 30 years Maastricht and 20 years Euro: The ECB celebrates the euro as a major integration step and guarantor of Europe's economic strength. But there is no mention of the Lisbon agenda of making the EU the world's most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010. What a hubris! The eurozone has had the lowest growth in the developed world for years. In high technology, we are behind China and the United States. Unemployment remains high and would be even higher if the migrants were not embezzled. And the euro itself is the most expensive currency in the world, which must be saved with hundreds of billions every year. For German savers alone, the euro cost around 116 billion euros in 2021, as inflation is now five and a half percent, while in Switzerland it is 1.5 percent. Unaffordable, economically disastrous and permanently unconstitutional, because the euro rescue has been carried out since 2010 by constant breach of Articles 123, 125, 127 and 311 of the EU Treaties. Conclusion: The euro is a path of confusion and aberration, as are your climate rescue fantasies and unqualified mass migration. My colleague urged me to be gentle today. I did what I could.

Mr President! Congratulations on your re-election! Youth unemployment in the EU is 16.3%; in Italy it is 30%, in Greece and Spain it is 33%, and in some places it is even above 40%. More than three million young Europeans are looking for work. At the same time, the EU has allowed five million unqualified asylum seekers to enter the country since 2015. In Germany, there is a shortage of skilled workers and more than 700,000 vacancies. Young Europeans might be more likely to fill these jobs than migrants. So take advantage of the EU free movement of persons and offer young southern Europeans in particular a perspective again! Solve their problems not through inflation and at the expense of German savers and taxpayers, but through competitiveness and better training opportunities! In short: Take citizens' concerns seriously. Stick to the treaties and trust majorities instead of your NGOs!

Madam President, On 11 November, the Russian Prosecutor General requested the Supreme Court to close the International Memorial organization. Memorial is said to have received donations from abroad and, contrary to the Foreign Agents Act, has not disclosed sources of money and has not provided relevant information to publications. The EU condemns Russia's actions. At the same time, Germany and the EU are also legally complicating party, media or NGO financing from abroad. US media companies are also curtailing freedom of expression in the EU at will. Politically compliant public broadcasting enjoys billions in funding. Germany denies RT broadcasting licenses, and private chats will soon be legally monitored. The West calls its donors stakeholders, the Russians agents. The British philosopher John Stuart Mill complained that the competition of ideas is nowhere so free. And the rule of law is also in the EU and in Germany sometimes only fair weather event.

Madam President, This year, EU governments received the first payments from the EU Recovery Fund. Relative to gross domestic product, Croatia received almost 1.6%, while Germany – the largest contributor to the EU budget at €40 billion per year – received only 0.06%. In addition to the 0.00% we receive from the SURE unemployment program. The EU therefore seems to be worth more than 26 Germans in terms of gross domestic product. Per capita disbursements range from 420 euros per Italian to 27 euros per German citizen, although Germany pays back the lion's share of the debt-financed recovery fund. In other words: An Italian is worth 15.5 Germans. Germans have the lowest median wealth in the EU, the lowest home ownership rate. They pay the highest wage levies in the EU and are expropriated by the ECB by at least 5% of their savings each year. The Commission stresses that everything is fine, because the German Government finally agreed. Unfortunately, the Commission is right. The German government has agreed to allow Germany to be exempted like a Christmas goose. In this sense: Merry Christmas, especially to the many victims of wage slavery in Germany.

Madam President, More than 50 French soldiers have died in Mali since 2013. The country is not pacified, Islamists terrorize the population. The government of Mali now wants the withdrawal of French troops and wants to protect the population with the help of the Russian Wagner Group. France is calling for further EU sanctions against Russia. Mali is the first test sample for the new Green Foreign Minister Baerbock. Will it remain true to its emancipation and self-determination rhetoric for Africa or willfully, according to Macron's wish, replace French troops with EU and also German troops? Let's be honest! In the Banlieues French troops from Paris and Marseilles are more likely to be needed to protect lives there. Just like German soldiers in Duisburg or on the Kölner Domplatte.

Mr President, the Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence is the first European convention to impose legal duties specifically to protect women. It’s been ratified by most EU Member States. The EU is now calling on the remaining six members to follow soon. Two comments. Of course, women should be protected against violence. However, why only women? Men are as likely to suffer domestic violence as women. Why don’t they merit protection? Second, some States object to ratification because they fear the courts may interpret the convention too broadly and apply it to gender matters unrelated to domestic violence and violence against women. The convention is specifically aimed at both, and the text freely refers to both, but little else. The Vienna Convention on the Laws of Treaties requires that treaties be interpreted in good faith and according to their ordinary meaning, unless that meaning is woefully unclear or absurd. Yet the EU, and some national courts, commonly construe legal provisions dynamically, that means against their wording and to further purposes the courts invent and impose. The only safeguard against this undemocratic practice of judicial lawmaking by unelected and politically appointed officials, is the literal, or text-based, interpretation. What there is need for is a convention against judicial lawmaking, not the judicial extension of the Istanbul Convention.

Madam President, Stephan Harbarth, the President of the German Constitutional Court recently declared Poland fell short of German rule of law standards. Moreover, the Polish judiciary was not independent. Two comments – first, Poland’s top court has questioned the supremacy of EU law over national constitutions, a position which is exactly that of Germany’s top court, except the German judges wilfully ignore any EU treaty violation, and the German government tells them to. Second, the federal government effectively controls the appointment of all top judges in Germany, who are often signed up members of political parties. Harbarth himself is a former deputy leader of Merkel’s party and will now decide complaints involving laws he himself advocated. While the judge rapporteur of the recent pro climate rescue judgment is close to the Greens and married to a green politician. Perhaps, I conclude, Poland should not match German standards.

Mr President! Since 2015, at least five million so-called refugees have followed Angela Merkel's invitation to the world to come to Germany and the EU. According to a recently published Danish study, the citizens of this German world rescue policy cost more than 100 billion euros every year. Now German politicians renew their invitation to the world, and immediately thousands gather in Belarus to travel illegally to Germany via Poland. Polish troops rightly deny them this illegal border crossing: None of the migrants has a ground for asylum, because according to Article 31 of the Geneva Convention on Refugees, at most they are entitled to temporary shelter, which comes directly from an unsafe third country. Belarus is not such a state. Poland is acting in accordance with international law. The calls of the German government, on the other hand, endanger the future of Europe as a whole.

Madam President, The EU is not a state, but an international organisation, that is, it cannot determine its tasks at will, but can only act on the principle of conferral. Tax legislation is not part of its contractually assigned tasks, but remains the prerogative of the nation states. According to Article 115 of the EU Treaties, the EU may act only if the Member States decide unanimously. That is why the EU is now adopting legal acts on the exchange of tax data, which can be welcomed as measures to purportedly protect freedom of establishment under Article 50(1) of the Treaties, but which has nothing to do with taxation. In this way, tax laws are passed by a majority. This circumvention of unanimity is abuse of rights and breach of contract. But the EU calls it the rule of law.

Mr President! The European Commission is calling for the establishment of another EU supervisory agency, stricter cash controls and an EU asset register. Under the guise of anti-money laundering, it registers and monitors what all citizens own, buy, sell and drive. This is not about money laundering. Hungary's law regulating the funding of LGBT and migration NGOs, foreign universities and the media has been overturned by the CJEU as an encroachment on the freedom of capital. But if the EU itself restricts the freedom of capital, it is legal. Even the EU Court of Auditors complains that the EU does nothing against money laundering in the smuggling of migrants – after all, a €6 billion industry. This is about citizen surveillance, invasion of privacy and the phasing out of cash, not money laundering and tax avoidance.

Mr President, Poland’s top court decided it can set aside EU law when that law either exceeds the EU’s powers, as limited by the Treaties, or violates the Polish Constitution. The judgment is clear, concise and correct. The EU is not sovereign and, according to Article 5 of the EU Treaty, EU law only has primacy where the Member States delegated powers to the EU. Where powers are unclear, however, the EU cannot be a judge in its own cause. The national higher courts therefore must needs enforce the limits of the EU Treaties because the Member States alone, as sovereign democratic entities, can define their conferred powers to ensure the EU does not judicially extend its own powers by competence creep. The Polish judgment is almost identical with the Lisbon Judgment of the German Verfassungsgericht, which too found, first, that the EU is neither sovereign, nor does it enjoy the same legitimacy as Member States, and, second, asserted its own power to review EU acts if they are ultra vires or violate the German Basic Law. There’s one difference, however. Whereas Poland takes its own highest court seriously, the German Verfassungsgericht was simply ignored when, last year, it held the European Central Bank had violated the EU Treaties. It seems Poland is defending the rule of law here, while Germany is ignoring it.

Madam President, Olaf Scholz, arguably the next German chancellor, wants to complete the EU banking union through the joint deposit guarantee EDIS. This is also intended to save and rehabilitate northern European savers of dilapidated banks throughout the eurozone. After Brexit, Germany already pays around 45 billion euros to the EU annually. In addition, there are around 100 billion TARGET2 loans to the euro zone and around 80 billion euros expropriation of savers due to negative interest rates from the ECB and rising inflation. And the so-called common asylum policy, whose rules everyone disregards, costs the Germans another 40 to 60 billion euros every year. In addition, there are the insane costs of climate rescue. Nowhere are wage-related taxes higher than in Germany, except perhaps in Belgium, nowhere are indigenous birth rates lower and people older than in Germany, Italy and Japan. And nowhere are electricity prices higher than in Germany – the trend continues to rise. They're acting like we're in Schlaraffenland. Because the German government imagines itself as economically omnipotent as the USA after 1945 and powders up the money for megalomaniac currency, financial, migration and climate projects that must fail because they are against the world order and reason. Whom the gods want to destroy, they make mad at first. And so be sure: Once the German credit rating is downgraded, it's over with your indulgence letters, social experiments, bank rescues and your world rescue madness!

Mr President! The EU recovery fund of well over 700 billion euros is illegally financed by Eurobonds and is supposed to mitigate the economic and social impact of the coronavirus wave. In fact, the Fund is a shadow budget that violates the prohibition on debt laid down in the Treaties in Articles 310 and 311 and serves to finance and bribe Eastern Europe to swallow the EU migration pact and EU-regulated sex education for preschoolers. Hungary and Poland, however, do not want hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, nor early sexualisation, nor before literacy. Poland alone will receive almost 40 billion from the fund, but the money will be blocked in the first place. Hungary and Poland are accused of political interference in the judiciary and a lack of media freedom. Spokesman against both is Germany. But in Germany, all high judges are effectively appointed by the government, prosecutors are politically bound by directives, and public broadcasting is government-funded and controlled. I believe it is time for German restraint and the end of EU double standards.

Mr President! Politicians like to scourge state-damaging practices of taxpayers. Let's talk about tax-damaging government practices and spending. The German government has brought at least 2.5 million migrants into the country since 2015, including newborns of asylum seekers. Every unaccompanied minor migrant costs the German taxpayer 65,000 euros per year, other migrants slightly less. That makes a total of at least 40 to 60 billion a year for life. The EU also has the most expensive currency in the world. The euro alone costs Germany around 100 billion euros per year in TARGET2 loans and 80 billion in lost savings rates, many times more expensive for climate rescue, from which only green financial jugglers benefit. In Hungary, citizens pay 15 percent flat rate on income and families with four children pay no taxes at all. In Russia, every family with two children receives a state payment to buy a property. All this, and in addition, they also get an unpoliticized education and cultural system without early sexualization for elementary school students. All of this is possible outside the eurozone. In the eurozone, we have debt-financed socially degenerative special programmes.

Madam President, when asked to assess the historical importance of the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai famously said: ‘It is too early to say.’ Today we know the Revolution failed. For the Pandora Papers have once again confirmed that the very rich remain tax exempt, and avoid paying tax perfectly legally. Two comments. First, many of the tax evaders are from countries which are among the largest recipients of German and EU development aid or of EU recovery funds. Yet neither Germany nor the EU wants to impose sanctions on those countries or persons. Where action could be, but isn’t, taken, there is obviously no political will to stop mass tax evasion by the super-rich. It is all idle talk here. Second, it is noteworthy that while most of the non-Western tax evaders are politicians, most Western evaders are celebrities and companies. The reason is obvious: Western politicians are rarely plutocrats, but mere gatekeepers of the plutocracy. That explains why this House is plundering the middle classes and pandering to the plutocracy. The middle class is today’s third estate, and our politicians are the second estate, which is legitimating rule by the first. It is Europe before 1789 but with fewer Europeans.

Mr President! The EU failed, not succeeded, in the COVID crisis. We had the biggest economic slump in the world because it was sloppy at the beginning and then the lockdown policy was all the harder. East Asia did not have a lockdown. Despite tougher measures, the EU, together with the UK and the US, has the highest death rates. Despite higher costs, less has been achieved. And as inefficient as the EU was, so intransparent is it. The disclosure of the contracts was massively blacked out. For example, it remains unclear why Sanofi, who cannot deliver, got a contract and money from Leyen. It is also unclear why prophylactic drugs such as ivermectin disappeared at the beginning of the crisis. It is clear: It is not the companies, but the taxpayers, who are liable for the consequential damage caused by the vaccines, which are only partially authorised. We know that vaccinated people still suffer from COVID, perhaps less often and usually less severely. On the other hand, the extent of short-term side effects is not fully clarified, the long-term ones remain completely uncertain. It is undisputed that vaccinated people continue to infect others. Clearly, above all, the restrictions on freedom in the crisis, bans on assembly, curfews and now in many states discrimination against the unvaccinated up to shopping bans for the untested and work bans under Mario Draghi. If the EU has achieved anything in the COVID crisis, it is that people are now not vaccinated for medical reasons, but to regain their rights first. What a success! And yet you are never tired of talking about the rule of law.

Madam President, In the Kakuma refugee camp, Kenya hosts around 200,000 migrants, mainly from Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea. This year there were arson attacks against lesbian residents in the camp. Now the sexual minorities are to be transferred to the EU if their situation does not improve. This House also wants to extend EU asylum law to climate migrants and pregnant women who have been denied abortion in Africa. Do you really know what you want? Africa's population will grow from 1.4 billion people to over 2.5 billion by 2050. If the EU grants asylum to even a tiny fraction of it, let's say 0.5 percent, it will ruin our welfare systems without improving the lot of people in Africa in any way. Nevertheless, you want to bring dozens, if not hundreds of millions, of people from Africa to Europe in the coming decades. In June, a 24-year-old Somali who came to Germany in 2015 as a so-called refugee killed three women and injured five others in Würzburg, Bavaria. In 2019, an Eritrean threw an eight-year-old boy in front of a moving train in Frankfurt. The Kakuma refugee camp is 8,500 kilometres from the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Before we debate the protection of African lesbians from Somali and Ethiopian migrants in Kenya, shouldn't we first protect our own women and citizens from Somali or Ethiopian migrants? What do you have against Europeans?

Madam President, on Thursdays this House is fondly debating issues in faraway places about which we know little. Today it is Cuba. Presently, there are shortages of essential foodstuffs and medicine and problems in the management of the COVID virus wave. The issue today is whether or not to condemn Cuba for its mishandling of public protests and restrictions of media freedom. We unreservedly condemn police violence against peaceful protestors and restrictions on civil liberties in Cuba or elsewhere. However, let me remind you that during the COVID crisis, EU Member States have imposed unprecedented curfews and limits on our freedoms of assembly and of expression, especially on social media. In France and other Member States, no one can now enter restaurants, bars or even supermarkets without a valid COVID passport or test. In Italy, Mario Draghi is making the COVID passport compulsory for workers and, apparently, also considered restricting access to polling stations to the vaccinated. Even this House is still considering restricting entry to holders of COVID passports. Before taking others to task, I strongly recommend we get our own House in order first.

Madam President, the EU is currently withholding Poland’s corona funds because Poland is allegedly politicising the judiciary and limiting foreign ownership of the media to minority stakes. Let’s compare Poland’s reforms with reality in Germany again. In Germany, public prosecutors are not independent. Judges may be members of political parties and top judges are all effectively appointed by the governing parties. Recently, Chancellor Merkel engineered the elevation of a vice-chair of her own parliamentary party to the presidency of the august Constitutional Court, to ensure the Court will never rule against the ECB again. Meanwhile, the key media channels in Germany are all effectively controlled by political appointees, while RT is denied a TV licence. The rule of law, let me remind you, does not countenance double standards.