Speeches

Madam President, Whether the Digital Services Act or the AI-Act: Under the pretext of security, totalitarian measures are constantly being promoted here in the EU. The latest idea is chat control. Our data, our opinions, our behaviour, everything should be recorded. Every citizen is potentially suspicious. The perfidious thing is that the rule of law, which we are always talking about here in this House, is being turned into its opposite. That is exactly what the EU stands for. It does not stand for the rule of law. It stands for totalitarian measures. This is exactly what this debate, in which we talk about chat control, stands for. Every citizen is suspected. For security, all freedom of citizens should be sacrificed. And this is a path that we should fundamentally reject.

Dear colleague, first of all I would like to correct you: It was not some Europeans who tore down the Berlin Wall, but it was the Germans who did it – that is the introduction. But I would like to give you a quote from your group. I quote: “I don’t know if it was the Ukrainians who blew up Nord Stream, but even if they did, I think it is a legitimate target”. You and your group also say – it is a quote from your colleague Gahler, by the way – yes: We need billions to escape an alleged threat from Russia. On the other hand, it is people like Mr Gahler who approve of actual attacks on our infrastructure. So is it the position of the EPP that such attacks by Ukraine be approved?

Madam President, At 67, German pensioners have one of the highest retirement ages in the EU. The average pension in 2023 was just 1102 euros, well below the poverty line. In Germany, many pensioners suffer from poverty after working hard for a lifetime and paying into the pension fund. Their pensions are often barely enough to live on. At the same time, refugees receive comprehensive support, accommodation, care, medical care, the all-round carefree package – this is the priority setting of the old parties. But young people are also concerned with intergenerational justice. For them, it is important to secure a future. This is not just about the economy. It is the promise that they can grow up in their homeland, which they can also recognize as their homeland. It is the promise that their culture and identity as a people will be preserved. They have the right to grow up in a country that respects their roots and that does not become foreign to them. However, their needs are often overlooked in favor of short-term policies. We must listen to their voices, protect our culture and offer the boys a strong home where they can live freely and proudly in their country. They are our future, and we must do everything we can to secure that future.

Madam President, More pressure on Russia, sanctions against Russia: It's always the same lyre we hear. In this house, Mrs. von der Leyen, you are still allowed to talk, in the White House someone like you is allowed to maximally still at the cat table. A lot of rearmament, a lot of war – do you know what word you didn’t use? and diplomacy! Maybe it's because you used to be Secretary of Defense, with none of your own sons serving his country. They stand for the fact that the war of the rich is the struggle of the poor. ...

Dear Mr President, In Germany, the economy is on the ground; For years we have been the only industrialized nation in the world in a permanent recession. Responsible for this is the policy of the old parties and the EU: Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be destroyed by them in the shortest possible time, and hundreds of thousands or even millions more will follow. The mark of 3 million unemployed people was recently exceeded. Now the EU would have the opportunity to counter these dramatic developments with the Social Fund Plus. One of the main goals of this 100 billion-dollar fund is, as is well known, to bring the unemployed back into wages and bread. So far, however, Germany has hardly benefited from this fund. This is because we have been very, very strong economically for years, but these times are now over due to the impact of your policies. But the EU would not be the EU if it did not completely screw up potentially meaningful measures itself. In order to master strategic challenges, funds should now be redirected to the arms industry and the so-called green transformation, i.e. precisely those technologies that have led to a historically unprecedented destruction of prosperity in Germany. These strategic challenges, as you call them, should be met with the greatest possible flexibility. This sounds very much like the typical "EU speech" for "without parliamentary scrutiny"; We already know this from the 150 billion-dollar armaments package. As by far the largest net contributor, Germany has paid hundreds of billions into the EU budget and received far too little back. In view of the dramatic economic crisis in my home country, for which the EU has a considerable share of responsibility, it is time to give something back to my compatriots.

Mr President! In a democracy, the people decide who governs, not dubious bodies. In Ludwigshafen, a proud city in the heart of Germany, the AfD candidate Joachim Paul was excluded from the mayoral election. Why? Because a handful of self-proclaimed guardians of the so-called constitutional fidelity decided on the basis of a favor letter from the so-called constitutional protection that his voice, his ideas, his candidacy do not fit into the image of the established powers. Joachim Paul, an elected MP, a teacher, was not excluded for criminal acts or violations of the law. No, he was expelled because his political views are not pleasing to the elites. This exclusion is not an isolated case, but a symptom of a democracy that stands on clay feet in Germany and throughout Europe. Marine Le Pen in France, Georgescu in Romania and Joachim Paul now in Germany – the established fear a free choice of the free peoples of Europe. Forbidding candidates is the real enemy of democracy.

Mr President! The Internet Governance Forum aims to protect the Internet from external influences. We preach freedom, and the EU stands for censorship. Digital Services Act, fact checkers, other opinions are called Hatespeech in the EU, There is discrimination everywhere. If we want a free internet, we have to do one thing: Then we have to protect it from one thing above all else, and that is the EU.

Madam President, Mr Serafin, I would like to disagree very strongly with you on a number of points. Namely, you said here that there is a great deal of agreement on the flexibility of the budget when it comes to the restructuring of the budget, and there is always talk that we need to become more resilient. I don’t know – please read your own budget. We already have a whole range of resources in the existing budget, which are precisely dedicated to crises, such as the European Solidarity Fund. So in this respect we see no need at all for this much invoked flexibility. In the end, flexibility is about one thing: You need more and more money, because you want more and more power, because you inflate this budget more and more. And at the end of the day, it's about the fact that we currently have 1% of gross national income as a standard source of income and that should be increased. And we as ESN reject that, we as patriots strictly reject that. That is to say, the increase in the budget, the increase in the financing that goes with it, is precisely about harming citizens. Citizens have to finance all this, and we don't want that. Instead of inflating this budget further and further, we should finally save. We can save, especially with all the left-wing NGOs, this hoard of the useless, which nobody in the European Union ...

Madam President, When you look at the results of the Council meeting, it's like a bad dream. Let me give you three examples. Firstly: Accession of Ukraine. It is always said that these negotiations should now be initiated. Ukraine really does not meet any requirements to become a member of the European Union. There is already a lack of a sustainable democratic order to be able to do so. Point two: Measures for the economy. The Council talks a lot about competitiveness, about internal market integration. And what do we do instead? over-regulation. We even regulate markets that do not yet exist so that they are nipped in the bud. Third point: Energy Union by 2030. What is the reality in energy policy? We have one Green Deal, which means that we have the highest energy prices in Europe, that industry is on the ground in many Member States of the European Union. So in this respect: Everything the Council does goes beyond the reality of people's lives and the economy.

Madam President, Mass brawls, sex crimes and other acts of violence are certainly not what used to be associated with the outdoor swimming pool season. But that's what everyday life is like in Germany today. Recently, four Syrians sexually abused eight young girls between the ages of 11 and 16 in the outdoor pool in Gelnhausen. Last year, 367 suspects were identified for such sex crimes. Of these, 65% were foreigners, many from Afghanistan and Syria. Those persons, therefore, for whose existence in Germany Merkel and the CDU bear the political responsibility. The CDU mayor then relativized the appalling acts: The heat is to blame. First, politicians of the CDU ensure that our women and daughters are no longer safe anywhere, and then they also mock the victims. We at the AfD want our women to be safe again. The EU must finally ensure that criminals in particular are finally remigrated.

Madam President, thank you for the word you have received. I would like to refer briefly to Mr Waitz. Mr Waitz has just indicated that the right is somehow to blame for the bees dying; You didn't prove it somehow. That is why I would like to prove something to you, namely that there is a study by the Center for Aerospace Technology (DLR), written by Dr. Franz Trieb, and Dr. Franz Trieb found in this study that on average around 1200 tons of insects die from wind turbines every year. We're talking about billions of insects dying from wind turbines every year. In this respect, I would like to state at this point: Green politics is not only deadly for the economy, but unfortunately also for bees.

Mr President! In one of the previous speeches, the Hungarian popular uprising of 1956 was addressed. At that time, Hungary defended freedom for all of Europe, and Hungarians can still be proud today to defend freedom for all of us. The question is whether communist tanks are the greater enemy than the woken left in this Parliament, because at least adults were able to defend themselves against tanks at that time, and even children must be defended against the protagonists of the EU. Hungary is the bulwark for the defence of Europe. Don't give up, because Hungary is defending us all!

Yes, you see, we basically reject debt on the part of the EU. And you cannot look at it in isolation, but, of course, as an EU, you have to look at the debts that the EU makes and the respective Member States. In this respect, it is a fundamental concern for us that debt-financed programmes should not take place within the EU.

Madam President, What does the financing of photovoltaic systems for property owners in southern Europe have to do with Corona? True, nothing at all, but nevertheless such measures were financed by the ARF, popularly known as the Corona Fund. Houses were refurbished 100% tax-financed in a climate-friendly way, with 10% for the banks on top of that. Fiscal madness, which German taxpayers had to finance with 133 billion euros. The EU can borrow up to EUR 750 billion in total in debt for which all Member States are liable. Corona obviously only served as a cover for establishing common debt. The EU always sets precedents, which should be a one-off exception, but this usually becomes a permanent mechanism. Not only the Draghi report has already called for permanent joint debt, which is also mentioned positively in this report. Those responsible are not interested in the fact that this is to the detriment of the fiscal stability of the Member States and, above all, of future generations. The EU Commission has apparently long since agreed internally that only tax-financed growth can contribute to a transformation, to a so-called green economy. The European Parliament now wants to lay the foundations for this. That it is a dairy human calculation that ignores all economic principles is obvious to everyone. Interest rates on this fund are so exorbitant over the next few years that they will tie up 15-20% of the current budget. In order to compensate for this, of course, own resources, i.e. EU taxes, are demanded again. Responsible budgeting is very different. And it is precisely in this notch that the report strikes. It claims that the communitisation of debt is fundamentally correct. There is also a call for EU taxes to be levied. We do not do all this, so we reject the report.

Madam President, I refer to Rule 10(1) of the Rules of Procedure – Code of Conduct. I would ask you to examine in detail the statements made publicly by the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Ms Katarina Barley, in the article in the Allgemeine Zeitung of 12 May 2025. Ms. Barley is openly in favour of a ban on the largest opposition party in Germany, the AfD. The statements made by Mrs Barley are clearly contrary to the fundamental democratic principles and values of the rule of law to which the European Parliament is committed. As there are growing doubts in several Member States about the respect of democracy and the rule of law of the EU, such an approach seriously damages the reputation and credibility of the European Parliament. The Bureau will therefore ...

Mr President! In Germany, fundamental rights are trampled underfoot. There it is now normal that you are spied on if you are not compliant with the government, or the police enter the door if you criticize a green minister. Now the powerful in Germany have taken something new out of the poison cabinet – occupational bans. Is it justified to deny a talented writer access to his profession just because his opinion is controversial? In Germany it is. For example, a lawyer is currently denied a career as a judge or lawyer because he has written a novel that does not suit the authorities. Not enough: Uli Grötsch of the SPD demands that AfD members be thrown out of the police service. The SPD, which is at a historical low and degenerates into a splinter party, acts according to the motto: If we are so bad that no one wants to vote for us anymore, we are simply destroying the existence of the opposition. Teachers who are not willing to indoctrinate their students to the maximum have already been pressured. Germany is becoming a little less free every day. We will fight for the freedom of the German people, and the old parties will lose.

Dear Mr President, We are talking a lot about the rule of law in this House, so I wonder: What does the rule of law mean when socialists rule? In Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, this is as follows: If you are SPD chairman and interior minister at the same time, you are publicly motivating the secret service to spy on the opposition, in this case the AfD. So that your executive arbitrariness is legally valid, you then go to your SPD parliamentary group, find the little-gifted SPD lawyer Lars Brocker and ensure that he becomes chairman of the Constitutional Court. Then your SPD loyalists, such as former Prime Minister Dreyer, can rush against the AfD because SPD judges with reference to SPD sources find that the SPD is somehow doing everything right. In your SPD youth, you then draw in a Robin Dautermann, who wants to knock out AfDlern's teeth. For example, the SPD in Rhineland-Palatinate has dependent constitutional courts to secure its power, dependent spies against the opposition and just a few thugs – all for the preservation of democracy, of course.

Mr President! We could have talked about a lot of interesting things in Europe today. We can talk about the fact that in Romania elections are manipulated and repeated until the result eventually fits. We can talk about the fact that in France, the strongest candidate is simply excluded from the election. We can talk about reprisals in Germany, where the US Secretary of State Rubio says: This is tyranny. Instead, we are talking about an unadopted, harmless law in Hungary – this is ridiculous. All this we do only to push a party called TISZA. A party initiated by abroad and controlled in Germany, among other things, by Merkel's disciples. And I'll tell you one thing: The only thing you can expect in Hungary if you are controlled by Merkel’s disciples is mass migration, terror – and may the Hungarian people be saved from it.

You have fantasized about the fact that in Hungary an opposition is threatened. I'd like to ask you a question. You are a member of the PPE, that is, you are a lapdog of the Merkel-CDU. In CDU circles, it is currently the case in Germany that the largest opposition party – the largest party in the polls – the AfD, is currently monitored by a secret service. That is, there are people who lose their professional careers when they are in the AfD. There are people in the CDU who are trying to ban the largest opposition party in Germany. Explain to me why this is less an attack on democracy than what you are fantasizing about Hungary?

Madam President, I refer to Rule 12 of the Rules of Procedure: Internal investigations by the European Anti-Fraud Office. The former press spokesman of the German Greens in Rhineland-Palatinate raises in the magazine Tichys insights Accusations against a former Green MP and today's leader of the German Greens. A former Green leader reports that MEPs used their staff illegally for campaign purposes, among other things. The accusations made there far exceed those made against Madame Le Pen, for example. The allegations made there far exceed those in which Madame Le Pen – wrongly – lost her right to stand as a candidate in a totalitarian act. I therefore call on OLAF to open an investigation into Mrs Franziska Brantner, a Green Party politician.

Madam President, In today's debate, we have talked a lot about big companies. In this respect, when we talk about competitiveness, I would like to take a look at what is happening in small and medium-sized enterprises. I come from a region that is strongly influenced by agriculture and viticulture. In other words, we are talking about a lot of family businesses. And when you talk to them, what's your main problem? – and then they speak very clearly: It is over-regulation. They are family businesses that almost all now say they need a whole labour force just to be able to regulate the bureaucratic madness – the bureaucratic madness that has largely been created by the EU. The second point that keeps coming up is that you say: We have completely different requirements. If we have regulations on viticulture, they are much stricter than those we have outside the European Union. This is an unbelievable competitive disadvantage. This means: Small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the field of agriculture, especially in the field of viticulture, need deregulation to make them competitive. And that should be the EU's main concern.

Dear Mr President, What is presented to us here by the European Parliament as an alleged vision for the future of Europe about the financial framework borders on a farce. It adopts a vision for an EU budget that is nothing more than an additional burden on citizens. One wonders: In what reality do you actually live here? We, as the ESN Group, are clearly saying that we do not want to create a financial framework in which we have resources that exceed 1% of gross national income. The EU budget should shrink and not keep growing. The positive thing is that you have a problem with the financing, because nobody wants to pay for all the stuff. The introduction of own resources: difficult. Other expenditure, other resources by Member States: Not so easy either. Do we really want to promote more EU bureaucracy while people in Germany and many other countries are in recession? Do we really want to burden these people even more with levies? Namely, that's exactly what it is. When we talk about own resources, in the end we are talking about an additional burden on citizens, even though we already have an incomprehensible tax burden in Germany, for example. I also wonder: In the end, who wants to scream "here!" when it comes to raising these funds? So far, it has always been the Germans who were stupid enough to say – not us from the AfD, but the other parties – that of course we are giving more funding to the EU, but that is clearly difficult at the moment. Merz might be a point of contact, but we are seeing the CDU right now, and its loser king Merz is not in a position to form a government. And then we are also good things that he will not be able to bring even more German money to this EU.