Speeches

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.

Mr President! I am pleased with this issue today, because this is indeed one of the few positions where the European Union can do something reasonable, namely in this cooperation in the fight against rare diseases. But I would also like to address briefly Mr Kulja, who has just spoken, who has sharply criticised the health system in Hungary. And I'm just telling you one thing, Mr. Kulja: I really hope you don't learn from the CDU here, too. You are a Merkel disciple – your party – so hopefully you will not only learn from the CDU how to bring terror to Germany, how to make mass rapes come to Hungary, but I hope that you are not responsible for establishing a marauding health system in Hungary. I hope that the Hungarians will be spared Merkel's disciples like you.

Dear Mr President, The budget seems to see itself as a savior, but the truth is that chaos and failure are hidden behind the colorful slogans. The EU has embarked on a wrong path, closing its eyes to the real problems. Thus, the guidelines refer in detail to Russia's war of aggression against the EU, they speak of an alleged defence capability, climate change, biodiversity. This is all your programme, but it is not the main problems of our citizens. An EU-induced energy and economic crisis, uncontrolled immigration and the loss of freedom of expression – that is what employs EU citizens. And let me say one more thing about the EPP. What just made me smile was Mr. Simon from the CDU. Mr Simon has just said that we cannot solve problems with debt, we should pay attention to budgetary discipline. Those CDUs who now want to make debts in Germany in the three-digit billion range, to a degree that the socialists never dared to do, are now telling us something about budgetary discipline, about the fact that one has to repay debt after all. This is hard to beat in ridicule. You have lost all values. The CDU is worthless in the truest sense of the word.

Mr President! Frozen Russian assets are nothing more than pouring oil into the fire. This is a clear signal that the EU is increasingly becoming a war union. While the US and other countries are seriously working on peace negotiations to contain the conflict, the EU envisages sanctions, arms deliveries and asset confiscation. The EU would have to come back to its senses and act as a negotiator, not a would-be warrior. Please consider one thing: The measure punishes all Russian citizens collectively and brings them against the EU; That cannot be the goal. Another one: Mr Gahler has just carried out a very large legal analysis, and he has said exactly the right thing in the subordinate clause: We're on very thin legal ice here when we freeze those assets. We will have legal action against us here, and we will lose those legal actions. Again, we have only risks and no chances. True support for Ukraine means resolving the conflict at the negotiating table, not through weapons and confiscated money.

Dear colleague, you have hardly spoken on the agenda item; You have actually used your speaking time above all to take action against your own government. But I ask myself the following question: They always want this greater European integration. You are here promising that your delegation stands for bringing Hungary back to the heart of Europe. What do you really want to achieve? Do you really want a Hungarian army to be sacrificed so that there is a European army that will certainly no longer want to defend Hungary? Do you mean with the heart of Europe what your group colleagues from the CDU are responsible for, that there are mass rapes in Germany, that there is terror in Germany? Do you want this to happen in Hungary? Do you think that's the point where you say that the heart of Europe is leading you back there?

Thank you, Mr. Colleague, for accepting the question. You just quoted Lenny Kravitz. I wish you had listened less to Lenny Kravitz and more to what our own farmers would have said. But I can do that at this point. I would like to quote the German Farmers’ Association – the chairman of the German Farmers’ Association, Mr Joachim Rukwied. He says: “We farmers were not heard. This agreement is unilaterally to the detriment of European farmers and massively weakens our farms in competition. This is the opposite of the EU Commission's commitment to strengthen European agriculture. The envisaged mechanisms to protect European standards for agriculture and food are insufficient." What do you say to this gentleman and the German farmer?

Madam President, When we listen to the debate we have had today, we note: There are actually two things we can limit ourselves to. These are insults to Donald Trump: He was called an autocrat, a capitalist monster, and the US was on its way to the Neanderthals. And it goes on there. We have a Member here, for example, who once said that he no longer has all the cups in his closet. This is Ms. Strack-Zimmermann, who is, after all, chairman of the Defence Committee. Point one. Point two is the endless moaning because he just withdrew from the nonsensical Paris Agreement, because he withdrew from the WHO. And I'm actually wondering: If you actually criticize all this and just insult him all the time, why do you think Donald Trump is somehow listening to this house? Donald Trump finds the EU so unimportant that a Ursula von der Leyen is not even invited to his inauguration. And if that's not even the case, what do you think Donald Trump cares about when any left-wing bigots here in the house insult him? That doesn't interest a Donald Trump. You really don't care about Donald Trump at all.

Dear Mr. Colleague, you have just said that we are responsible for this, that we should, let's say, be for Russia. But this is absolute nonsense, but we are committed to peace efforts. Like President Trump, we are committed to finally having peace conditions so that Russian and Ukrainian soldiers no longer have to die. And tell me: What is your idea for a peace effort? That we're not always just talking about military victories having to be made where more soldiers are dying.

Mr President! Fighting left-wing violence is one of the biggest challenges in Europe. According to the Federal Government, more than half of the violent crimes against politicians in Germany were committed by left-wing extremists in 2024. What this looks like in practice, you could see this weekend. At an AfD campaign stand, a volunteer was shot with a metal ball. But with such left-wing terror, with such left-wing violence, the EU looks away because it wants to look away. This violence is also an outgrowth of demonstrations against the right. Before elections, it is now common practice in Germany for the government to send its own troops and state-funded protesters against the opposition onto the streets. Two days after a two-year-old boy was killed in Aschaffenburg, leading Greens are celebrating a lifestyle demo against the right in Berlin with magicians and smiling cheerfully at the camera. What a mockery of the little boy, what a recklessness towards the bereaved! Was für eine widerliche Charakterlosigkeit von grünen Politikern, denen die Opfer ihrer Politik vollkommen egal ist!

Mr President! Hearing the remarks today sounds a bit like creating a masterpiece of price stability in the EU area. But is it really? No, it is a glare intended to obscure the actual failures of this institution. The ECB has long been acting as a political actor and not as an independent guardian of price stability. One might wonder how the 2% inflation target will succeed if the ECB manipulates markets through endless bond purchases. This is by no means taming inflation, but trampling on the principle of a market economy. Who will pay the bill in the end? They're our savers, they're our pensioners. Another chapter in this tragedy is the digital euro, supposedly an addition to cash, but in truth the perfect lever for total surveillance and control. It is nothing more than a new dimension of state intervention in the self-determined life of the citizens of the European Union. In addition, the ECB is entangled in dubious projects that, like green bonds come along. We are talking about climate protection, but what is really behind it? A hidden redistribution mechanism where our citizens are supposed to bear the costs of other countries' unsustainable debts! It is a breach of European treaties, and it is a clear diffraction of the law in force.

Madam President, I believe that today's debate has once again shown that there are different conceptions of human beings that are represented here in this Parliament. And actually, there are always debates here in this House about the need to regulate things, to control things. Free opinions are restricted via the DSA, and in the case of cryptocurrencies, the goal is also to put this on the short leash if possible. I think we should realize at this point that our human image is that we have free, responsible citizens. And free, empowered citizens are also able to look for a free currency. And that's why, I believe, cryptocurrencies are exactly the means of resisting state repression, of disconnecting from states and a European Union that is becoming more and more invasive.

Yes, thank you for allowing the question. I fully agree with you on one point: It is not the fault of women that we have this demographic problem, but it is the problem of society. We no longer allow women to start families. We also no longer allow men to start families. And I believe it is a major fault of the socialists that this nucleus of the family has been actively destroyed for decades. In this respect, I would be interested, after socialists have made sure for years to destroy families in themselves: What is your plan for families to come back into the focus of society in principle?

Madam President, Remigration – that's what Germany and Europe need! Now even the European Council has called on all parties in Syria to ensure the voluntary return of Syrian refugees in safety and dignity. At last, therefore, we hear a sensible demand from the Council. The rulers of Syria should strive for the return of their compatriots, and we as the EU should actively support them in this. But instead of finally starting measures, the asylum figures of recent years show exactly the opposite. Over one million migrants immigrated to the EU last year under the guise of ‘asylum’, 240 000 of them to Germany. The German media celebrates this because it means an alleged 30 percent drop. As an AfD, we see no reason to celebrate when a large city immigrates to Germany every year with people who are largely unsuitable for our labour market and will depend on transfer benefits for life. Citizens in Europe and also in Germany no longer want attacks by foreign terrorists on Christmas markets, as happened in Magdeburg. They don't want to have New Year's Eve when migrants take cities apart. They no longer want gang rapes, nor do they want daily knife attacks. You just want one more thing: Remigration.

I have a question: You stress – and your party too – that fact-checking is so important to uphold democratic principles and avoid disinformation. In Germany, we have a CORRECTIV network that is responsible for fact-checking. And this CORRECTIV network recently lost a lawsuit against my party because it spread disinformation itself, because it lied. So explain to me, if fact-checkers themselves are left-wing liars and left-wing protagonists, how this should somehow contribute to the protection against disinformation and to the protection of democracy.

You just said that freedom of expression has never been as good as it is at the moment, that you have never been able to articulate yourself so freely in the Western world. Let me tell you what's happening in Germany right now. In Germany it is like this: If you call a minister a fool, which in German is really a very harmless insult, then you have to reckon with the police entering the door and taking your booth apart. Explain to me when such incidents take place in Germany because of small things, because of small criticisms of politicians, as you can then claim that freedom of expression has never been so good in Europe.

Mr President! Dear colleagues, there is a moment that I just found terrifying. A colleague here has said that Ukraine must be enabled to win this war militarily, and there has been roaring applause in this House for that. I find it really frightening how honest you are here. Tell me you want the war! You don't want peace negotiations, you want a military victory! They want war to the last! You sit here in your fine suits, lie down in bed today and you don't care that Russian soldiers die. They don't care that Ukrainian soldiers have to die. You don't care about that. You want war, you don’t want peace – thank you for being so honest!