Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Congratulations on this debate, because it shows the absurd madness of this European Parliament. Just this week, when the EU Commission and Ursula von der Leyen are about to be replaced because of billions of dollars in waste, just this week you come to a group with this debate that no longer exists. But what are we talking about here, ladies and gentlemen? Even at the request of the speakers of our ESN Group this morning, publication was initially refused. The alleged audit report has therefore been available to the media for weeks, but as a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control I have only had these documents for a few hours. Then you expect us to seriously discuss any conjectures of questionable media here today? This is as ridiculous as it is absurd. It would also be very interesting to know who brought this report to the public. In every city council or municipal council – I am also a local politician myself – there would be an outcry if public documents were not made public. This doesn't seem to bother anyone here as long as you can take advantage of it politically. At the same time, Ursula von der Leyen’s chat history – quite calmly with the FDP, you will soon disappear anyway – is obviously better protected with the pharmaceutical industry than the Bank of England. It would have been correct if the report had first been discussed in committee. Are they deliberate abuses or just formal defects? Have you even obtained an opinion from those concerned, and is there really only this one former political group or perhaps other political groups – Greens, EPP – where there are similar incidents? Before this is clarified, any prejudgment is prohibited. In fact, all of this looks more like a witch hunt than a credible concern for our taxpayers' money. It would be very gratifying if Ms von der Leyen would soon repay the billions paid from the coronavirus era. Then, by the way, the left is also very happy to return the money from the former SED assets. 16 million GDR citizens are waiting for this. You have problems that you haven't solved yet. Citizens are waiting for answers.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Congratulations on this debate, because it shows the absurd madness of this European Parliament. Just this week, when the EU Commission and Ursula von der Leyen are about to be replaced because of billions of dollars in waste, just this week you come to a group with this debate that no longer exists. But what are we talking about here, ladies and gentlemen? Even at the request of the speakers of our ESN Group this morning, publication was initially refused. The alleged audit report has therefore been available to the media for weeks, but as a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control I have only had these documents for a few hours. Then you expect us to seriously discuss any conjectures of questionable media here today? This is as ridiculous as it is absurd. It would also be very interesting to know who brought this report to the public. In every city council or municipal council – I am also a local politician myself – there would be an outcry if public documents were not made public. This doesn't seem to bother anyone here as long as you can take advantage of it politically. At the same time, Ursula von der Leyen’s chat history – quite calmly with the FDP, you will soon disappear anyway – is obviously better protected with the pharmaceutical industry than the Bank of England. It would have been correct if the report had first been discussed in committee. Are they deliberate abuses or just formal defects? Have you even obtained an opinion from those concerned, and is there really only this one former political group or perhaps other political groups – Greens, EPP – where there are similar incidents? Before this is clarified, any prejudgment is prohibited. In fact, all of this looks more like a witch hunt than a credible concern for our taxpayers' money. It would be very gratifying if Ms von der Leyen would soon repay the billions paid from the coronavirus era. Then, by the way, the left is also very happy to return the money from the former SED assets. 16 million GDR citizens are waiting for this. You have problems that you haven't solved yet. Citizens are waiting for answers.

Madam President, Madam Prime Minister. A strong Europe in a changing world is the motto of the Danish Presidency. A strong Europe would be a Europe with secure external borders and further visible measures against illegal migration. Here, the Social Democrats in Denmark have already set some positive accents, so it would be hoped that there will finally be positive impulses for remigration here. However, the ongoing enthusiasm for refugees, especially among German Social Democrats and Greens, shows that there is little reason for hope here. Madam Prime Minister, don't let migration policy slow you down. Show the same determination as the coach of your successful national handball team in sturgeon fires from outside! In January, when a climate activist wanted to abuse a game of Denmark at the World Cup with his protest as a stage, coach Nikolaj Jacobsen unceremoniously promoted this strange eco-fascist himself from the playing field. He wanted it to continue successfully without disruption. How about a substitute for this motto for the Danish Presidency? A successful Europe without disruptions from outside.

Yes, so I rarely have wet dreams. If I had any, I wouldn't talk about it now. But to answer your question seriously: Of course, any investment in education, any investment in infrastructure is right and important. Precisely because we need money for this, we have to save this money elsewhere – no billions in spending on armaments, no billions in spending on gender representatives, no billions in spending on climate ideology. We don't need that. If we want to finance what is meaningful for the citizens of Europe, for our fellow citizens, then we must save where we can. That's what I just named, and I hope you're not just breaking the micro-stands, you're breaking your head about how we're moving Europe forward.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Unfortunately, the budget of the European Union has been dominated for years by ideological projects – whether climate protection, gender insanity or, most recently, massive spending on rearmament. They are destroying our taxpayers' money at dizzying heights. In Germany, a wannabe chancellor has shown how it can't be done. Before the election, the keeper of the debt brake, after the election, suddenly the hundreds of billions of debt scratch. Millions of citizens have not trusted their eyes, which has recently been organized there in voter deception. Today there was a receipt for this in the German Bundestag. No Rambo Zambo with the Federal President in Bellevue Palace or state visit to Macron in Paris, but instead frustration with the Young Union in the basement of the Bundestag. In any case, the time of the firewalls has come to an end. Our AfD is already in the starting blocks, because we now need a bourgeois government, a government without debt for Germany and for Europe.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Farmers in the European Union will receive around 300 billion euros in the current funding period – this sounds like a lot of money at first. However, less and less money has been received by farmers in recent years, and at the same time the frustration of the recipients due to new nonsense regulations is increasing and leads to the abandonment of many farms at some point. Where rapeseed has bloomed for years, weeds still grow today. Where geese used to roam the pasture, there is no animal to be seen now. And where there used to be dairy cows in the stables, there is now ghostly silence. In my home state of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, there were still 560 dairy farms in 2013 – now more than half of the farms have disappeared. Be sure of one thing: No farmer likes to separate himself from his animals, from his farm and from his farm – quite the contrary. The number of farm closures would be even greater if the small and medium-sized family farms did not turn over every euro three times to keep the farm alive until it was self-exploited. And believe me, I know well what I'm talking about. However, the hard work in agriculture must not lead to physical, mental and financial self-exploitation. This hard work must finally be worthwhile for those involved. And that is why we should remember the common objectives that defined the basis of the common agricultural policy in 1962, namely to increase productivity, to ensure an adequate standard of living for farmers and to ensure supply. Let's show respect to farmers, let's secure the future of agriculture!

I don't think you understand a lot of things. This also explains your confused question. Please deal with the political landscape of Europe. Then you will learn that the AfD is not a fascist party. I don't know what spectrum you belong to now. I suspect social democracy. All right, all I can tell you is: Previously, your colleague quoted Lenny Kravitz, another well-known song by Lenny Kravitz is Fly away. And don't you wonder why your approval flies away? The consent of the citizens comes to us.

Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen! Dear Commissioner, It is a great mistake to make policies against the citizens of Europe. It is an even greater mistake to make policies against those who feed these citizens of Europe, namely our farmers. The high quality of the products our farmers produce is unique in the world. If you look at or listen to what is said here in part, then it is just wrong. It is not competition to compare other standards – much lower standards, for example in the Mercosur countries – with the standards we have here in terms of quality. Now, of course, I have dealt with the subject. I myself am a small farmer on a sideline and I was also with the farmers at the protests in Brussels in October; Also here in Strasbourg in December. Where were you? Where was the Commission? You're sending out cops because you're afraid of farmers. They don't talk to farmers. My colleague from the ESN has just quoted the German farmer president, who said quite clearly: This path is wrong! We cannot compete with these products because they are much worse and because they flood our market with low quality. That's the wrong way. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our job to ensure that farmers also bring their high quality to market in their products. Now there are representatives in this House – I am thinking in particular of the Green Party – who think that the supply of high-quality proteins, vitamins, zinc, iron could be made by presenting the citizens with dried yellow mealworms and not high-quality meat. That's the mistake. I am calling on my colleagues, including some of them, from the European People's Party: Please leave the Greens to the left, in the truest sense of the word. Let this policy disappear at the stake of history. Make policy for the citizens of Europe! I'll tell you one more thing at the end: The AfD in Germany as part of a government will never support this Mercosur agreement. If you come up with the idea in the Commission to deal with any legal trickery, we stand with the farmers in the front row of the protests and will prevent this agreement.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Alleged journalists are making serious accusations, and all other media outlets are taking on these accusations unfiltered – in Germany we have seen this practice impressively over the past year. And today, after numerous court rulings, we know that this alleged journalistic research piece of the CORRECTIV network was in fact just an absurd and defamatory play against the AfD – a play to deceive the population and incite them with fictitious claims. Such practices destroy trust in democracy. Such practices have not just been journalism, but targeted propaganda against the AfD as the strongest German opposition party. Such practices of deliberate deception manifest the classification of the press as a lying press. According to research from Hungary and Belgium, EU officials were spied on by the Hungarian secret service between 2015 and 2017. Is there an investigation by the prosecutor's office? Is there strong evidence for these allegations? Obviously not. But without such tangible evidence, even these accusations against the Hungarian government are not worth the paper on which they are printed. We here in the European Parliament should once again treat the Hungarian people with respect and finally end these nonsensical petty wars.

Thank you, Mrs Scuderi, for allowing me to ask you this question. I must say that your Green Minister for Economic Affairs, your Green Party friend in Germany, has more or less executed the European economy – the German economy in particular – in recent years. And I want to ask you a very simple question: From your party, including from the Social Democrats, you hear again and again that you have to create new, green jobs. What do we gain in Europe if we create a green job, but perhaps lose ten old jobs? We get mass unemployment if this form of climate radicalism does not stop and if we do not try to find a balance between ecology and economy. Thank you for answering the question. I'm very curious.

Madam President, Dear Commissioner, Animal welfare should be important to all of us. However, it is also a matter of making a reasonable assessment. Among the representatives from the left-green spectrum of vegan cereal and tofu lovers, the call for better protection of the animals always resonates with the desire that at best no animals are slaughtered and eaten at all. This, however, contradicts the meat requirements of the European population. This is because every EU citizen consumes an average of 65 kilos of meat per year – a trend that is not declining, but rising. The right way would therefore be targeted support for small and medium-sized farmers and targeted support for the construction of slaughterhouses on the ground – we even have a connection with the Greens today. This means less transport, less stress for the animals, less CO2-Emissions from long truck journeys across Europe and more transparency for consumers, who can then buy their Christmas roast or steak directly from the farm shop in the neighbourhood. If the Commission is serious about animal welfare, then this path should be followed. Less bureaucracy and bans, more incentives and freedom for small and medium-sized farmers – for the benefit of people and animals.

Mr President! Ladies and Gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, Even today – it has just caused some irritation to my group of visitors from Germany – many places in this Parliament are empty. Many places are empty, and now imagine that in a few days it will be Christmas and in your family there would also be empty places. Let's say the father wasn't there. Not because he's out there and maybe sawing another Christmas tree, but because he's not there and because he's not coming back. Or imagine, the grandfather is not in the next room, dressed up as Santa Claus to enjoy the big ones, the granddaughter, but he is no longer there and he does not come back. Many families in agriculture have such cases, because even in the 21st century, work is still hard physical work, especially for family farms. If psychological burdens are added, such as wage losses due to Mercosur, for example, fewer government subsidies, higher taxes, higher energy prices, more bureaucracy, desk offenders in the field, then this burden, this double burden, is toxic. And it leads to illness – physical, mental, in the worst case to suicide or otherwise to death. It should be our task to counteract it, to counteract it massively, decisively. My father was also a farmer, my daughter won't know him anymore. But maybe we can make it happen that fewer or no farmers will die in the future.

Dear Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen! Tourism is an important economic factor for our home countries. Especially in economically difficult times, our citizens and their families need their well-deserved holidays to recharge their batteries. It is important that such a holiday remains affordable for everyone and not just a luxury good – or develops into one – for rich people. Even today, despite hard work, low-income earners can rarely travel to the sea or the mountains. This is not only disrespectful, but also carries a dangerous social explosive force. That is why we need fair competition and appropriate policies throughout the European Union to ensure the prosperity of our citizens. In any case, people in our home countries would have much better financial resources if inflation, cold progression, high energy costs or rising social security contributions did not eat up their hard-earned assets month after month. We need – not only in my home country Germany – less asylum tourism, but we must finally use the money for the benefit of our own citizens. A positive effect of this necessary remigration would not only be an improvement in our finances and our security, but also a reason to go on holiday in Germany without worries - no matter where you come from. And with the clear proviso that this holiday is not in vain and that this ...

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Obviously, smoking is not healthy, and passive smoking can also cause serious damage to the lungs. Tobacco use has therefore been increasingly banned from the closed public space in recent years. From the point of view of a non-smoker like me, this is understandable, from the point of view of a smoker probably not, but then you just go out the door. A bit of fresh air hasn't hurt anyone. But it is precisely this fresh air that is apparently missing from the EU employee, who has now devised an outdoor smoking ban. What else in the world does this Commission want to ban? At the end of the day on which the new Commission began its work today, this motion is a slap in the face for every free citizen of the European Union. The smoker has the right to harm himself with cigarettes as much as he wants for the financial well-being of his respective finance minister. His wife or doctor may not like it, but it's his free choice. Regulatory rage, bureaucracy and banning fanaticism - this is what this EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen stands for. Please consider the health risks of your numerous arms shipments. We can talk about bans.

Mrs. Strack-Zimmermann, you like to peddle here in between. I would like to ask a substantive question. It was repeatedly claimed that Russia was responsible for the demolition of Nord Stream 2. For a few months now, we have known that they were probably Ukrainian citizens. They were often in Ukraine themselves. I would like to know about you: How likely do you consider it that these acts were committed by Ukrainian citizens without the knowledge of the Zelenskyi government?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. In the Budapest Declaration, agriculture only gets a short point at the very end. There is talk of creating a stable and predictable framework. Yes, such sentences sound good, but can mean anything and nothing. In any case, it is the opposite of stable if Pillar 1 of the Common Agricultural Policy were to be further reduced. European farmers want to keep animals, produce meat and farm their fields. For this, there must also be reliable subsidies. However, premiums for settling areas are the pinnacle of madness and comparable to putting a football professional in top form on the stands or paying a golf professional for not targeting the green to protect the blades of grass. Ladies and gentlemen, our farmers in the EU are permanently in top form and they want respect for their hard work, which knows no end of work and no weekend. Unlike the professional golfer, they do not have 18 holes in front of them, but exactly one hole. A very large hole – the hole in her wallet. Let us prevent farmers from receiving even less support by accepting Ukraine or Turkey. Let us prevent agreements such as Mercosur from making inferior products find their way into the EU. Let us finally fight the harmful and disrespectful bureaucracy. Agriculture has a great future.

Thank you for accepting the question. So I would be interested – you have already made some hints in your remarks on Georgia – how do you think you can end this war in any way, if not with diplomacy? And do you really think that such discussions as today help to somehow bring the Russian people back to the side of the EU? Or is it not rather that it is actually a provocation to make such insinuations now, that would be all money laundering and terrorist financing? And I would be interested in: The EU has already frozen funds from Russia – funds belonging to the Russian people – and is using this money to finance projects. Don't you think it's theft? How do you rate this?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. In December 2022, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany wanted to visit my hometown of Stendal in the north of Saxony-Anhalt. Although he reached the station in Berlin, he could not leave from there by train for technical reasons. Mayors and guests waited in vain in the Stendal town hall – the ambassador stayed in Berlin. Delays and cancellations are not an exception for train drivers, but the rule. Although Germany has the largest rail network in Europe with 40,000 kilometres, the annual per capita investment in Germany amounts to only 115 euros. In Austria, it is three times as much, Luxembourg even invests four times as much per inhabitant in the rail network. This failure of the red-green-yellow federal government is particularly annoying for travelers, because despite annually rising ticket prices, the number of delays and cancellations is increasing. Rail travel is therefore more of an obstacle to mobility than a pleasure for most people. And even if the train is considered a clean means of transport, after visiting train toilets you will no longer use the words rail travel and cleanliness in the same sentence. Expensive, unreliable and dirty – unfortunately, the railways rightly have a bad image. It is not only possible to travel quickly from A to B by train; You could also relax, enjoy the landscape or read a book by colleague Sibylle Berg. The European Union should stand by the citizens of Europe and, in general, encourage more investment in rail transport. The fact that a government with the participation of the Greens is hindering rail traffic is further evidence of their practical inability – or in other words, some poetry in the evening: There's a green man on the rails and he thinks he's regulating traffic. He still stands there with a serious face, but when the train arrives, he no longer stands.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. For Germany alone, 11 billion euros will be allocated between 2021 and 2027 to support cities and regions; So far, so good. The ideological bureaucracy, however, is beginning to work to the detriment of the regions, because a large part of this money is earmarked for a greener and CO2-free Europe – "sustainable and innovative urban mobility" on the EU paper. However, more and more cycle paths are actually being promoted, which leads to a displacement of motorists from the inner cities. Please do not shed crocodile tears with the Socialists and Greens when we debate the crisis of car manufacturers in the European Parliament, because it is your Green Deal that makes life difficult for car manufacturers and consumers. Cities are inconceivable without regions: Commuters come to work, customers to retail, tourists to visit. Because of the distances, the vast majority of these people do not come by bike, but by car, or they do not come. More cycle paths and fewer parking spaces may reduce CO2 emissions2-emissions, but above all, this development reduces people's mobility. Let's find ways to strengthen people's mobility! We need less green re-education, we need more freedom for the people of Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. The rainforest is burning and the greens are alarmed. But how do we want to react to this? Greta Thunberg as the top climate rescuer falls out, because she has been looking for a new radical topic. Thousands of young people on a Friday flying out of the classroom to go on climate strike in Brazil is also not possible – too expensive, bad for CO2Balance sheet. And somehow the young people just have no interest in the Greens. Maybe it's the old classic. Veggie day. And the increase in banning the import of Brazilian beef does not work either, because we in Europe like to eat beef. Let's talk about bans. Ex-President Bolsonaro, who according to your radical left opinion, ordered a ban on slash-and-burn in Brazil for 120 days in 2020. What is current leftist President Lula doing to stop the fires? It announces the creation of a new authority. I summarize: The Greens are concerned, the Greens are even more concerned, the Greens - well funded by taxpayers, of course - can be accommodated in an authority to worry about science-based issues. Let the Brazilians decide for themselves how to solve the problem. Let us take care of the European forest, we have enough to do.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Low range, few charging stations, high electricity price. No problem for the green do-gooder, as long as the state has promoted the purchase of an electric car with a chic premium. This redistributive insanity has already cost taxpayers in Germany many billions of euros. But then the highest German court came and stopped this so-called environmental premium. And lo and behold: Suddenly, no one wants electric cars anymore. loud Manager magazine With Volkswagen, the largest European car manufacturer wants to cut 30,000 jobs. The alarm bells must be ringing all over Europe. But instead of a commitment to the social market economy, the EU Commission can think of nothing better than to provoke a trade war with China by imposing tariffs on electric cars. This insanity must be firmly opposed by us as Parliament. Green children's book authors such as the German Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck drive our economy unchecked against the wall with their left hands. We must therefore end this horror story and instead continue the success story of the combustion engine. Let's slow down the Greens so that the European automotive industry can finally return to the fast lane!

We just mentioned the zoo killer: He was sent back to Moscow by the German government. You just said that the rule of law works for the most part. We had a debate here on Monday on the Solingen murders, which were an expression of the fact that the Dublin Agreement does not work. How much would you quantify the damage that the German government has done to the European population in recent years with your green help? Please quantify this damage. It is, I believe, significantly higher than 200 million euros.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. When thousands of farmers in Brussels and in many countries of the European Union loudly demonstrated for their rights at the beginning of the year, a political change was within reach: Away from the Failed Green Deal, away from the distortion of competition caused by cheap grain imports, away from burdensome bureaucracy, towards agriculture that can sustainably supply tens of millions of people across Europe, in the EU, with healthy meat, fruit and vegetables, towards agriculture that can count on solid financial support in the long term. But then came the European elections, and then came the woman who shines with absence today. Because Mrs von der Leyen, in order to secure her re-election, has renewed her pact with the green devil to the detriment of agriculture. She would rather sit at the table with green meat haters and climate hysterics than with conservative defenders of our European culture. This culture particularly includes farmers, who themselves know best how to keep their animals and how to manage their soils. Any attempt to make life difficult for our farmers with ever new regulations will have serious consequences on the road and here in Parliament.