Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Frankowski, you wore the beautiful nickname, the kitten, for your filigree football game. I do not think that what you have delivered here today does justice, because your report amounts to an incredible politicisation of sport. And that's not what the sport is supposed to be. Like you, I grew up under communism. The sport was the space that wasn't politicized. It was a refuge for spending one's free time without the constant teachings and subordination to any political guidelines. And then when I read your report, you're going to write that you're campaigning for LGBTQ, that you're going to control coverage of the sport. They want to subordinate sport to political objectives, as can be seen throughout the text. But that's exactly what the sport doesn't deserve. Sport should be apolitical, because the essence of a free society and also the essence of a free part of society consists in the fact that they are not subject to politics. There must be areas of life that are not politicized. Sport is first and foremost. That is why it is good that sport is not one of the EU's competences, even if you want to make it through the back door on the internal market and other issues. The EU should not only stay out of sport, but also out of sport. The sport can take care of itself. The associations, the training groups on site are smart enough. We certainly do not need a politicized sport in which politicians decide where tournaments take place, but we need freedom, we need athletes, we need passion. And we need an area that is not controlled by the EU and its expansive politicians. Thank you very much, and that's why: Red card for the report. I wish we had more courage not to regulate things and leave people free.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. In Vienna, more than 50,000 people demonstrated over the weekend for the state of emergency to be ended again. This is the case throughout Europe. We do not need coordination of measures against which people rightly take to the streets. We need coordination of measures to get this country out of the state of emergency. We had an emergency situation when the disease was new. We know more about it today, and we have lower hospitalization rates. The state of emergency is by definition Something that is limited in time. We cannot remain in a state of emergency forever. And that is why this is not about more and even better coordination of freedom-restricting measures, but about a controlled, responsible but clear way back to the fact that Christmas markets can open, people can travel and visit each other again.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. We are all still trapped by COVID. We are fighting this pandemic. In my native Saxony, but certainly not only there, one goes on to exclude all non-vaccinated from daily life. It's called 2G. This is more than 40% of the population with a vaccination rate of less than 60%. Even if they prove by a PCR test that they are not infected and that they do not pose any danger. I don't think that's acceptable. We all need to be aware that we are not getting rid of this new disease. We have to live with her. And we must live with it in a way that does not give up our fundamental rights, freedoms and values. It's time to let the panic be and deal with it casually and normally. Not negligent, but based on our values. Therefore, I ask for support that wherever overreacting, measure and center prevail again.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! One thing must be clear: If the dam breaks on Poland’s eastern border, there will be no more than 50 flights a week arriving in Minsk with migrants – 500 will arrive. Either Poland keeps its border and does not let anyone through –no way – or we have back in 2015 with hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and over one million at the end of the year. And that's why Poland deserves every support, and that's why I don't understand the calls that want to put Frontex on the march here, so that it doesn't have any support. Push-backs may give. It must: Push-backs So that Lukashenko does not win and so that Europe remains safe. The game is two-edged: If Poland holds out, then Lukashenko will not win either, because then he has the problems in his own country and has to take care of the return. He speculates that we in Brussels are too weak to persevere in the fight. And that's why it has to be: We are strong, we are in solidarity and we won't let anyone through. There is no right to illegal immigration.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Funding programs of the European Union are sometimes bad, sometimes good. But we all have the problem with you that you believe that we increase life in Europe and also economic attractiveness by first taking money, redistributing it in a bureaucracy – according to certain abstract rules – and then returning it. I'm afraid that's not the way to create innovation and growth. It is not for nothing that the European Union is the largest economic area in the world, with the least innovation and growth. This does not change the fact that we too believe that the changes that are now taking place under Horizon Europe are pointing in the right direction. There are always things we don't like. There are always developments that we contradict for concrete or very general reasons. But it remains the bland aftertaste that we are trying to achieve something through more and more regulations and more Europeanization, which, according to all experience and also all empirical findings, is best achieved where economic action and innovation take place: in companies, in research institutions. Less regulation, less taxes, less bureaucracy, less EU, more freedom are therefore the order of the day. In such a situation, MEPs face the difficult question: How do you decide? Do we honor the changes that are coming? Do we also honor the work that has been done, or do we stick to the fundamental concerns? In that case, we decided to abstain – which is perhaps not the most convincing solution, but expresses this dichotomy. In general, we wish that whenever we consider whether to improve a support programme with more rules, more advisory boards, even more extensive exceptions or extensions, it would not be better to delete one for each rule that comes with it. Whether aggravation is not an aggravation rather than an improvement. That didn't happen here. That remains the task. Then growth and innovation will work again in Europe.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Mr Prime Minister, in a very nice legal presentation you explained where the limits of EU law and the sovereignty of the Member States are. No one denies that EU law takes precedence where the EU has competences. But the EU cannot decide for itself what its competences are. This is upheld by the national constitutional courts. That is what the German Constitutional Court, Mr Weber, says, and that is precisely why the Polish Constitutional Court was allowed to state that judicial organisation is not part of EU law. This can only be denied if you just want the EU to decide for itself what its competences are. Anyone who does not want the nation states to be sovereign, but who wants the sovereign superstate, also wants the ECJ alone to be able to decide what belongs to the competences of the EU and what does not. But this Europe is not the Europe of the Treaties and it is not the Europe that people want, either in Poland or elsewhere. Because you are a historian: Poland saved Europe from Vienna in 1683. Stay strong, save the sovereignty of the nation states and save Europe again.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! We are talking about the Reconstruction Fund, and our position has always been that such a Reconstruction Fund with EU debt and funds is bad because it makes donor and recipient countries out of equal partners and thus introduces a hierarchy. Nevertheless, care must be taken to ensure that the funds are spent correctly and equally and not according to political reasons. And again it is against Poland and Hungary. Poland should get four percent of its gross domestic product, Hungary seven, and you don't want to give it up – because of deficiencies in the rule of law. Then I looked at the neighbouring country, Croatia, which is supposed to get much more from the fund, namely 13 percent of its gross domestic product. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, Croatia is significantly more corrupt than Poland and Hungary, and since joining the Union, since 2020, the value has become even worse. With Croatia there is no problem with the plan, but with Poland and Hungary there is the problem. What is the difference between Croatia on the one hand and Poland and Hungary on the other? The difference is a prime minister of the European People's Party. It's not about corruption perception indices, it's not about rule of law problems, it's about punishing an unwelcome conservative government that we have both in Poland and Hungary, while being as corrupt and criminal as possible, whether it's Croatia or Malta, just following the mainstream of this House and the Commission. And we oppose this and demand release for Hungary and Poland.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, On New Year's Eve 2015/2016, a massive attack by newly immigrated migrants on women celebrating there took place in Cologne. The Cologne police chief issued a press release stating that there have been no incidents, and all public established media have spread this. Only through reports in the social networks, on Facebook and Twitter, this occurrence has become known and has led to a massive public debate about immigration. According to your standards of disinformation and propaganda, the eyewitness accounts of the events at Cologne Cathedral were lies and should have been suppressed. The truth is: Only through these social media were the lies of the police leadership and the public broadcaster exposed. There is no turning back to the monopoly of state radio. I immediately agree with you, Mr Schieder, that we must dismantle groups such as Facebook and monopolists. You can count on us. But as long as these people have a monopoly, we will stand up for users' freedom of expression. So that they can see that we are not going to put Facebook on the glue: At least our voters are already very often on Telegram, and against any closure and any state repression we will respond with the means of technology. Freedom of speech is now a reality through social platforms. That remains the case, no matter how many laws they want to enact against it.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, President Ronald Reagan once said that the worst sentence in English is: “I come from the government and I am here to help you”. Yes, the tourism industry has serious problems. We also have suffering regions, especially in the Mediterranean. In the southern EU countries, we have youth unemployment of over 30% in some cases. But the solution will not be for us to march even more European staffs and bureaucrats to come up with solutions, and then parliamentarians to discuss whether they are good or bad. Tourism will live on the fact that people can simply travel again and that the innkeepers and hoteliers can open their shops and offer these tourists the service they travel for. We need less restriction, we need less regulation, we need more freedom, and we need confidence that where tourists and hosts come together, something will happen. That is why I am sure that everything that the Commissioner and the Commission are doing is well-intentioned. I am also sure that a lot of money is flowing. But it is not the task of an authority in Brussels to boost tourism in the Mediterranean, Lake Balaton or Romania. The innkeepers and hoteliers themselves can do that, you just have to leave them alone. And the more we do, the less we let them do what they are there for. To dare less Europe means more freedom, more prosperity in Europe.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, In a digital world, we are vulnerable when our networks are not secure. And that is the correct thrust of this report. Of course, he has the usual bad side for this house now, unfortunately, when he enumerates Russia, China, even North Korea as a major threat to our cybersecurity, but fails to mention that all the major spying scandals of recent years have had to do with the NSA, although he also fails to mention that the largest budget of all countries worldwide for spying on the Internet is not in Russia, but in the USA. This "cold war rhetoric" should be overlooked when it comes to the security of our computer systems. And here, indeed, it is true that we must relent. It is also true that we must protect our European sovereignty in the digital sphere. In this respect, we can agree with concerns – with two small critical additions. One is: As much as we appreciate the importance of the private sector being referred to, we would have liked to see the big tech companies particularly appreciated. They also threaten our cybersecurity, as they are not democratically controlled and operate from abroad. And the second is that we must be careful not to create new authorities at European level under the guise of the fight against cybercrime, which ultimately only cost jobs, but fulfil tasks that could be all the better fulfilled at national level. In this respect, a yes with concerns, also a sign that you have to pull together at this important point. For the future, we wish: Less Cold War and more cyber security.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. This report establishes – or calls for – a world order that builds on the fact that the United States is building a world order with the EU in tow, based on the fight against racism, advocacy for LGBTQ rights and with the main goal of climate action. This is a left-liberal, Western agenda that we, as those sitting to the right of the president, of course, will not share. But it is also an astonishing degree of denial of reality. The world into which we are now growing and which we want to shape is no longer just shaped by the Western world, but is shaped by a multitude of actors with their own traditions and agendas. And it is our job to strike a diplomatic balance here, instead of fighting a kind of cultural struggle just to secure the power of the West. The fact that it is precisely the political right that is interested in ensuring that we also have peace with such areas of the world, which have other traditions, is a stair joke. It is about learning that our values are not universal, but that we have to listen and that we find the best way for this earth by balancing, by negotiating and by not believing that we are the sole owner of the truth. That is why I find this report awful because it is full of ideology. Even trade policy he wants to ideologize, and he wants to combine it with abortion and gender issues. But it doesn't belong there. That is why I would like us to align our relations with the US, which are very important, with real interests and, above all, with the interests of independence, sovereignty and identity. Unfortunately, we have here a purely ideological report that wants to ideologize foreign policy and foreign trade relations, rather than make them fit for a world where there are just several poles that are not Western – which we should acknowledge.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! I am surprised at what I hear here about the United Arab Emirates, because in fact they are a model of development and tolerance in the Islamic world. It begins with the house of the Abrahamic family in Abu Dhabi. It continues to be the only Gulf country to accept Afghan refugees on a large scale. But it also has something to do with the fact that the successful model of the Emirates now leads Islamic youth to understand Islam in a modern and 21st-century way and no longer follow jihad. And I'm astonished that this successful model, which is a very tolerant success story that is unique in the Islamic world, can be dismissed here. And it leads back to exactly that kind of neocolonialism that we believe we have to teach the whole world from the high horse about the way they have to govern their own country. I believe that the Emiratis themselves know how to govern their country. And if there are questions that we have, and if there are points that we consider unbearable, then you can ask and enter into a dialogue. We should stop teaching the whole world. The days when Europe could teach the whole world are over. And it's you in the middle who regularly think you have to attack our history because of colonialism. But you are pursuing a neocolonialism that is in no way inferior to the old one. I made the effort to ask the Emirati embassy what the situation really is. It is presented in a slightly different way, which is miraculous. And I think the right way is: Do that too. Enter into dialogue, but cease to be reliable partners and, above all, countries in the Islamic world that are effective in opposing Islamism and have to offer an Islamic alternative to chastising here in a way that will provoke nothing but rejection from the other side. Return to diplomacy and stop being teachers of the law of the world!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. It's a memorable evening: We have positioned ourselves overwhelmingly clearly against Russia, we are now positioning ourselves no less clearly against China – in short: against anyone who thinks otherwise than us. I often hear about neocolonialism in this House, and how good it is that we have broken with the colonial past. But if the West, if Europe thinks it must teach the whole world: Is this not neocolonialism? Western universalism and the Western world order are over in the 21st century. The old developing countries will be strong again and, of course, they will not be guided by what we want, but we must enter into a dialogue with them which, first of all, assumes that we are equal. This is called diplomacy. Wherever we go, we succeed. And here, too, it is true that the people outside are smarter than we are here in the house, mostly: In the case of: Nord Stream 2 There are three quarters that were for completion according to the surveys. For China, it is 78 percent that cannot be torn into a new Cold War – at least in Germany. Take the voters as an example and don't let yourself be driven into a Cold War!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Mr Colleague, this report which we have before us is a declaration of war by a Cold War. It is aggressive in tone and content, and it does not allow for any possibility of constructive cooperation with Russia. The majority here may wish so, but you do not have the majority of citizens behind you. In Germany, three-quarters of voters said in a survey that they were behind Nord Stream 2 stand. This is no different in other countries. This russophobia, which is cultivated here, has no roots in the populations, and it is also characterized by double standards. We are talking about Mr Navalny, a highly problematic racist. But why is no one talking about Mr Medvedchuk, the opposition leader in Kiev, who is under house arrest? One may be imprisoned, the elected parliamentarian, and the other, with economic crimes, not. You can't explain that, just as you can't explain your Russophobia. And that is why we will continue to work to achieve peace through understanding, understanding and diplomacy, even if we are in the minority. Clear no to the report.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen! I have listened to the debate from the beginning, and everyone agrees that the situation in Bangladesh is terrible and that it is time to put more pressure on it. There is no doubt that the situation in Bangladesh is not satisfactory. But the first thing I have to ask you: Don't you see that we have a development that we may think is a little too slow, but where a lot has happened in Bangladesh since 2013, which is now also confirmed by international audit organisations? The second question is: What is our alternative? If we actually put so much pressure on Bangladeshis that it no longer works for them with the previous business model, how do they want to feed their ever-growing population? It is one thing that we stand here and demand standards, which I expressly share. But it must happen that these people have a perspective in their homeland, and at least in the past and to this day we see that Bangladesh is making a good development and in a few years will have risen from the status of the poorest countries. That is why I ask for more sense of proportion and to see also the interests of the people of Bangladesh who need a further development perspective.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, I remember a lecture in international law in the late 1990s, where the professor stated: “Make one thing clear: Human rights are the last resort for the West to assert its global dominance.” When we see this act, it is confirmed. We decide not only on the human rights that are applied, but also on their interpretation. We sanction anyone who does not conform to our European vision. What is this other than neocolonialism? But the 21st century is the century of multipolarity, and that is why what must emanate from us is diplomacy. We must first reach out to those who have different traditions and understandings elsewhere in the world and help them to understand each other. So why such a European arrogance, where diplomacy, exchange and change through rapprochement would be necessary? That is why we will vote against it. It begins with the name Magnitsky, where it is also unclear what happened, and it continues to mean that we have to rule the whole world with our ideas. Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the 21st century and not in the 19th century anymore, and I think that's a good thing.

Madam President, Mr Prime Minister, my dear colleagues! I remember: In 1991, as newly reunited in East Germany, we saw the Yugoslav tanks invade Slovenia and shoot at the roadblocks set up by truck drivers. I am glad that you are sitting here today as the commander and minister of defense at the time. Mr Prime Minister, I can assure you that you are fighting against the same spirit in your politics, then as now. Those you criticize are often the descendants of those who fought Slovenian independence and freedom in 1991. That's why I'm happy to tell you that our group will support you. You have presented a very balanced and moderate programme to your Presidency. This is what Europe needs: rational politics instead of moral hubris. I believe we are all doing well not to teach freedom fighters who have won their own democracy about freedom and democracy.