German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/198, pp. 24978-24979.
Herr President. Herr Minister. Ladies and gentlemen.
Herr Foreign Minister, you want to expend around 6 billion euros for the work of your office in the coming year. That is a lot of money and far more than in past legislative periods. Let us therefore look just for once at what you have generally attained in the past years with these record expenditures.
Now: The balance of your foreign policy is meagre, not to say devastating. The relations with almost all of Germany’s important partners have in part dramatically deteriorated. That concerns first of all Poland and Hungary which you, in the context of the German presidency of the EU Council, wanted to force into a German asserted line with sanctions and threats. That further concerns the British who, on account of the policy of uncontrolled mass immigration advocated by the German government, have quite decisively taken leave of the EU.
Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That is false and you know that!
Yet the relations with the Americans, Russians and Chinese have, under your government, also suffered severely.
You therefore have started initiatives which in fact are not path-breaking. For who today still at all remembers your “Alliance of Multilateralism”, your “Europe United”, or the “Thursday for Democracy”? Your ideas, Herr Minister, for all that have long since landed in the wastepaper basket of history. It begins time to pass over you and your policy.
Let us look, for example, at the Russian government. They begin to be on the lookout for alternatives. Thus yesterday a delegation of our AfD Bundestag fraction, despite massive resistance – and from your house – was cordially received in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.
Ladies and gentlemen, the world changes radically as not long since. China again becomes a significant world power,
Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): Mein Gott!
Russia again stronger. In Africa we experience a colossal population growth, this century’s greatest problem, largely ignored by all of you here. From Libya, through Iraq and Syria, to the Ukraine, Europe is surrounded and cut apart by conflicts.
Ulrich Lechte (FDP): Thanks to your Russian friends.
The breathtaking technological progress leads to shifts in geopolitical gravity to Asia. To be able to successfully lead our country through the 21st Century, we therefore primarily require an encompassing objective and a clear course which knows how to use the great historical currents to our advantage.
Then which concepts for the future do you have for our country, Herr Foreign Minister? I fear there is not much there.
Stephan Brandner (AfD): There is certainly nothing there!
You tear down what durably exists without erecting something new. At the very beginning of your time in office you ruined the legacy of your party, a successful German Ostpolitik. As an alternative, you have offered nothing. You define predominately negative goals. The national state is dead, overtaken, a concept from the 19th Century, so it is said from the side of this government. Consequently, the borders and social system will be opened to people from all the world and the tax money, hard earned in this country, will be grandiosely distributed to the entire world.
Christian Petry (SPD): Oh dear!
Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): Man, oh man!
Checkbook diplomacy, Herr Foreign Minister, was however never a replacement for a strategy. And the national state is entirely other than dead! Scarcely a theme will so persistently influence us in the coming years as the re-ascent of China. We occupy ourselves ever more intensely with this country because it is, as a sovereign national state, very successful in ever more areas. I name only mobile communications, space travel, artificial intelligence. China is the powerful counter-evidence to your thesis that the national state was an anachronism of the 19th Century.
Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): The song of praise of the Marxist-Leninist Chinese stamp from the AfD! I would not have figured on it! Super!
Foreign policy, Herr Maas, is not made just with the left. Nothing will come of it without the right engagement.
We again require visions so as to motivate men and direct energies towards a goal. As a country, we require a positive concept of wherein the 21st Century we wish to develop ourselves, of which place we want to take up in this newly ordained world order. Why do we not, for example, set a goal for ourselves for the year 2040, the 50th anniversary of the re-unification? Some ideas on that from my delegation: By 2040, we want to have re-established Germany as a sovereign national state of the German people [2040 möchten wir Deutschland als souveränen National-staat des deutschen Volkes wiederhergestellt haben]
Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That had abolished them, the Reichsbürger!
and thereby in this state maintain the German culture, language and tradition [und dabei in diesem Staat die deutsche Kultur, Sprache und Tradition erhalten]. By 2040, we want to build with all the European neighbors, thus also with Russia, a Europe of Vaterländer,
Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Russia is not a neighbor! Poland lies in between. Into which you probably want to be marching!
and in common with them, technologically and economically meet Asia and North America eye to eye.
Only the national democracies are capable of providing their citizens the required and desired space for identification and protection. We all need a Heimat, we need our Heimat. The artificial separation of the European continent again after the end of the Cold War into standing eastern and western power structures must be overcome.
Steffi Lemke (Greens): The speech is going to the Constitution Defense!
Herr Minister, you claim to be conducting a foreign policy united with values. Values can be choicely disputed, and you in recent years have done that with many countries and with particular effort. What however we actually require is a Realpolitik guided by interests, a policy which again puts German interests at the mid-point, just as you, Herr Minister, once had sworn an oath: To the well-being of the German people.
Many thanks.
Steffi Lemke (Greens): The speech goes to the Constitution Defense! Good luck!
[trans: tem]
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