Madam President, dear colleagues, today we want to make a very far-reaching decision. Mr. Brandner, excuse me, you will now receive a reprimand for that.
Today we want to make a very far-reaching decision that many people in our country are accompanying with considerable concern. We understand the concerns, we understand the criticism, but some of the claims that we have heard in recent days, ladies and gentlemen, and that were repeated here again this morning in the debate on the rules of procedure, are simply and fundamentally incorrect.
There is no new constitutional objective in the Basic Law, and it may have escaped your attention, ladies and gentlemen, from the AfD, that the protection of the natural foundations of life has for more than 30 years been a constitutional mandate under Article 20a of the Basic Law.
Dear colleagues from the AfD, I will start again. It may have escaped your attention that the protection of the natural foundations of life has for more than 30 years been a constitutional mandate under Article 20a of the Basic Law. And, ladies and gentlemen, the Federal Constitutional Court made a decision in spring 2021 that climate protection and climate neutrality are also to be understood under this.
So if the word climate neutrality appears once again in a later part of the Basic Law, that is the opposite of what you are claiming here and what you have been trying to use to create uncertainty among the population in recent days. Simply wrong. It is not a new state objective. There is no change here to the foundations of our constitution on this question.
Now, defence spending above 1% of our gross domestic product will no longer be subject to the debt brake, and a special fund will allow up to 500 billion euros in new debt for additional investment in our infrastructure over the next 12 years. This is, I will put it this way, a major shift towards our future, a major shift towards the future of the following generations, and such indebtedness can only be justified under very specific circumstances and very specific conditions.
The circumstances — and the colleague Klingbeil just pointed this out again — are above all determined by Putin's war of aggression against Europe. It is, after all, a war against Europe and not only a war against the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is also a war against our country, even if you see it differently there and there.
It is a war against our country that takes place daily, with attacks on our data networks, with the destruction of supply lines, with arson attacks, with contract killings in the middle of our country, with the espionage of barracks, with disinformation campaigns of which you in Germany are now also a part, with systematic misleading, with systematic misleading and deception of our society, and, ladies and gentlemen, with the attempt to divide and marginalise the European Union.
And against these attacks on our open society, against these attacks on our freedom, which also constantly come from you in your interjections, against these attacks we will defend ourselves with everything at our disposal in the coming years and decades, ladies and gentlemen. And take it seriously that we are saying this to you as well.
We have believed in our society for at least a decade, probably much longer, in a deceptive sense of security. Now we have to rebuild our defence capability partly anew, and with a technology-driven defence and procurement strategy, with automated systems, with independent European satellite surveillance, with armed drones and with many modern defence systems, and above all with reliable and plannable orders that should go to European manufacturers whenever possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is now the paradigm shift in defence policy that awaits us. And allow me to say in this context that our decision today depends not only on the defence capability of our country in the coming years and perhaps in the coming decades. Our allies in NATO and in the European Union are looking at us today just as much as our opponents and the enemies of our democratic and rules-based order.
That is precisely this order, our political order, which we have enjoyed for 35 years in reunified Germany in freedom and peace, in prosperity and with constantly rising social security. And it is a coincidence, but an interesting coincidence, that we are making such a decision today on 18 March 2025, on the day you reminded us of, Madam President, this morning, on which 35 years ago the only directly elected and freely elected parliament of the then still existing GDR was elected.
It is a nice coincidence that we can also remember this today in this context, and your interjection shows exactly your understanding of history, that one thing has nothing to do with the other. That is your worldview, and it deeply separates us, ladies and gentlemen, from this faction. We have nothing at all in common with this worldview that you are expressing here.
Now we cannot do this defence alone. We can only do this today together with the Americans in NATO. But we also want to be able to do this better ourselves step by step through a European defence. And, ladies and gentlemen, that is why this decision today — and I will try to put it in context — this decision today that we are making on defence readiness in the comprehensive sense for our country can therefore be nothing less than the first major step towards a new European defence community.
A defence community that also includes countries that are not members of the European Union but are very interested in building this common European defence together with us, such as countries like Great Britain and Norway. That is exactly where we stand today with our decision that we want to make today.
Ladies and gentlemen, just like the defence spending, the planned credit-financed infrastructure spending can also only be justified under the given circumstances and only on the conditions that we formulate together here. We know that we have a backlog of renewal needs in our infrastructure that has accumulated over years, if not decades.
But I expressly emphasise the sentence of the colleague Klingbeil, which he just said in his speech: "Money alone does not solve any problem." The investments in infrastructure that will be made possible by today's amendment to the Basic Law, ladies and gentlemen, also do not reduce the consolidation needs of public budgets. The opposite is true.
The opposite is true. Rising debt triggers rising interest rates, and rising debt also calls for repayment plans, ladies and gentlemen. And with that, the federal government, the Länder and the municipalities will be under considerable consolidation pressure in the coming years.
And I want to expressly mention an example of the municipalities at this point, ladies and gentlemen, that makes clear to us what tasks we have to perform. As you know, I come from North Rhine-Westphalia. The municipalities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia receive from the financial association with the state a total of, for example, in 2023 — these are the figures we have — 15 billion euros in tax revenue.
Of these 15 billion euros in tax revenue of the municipalities of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, 13 billion euros flow into social policy, into social spending that the municipalities have to carry out to a large extent on the basis of federal regulations. Ladies and gentlemen, this cannot remain as it is. If we want to give the municipalities in Germany more freedom again, then we have to change these legal foundations.
And I want to add a second point, even if this truth may also be somewhat uncomfortable today, but we must jointly give new answers to the advancing challenges of the ageing of our society. To put it even more clearly, the financial burdens that result from this cannot be borne by the young generation alone, to whom we are also imposing a considerable amount of additional debt today.
Ladies and gentlemen, so we are facing, whether we want to or not, with this decision that we are making today, also a comprehensive modernisation of our community. And allow me to come back to what I said from this place last Thursday, Friday, once before.
The proposals that the initiative for a capable state, under the patronage of the Federal President, submitted a few days ago in an interim report — these proposals, ladies and gentlemen, can provide us with an important orientation. They are proposals that fundamentally question many things that we have gladly become accustomed to in recent years and decades.
But much of what we have gladly become accustomed to in recent years is no longer viable in the country in which we live today. We need a technology boost. We need a comprehensive change in planning and approval procedures. We need a real reduction of the excessive bureaucracy in our country.
And in doing so, an essential contribution must also come from the European Union. Germany cannot do this alone. This must also be done jointly in Europe. And perhaps I may add this: the European Commission, which you so frequently criticise, and the President of the European Commission, whom you also so frequently criticise, has set out in recent days to bring forward extensive proposals in the Commission and in the European Council, which will then also require the approval of the European Parliament.
I appeal to those who have representatives in the European Parliament from the social democratic parties, from the liberal parties, from the Green parties, and of course also from the Christian democratic party family, to now approve these proposals of the European Commission in the European Parliament, so that a reduction of bureaucracy also becomes possible in Germany.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we therefore combine the restoration of our defence capability with the modernisation of our infrastructure and at the same time fulfil the legitimate claim of the citizens that they are once again met by a capable state — better, that a capable state stands by their side — then the Basic Law amendments that we are proposing to you today can be well justified.
And let me say this in conclusion: Yes, of course, many of us are struggling with such a far-reaching step, but the situation we face, the problems we have to solve together, the great challenges that have come towards us in recent years through foreign and security policy and that have intensified drastically for us all again in recent weeks — ladies and gentlemen, if we look at this situation, then we can adopt the Basic Law amendments today, I say it for myself, and I also say it for the colleagues of my faction, at least overwhelmingly.
Then we can adopt the Basic Law amendments of today with a clear conscience. They open up a perspective for our country that is urgently needed in the time in which we live today. Thank you very much.
