Madam President, dear colleagues, allow me to also make a preliminary remark regarding the memorial service we held at midday today and a reminder of the speech by Roman Schwarzmann, which deeply moved us all. I simply want to address this parliamentary group and you, Mr. Gauland. That was the "speck of bird" you spoke of a year or so ago.
Ladies and gentlemen, four days before last Christmas, a man from Saudi Arabia, who had been known to the authorities for years, drove a rented car through a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people in the process. Over 300 were injured, some of them severely. Many of the injured children, adolescents, men, and women of all ages will never be able to lead a completely normal life again.
And one week ago today, a small child from a kindergarten group and a bystander who wanted to help the children were stabbed by an Afghan man also known to the authorities; another child and another man who had also rushed to help suffered severe injuries from the attacker. We here in the German Bundestag have also expressed our sympathy and condolences to the victims and their families.
I want to state this very clearly: if our sympathy and condolences are to be meant sincerely, if sympathy and condolences after such attacks are not to degenerate more and more into a political ritual, then, at the very latest after Magdeburg and after Aschaffenburg, effective decisions must finally be made against the influx of illegal refugees to Germany and against the illegal stay of refugees in Germany.
We have a massive problem with foreign national crime in Germany, especially among asylum seekers. This reference to asylum seekers is particularly important to me, ladies and gentlemen, because we also have a large number of people with a migration background, as we call it, who have lived in Germany for decades in the second, third, and fourth generation. These people are part of our country. They are people who are German, who live and work with us, who have families, and without whom our country simply could not function.
They are people who have a right not to be mentioned in the same breath as criminal asylum seekers. They are people who sometimes even advocate for a much tougher asylum and immigration policy because they perhaps see even more clearly what problems we have in our country, and because they themselves are now becoming targets of hatred and violence—hatred and violence that is fueled primarily by right-wing extremist circles and which, with the AfD, has now taken its place here in the German Bundestag.
Mr. Chancellor, you are today delivering a government statement for the third time in a short period regarding the deadly attacks of recent months. You have, as we have come to expect from you, praised in grand words everything you have done in recent years, and have seen the unresolved problems primarily as an implementation deficit on the part of the state authorities.
Mr. Chancellor, the President of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees submitted a declaration of overload again this morning in the Interior Committee of the German Bundestag, and not for the first time. An office for which you intended to cut funding by 10% in your 2025 budget draft. Do you seriously believe that we have an implementation deficit and that everything else you have done so far is fine?
I want to give you another example. You have met with the state premiers several times, deliberated intensively, and made proposals by mutual agreement. Among them was the introduction of a uniform, nationwide payment card for asylum seekers. To this day, this agreement has not been incorporated into the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act. Some states have introduced it for themselves, for example, the Free State of Bavaria, which you criticize so much here.
In Bavaria, the Greens are organizing the systematic abuse of this card by having vouchers purchased and then exchanging those vouchers for cash at local Green party offices. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the success of your policy with the state premiers in Germany.
You complain that the states have not yet given you their approval for a security package last year. Mr. Chancellor, this security package came out of the German Bundestag already watered down because you could not push through in your own parliamentary groups what you had previously decided in the Cabinet.
Now you have not even called upon the Mediation Committee in the Bundesrat, because you fear that an improved result from the Mediation Committee would again fail to find the approval of your factions, especially the Social Democrats and the Greens. Mr. Chancellor, it is too simple, if not to say very cheap, to view enforcement by the authorities as the real problem here.
And now you are accusing me of making unlawful proposals here. That is a serious accusation, and I take this accusation seriously. Before I address that, however, I would like to say one sentence beforehand. Complaining here that the legal situation is as it is is surely not the task of the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.
You are not the chief notary of this republic. You are the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. And if the laws are insufficient, then you must make proposals to change the laws, and not explain everything that supposedly cannot be done under existing laws.
Our most important proposal, my most important proposal is to finally carry out border controls permanently and to enable rejections at the border. Ladies and gentlemen, this proposal comes after the entire European immigration and asylum policy has become dysfunctional, and it is dysfunctional. A proposal that is already permissible under simple European law.
I ask you, what are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, and many other countries in the European Union doing? Because unlike what I am proposing here, we are with these countries in the same European Union as we are. And now by invoking Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The former President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Professor Hans-Jürgen Papier, and several former judges of the German Federal Constitutional Court tell you: "The application of this article is not only possible, it is mandatory." And this article opens up priority for national law in the event of a threat to public security and order.
And now I want to ask you, what else actually has to happen in Germany? How many more people must be murdered? How many more children must fall victim to such acts of violence before you also agree that this constitutes a threat to public security and order? What else actually has to occur?
Furthermore, your reference to German asylum law now only applies to less than 3% of asylum seekers. As a reminder: In 1993, the Basic Law was amended by consensus between the Social Democrats and my parliamentary group, with a provision specifically in Article 16a paragraph 2 of the Basic Law, which has explicitly stipulated ever since that those who come from the European Union, from a member state of the European Union, or from a country where the European Convention on Human Rights applies, that they have no claim to the German fundamental right to asylum, and that applies to everyone who comes to Germany by land, for everyone without exception.
Ladies and gentlemen, where is the violation of the German fundamental right to asylum in what I am proposing to you here?
Ladies and gentlemen, let me make a few brief remarks on our draft law, which will be up for a vote here on Friday. This draft law has been debated in the German Bundestag since September. It is nothing that we have suddenly presented to you overnight. It is a draft law that we introduced into the German Bundestag after the attacks in Solingen.
You rejected this draft law with your majority that still existed at the time on the day the coalition broke apart on November 6, 2024, in the Committee on Internal Affairs by a majority vote. And now I want to briefly tell you what is in this draft law, which is up for a vote in its second and third reading this Friday.
It contains three points. First, the reintroduction of the term "limitation" as a purpose of the Residence Act. Second, ending family reunification specifically for those granted subsidiary protection—that is, for those who do not have a permanent right of residence in Germany—and third, expanding the powers of the Federal Police so that the Federal Police can ensure, with their own authorities, the implementation of measures to end residence.
Now I ask you: what about that is in violation of European law? What is unconstitutional about that, and what is stopping you from agreeing to these three proposals here in the German Bundestag on Friday? What is stopping you?
If you do not agree to these proposals, ladies and gentlemen of the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the FDP—if you do not agree to these proposals, then you are finally documenting on Friday that you do not, in truth, want to change the influx into the Federal Republic of Germany. That is the result we will get from you on Friday.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to say something very personal in conclusion. To the best of my memory, in the over 18 years that I have been a member of this parliament, I have never said what I am saying to you now from this spot. But I am saying it to you today; at the very latest after the terrible attack in Magdeburg and the deadly knife attacks in Aschaffenburg, I simply can no longer reconcile it with my conscience, both personally and as chairman of this parliamentary group.
Simply no longer, yes. You know, you know. Which conscience, if you work together... Thank you very much. Conscience. Thank you for these heckles. You know, when the word "conscience" triggers such reactions from you, then one knows what the word "respect" really means to you in your parliamentary group and in your party.
I will repeat that. I can no longer reconcile it with my conscience that allegedly formal agreements with you, the SPD, and the Greens, following the collapse of the coalition government, are supposed to mean that we here in the German Bundestag are only allowed to bring decisions to a vote that have previously received your approval.
No, ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you something now. Yes. Yes. I am telling you exactly that, for exactly this reason. We simply owe it to the people in our country, and not least to the victims of the violent acts of the last few months, to now truly make every attempt to limit illegal migration, to take asylum seekers who are required to leave into custody, and finally to deport them. Ladies and gentlemen, we owe it to the people.
And I regret, Mr. Chancellor, that all attempts to reach common solutions with your coalition here have failed over the last three years. It is therefore up to you alone this week, for the final time this legislative period, the Social Democrats and the Greens, whether there is still a parliamentary majority in the middle of the German Bundestag for our proposals or not.
It is your decision, ladies and gentlemen, and we also, this should be made clear, we do not have a majority with the AfD in the German Bundestag. We do not have one. Others must join in. And yes, it is possible that the AfD could enable the majority for a necessary law here in the German Bundestag for the first time on Friday.
The images that we might see of cheering and smirking AfD members, they will be unbearable. And the mere thought of it causes me the greatest discomfort right now. But ladies and gentlemen, faced with the choice to continue watching helplessly as people in our country are threatened, injured, and murdered.
Faced with the choice to continue leaving the power of interpretation and decision-making in asylum and immigration policy to the red-green minority here in the German Bundestag, or to act uprightly now and do what is undeniably necessary in this matter. Faced with this choice, I decide, and we decide, on this latter path. Yes, and without a doubt.
Without a doubt, ladies and gentlemen, democracy is in danger when radicals come to power. Therefore, we will, and therefore I will do everything to prevent exactly that, and the assumptions and speculations that you, Mr. Chancellor, have made here, you know me well enough. They are base and they are infamous. I will do everything to prevent what you have just said here from happening.
I add a second sentence, ladies and gentlemen. Democracy also falls into danger when a social and political minority—and you, the SPD and Greens, are a shrinking social and political minority—when this minority uses radicals as a tool to permanently ignore the will of the majority of the population.
Therefore, we will not let you, SPD and Greens, tell us anymore what we are to do and what we are not to do. You too have a choice on Friday. You can make your decision, and possibly, even without you, the right decision will be made on this matter regardless.
To put it clearly, a right decision does not become wrong just because the wrong people agree with it. It remains right. It remains right. And do not draw from the Greens and the SPD the wrong conclusions from this, even if you now try in your usual manner, in this election campaign—and it is already starting—also against me personally.
Even from the center of this federal government, for the repeated time by one of your cabinet ministers, Federal Chancellor, the Nazi club is being swung against me. I accepted the apology the first time, the second time no longer. Any conversation ends at this point, Mr. Lauterbach. I want to tell him that very clearly and very distinctly here.
I will not be deterred by these attacks and I will try to firmly contradict everyone that you undertake there, and I know that I am in agreement with the vast majority of the population, incidentally also with the majority of Social Democratic voters.
Do you actually ever ask yourselves why you are losing constituencies in the Ruhr area and in Northern Hesse to the AfD in the 2025 federal election? Do you ever ask yourselves from time to time why that is the case, ladies and gentlemen of the Social Democrats? No matter what you do, I just want to say it one more time.
After the federal election, I will do everything to ensure that we never again end up in such a situation as the one we have to discuss here in the German Bundestag today, to my deepest regret. I thank you.
