Whichever position you have adopted on the EU this is an absolutely must watch. Both sides of the debate have got things right and both sides have got things wrong.
Here AfD leader Dr. Alice Weidel didn’t pull any punches against the EU over Brexit. She lays it on the line. By doing so she appeals to those who see the EU as one big uniform blob to look again much more closely. At the same time she appeals to those who are dogmatic in their support for the EU to re evaluate their stance.
Do not leave this page without having watched this.
What are your thoughts? Comment below.
Alice Weidels speech in full:
Dear President. Ladies and gentlemen. Esteemed colleagues.
Frau Chancellor you spoke about the uncertainty that Brexit will bring. Not that we learned anything new. It was just your usual phrases, mixed with some valerian.
One thing is clear. This Brexit will be costly. Costly for the EU, which means that by definition it will be costly for German taxpayers. Costly like the bank bailouts, the Greece bailout, the green energy policy, the opening of the border, the destruction of the automobile and other key industries, and the massive inflation of our single currency.
This is not what long-term planning looks like, ladies and gentlemen.
On to Brexit, for which you are partly responsible, due to your negligence, and your failure to help out the UK. Our historically good relationship with the UK is being threatened as a result.
What did David Cameron ask for that was so terrible?
No more social welfare immediately, and for everyone.
Stronger national parliaments.
Less EU bureaucracy.
But in Brussels he was banging his head against a brick wall.
This was a great opportunity to reform the EU into a leaner organisation, that focused on its primary job of creating and maintaining a single market. But no, that was out of the question.
Instead, you decided to gamble with the unity of the EU.
And now we’re counting the cost. 15 billion euros from Britain will soon be missing from the budget.
Every family knows you tighten your belt when your income is reduced. But not the EU. And they don’t have to, as long as they have Germany to pay the bills.
Even bigger than the while in the EU budget is the cost for the German economy. The UK is the second biggest economy in the EU, as big as the 19 smallest combined. From an economic perspective, the EU is shrinking not to 27, but to 9 states.
The nonchalance, the indifference, displayed by Brussels and Berlin in the face of such an enormous event, verges on a pathological denial of reality.
For Germany the UK is the biggest trading partner in the EU. The economic ties are deeper than with any other country. It is clearly in Germany’s interests that trade and investment continue unhindered. German prosperity and German jobs are at stake here. But out of blind loyalty you follow France, which wants to deny Britain access to the single market.
Yes, you are considering… not allowing Britain access to the European Economic Area, because Paris doesn’t want it. That would be too much. Too much free trade, too much fresh air in the markets, too much competition, too much rivalry for the best markets.
There is no mention of national sovereignty in the Aachen Treaty that you signed, which is being lauded as the crowning of the Élysée Treaty. What arrogance. Aachen has France’s fingerprints all over it. This Europe, for which centrally-organised France, with its failed industrial policy, serves as the blueprint, is coming sooner than people think.
The next time the European Council votes we will see what the most expensive consequence of Brexit is: that Germany can no longer achieve a blocking minority in the council.
In the current EU of the 28, Germany makes up 16% of the population, Britain 13%. Together that’s almost 30%. Combined with smaller countries like Denmark, Netherlands, Austria, a blocking minority of 35% was always secured. We would stop the crisis-ridden Club Med states and France reaching into community funds. That will soon be a thing of the past, due to the exit of Britain.
It is clear that without reforms the EU cannot go on.
Where is your strategy? You have none.
Let’s start with exit article 50, completely vague. The only specific information is how to deal with renegades, with traitors. According to article 218 they are to be treated like any other third-state.
Is a partner, with whom we have lived together for 40 years, in good times and bad, really going to be treated like Paraguay or Papua New Guinea, ladies and gentlemen?
What a mockery. Is it any wonder the British see bad faith behind every manoeuvre from Brussels?
Brexit negotiator Barnier is supposed to have confided to friends, I quote “My mission will have been a success when terms are so brutal for the British that they prefer to stay in the union.”
With friends like these… There is a lack of self-reflection on the continent, in Brussels, in Berlin, above all in Paris.
Brexit shows how out of touch Brussels is and where the real opponents of Europe sit, for a start, here on the government benches.
Europe is too important to leave them. We can’t ignore this or run away. The EU must be reformed from within. This includes a veto right for nation states against rules from Brussels, reforming Article 50, granting access to the single market for exiting countries, and securing the EU’s external borders, something we have wanted for years.
And Europe includes our British friends, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you.
Editorial
