Gerrit Huy Poverty in Germany German Bundestag, July 8, 2022, Plenarprotokoll 20/48, 5184-5185. Right honorable chairman. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Rasha Nasr (SPD): Präsidentin! Right honorable Frau President. Excuse me. The reality in our country is no longer to be passed by. In the allegedly best Germany of all time are there more poor people than ever before; the poverty report of the Paritätischen Wohlfahrtverbandes says so: The poverty becomes greater. Almost 14 million people in our country are affected by poverty; the poverty rate is thus at almost 17 percent. If the EU statistics are peeked at, then is seen that is over 20 percent. That means: Approximately one-fifth here are poor. And the consequences of the current inflation and the looming gas emergency are still not figured in. That means: We will more likely become still more poor. The trade balance surplus turned negative confirms this decline in a horrifying way. There thus results a completely different picture than which those in government hitherto always wanted to arrange for us. And the media have diligently taken part in that. A well known journalist just recently objected to me that for us in Germany it no longer goes so good. A great part of the media must put up with the reproach of having propped up the Potemkin village of a rich Germany. For this development is nothing new; indeed it only accelerates. Yet for over 15 years it was hid by the prosperity. The reproach needs to be made exactly so of the present Federal government as before of the unfortunate Merkel governments: They did not want to acknowledge the problem. In their megalomania, they have preferred to devote themselves to saving the world instead of applying themselves to the needs of the German citizens. That no longer goes; now not even the Ampel can shut its eyes to the suffering in our own country. The gas emergency – over 50 percent of our heating depends on gas – is doubtless an extreme, additional aggravation which will increase poverty in this country. Many people in today’s situation can no more make their heating payment. Many now already omit meal times – which was already stated; many freeze. Real hunger will follow – and then great mental depression. Depression meantime has become one of the most frequent illnesses of older people. Their suicide rate is by far the highest of the population groups. And the increase of the suicide rate has developed considerably in parallel to the increase of old age poverty. According to the EU statistics, almost 30 percent of our elders are poor, most of them pensioners. Our pensioners are poor because their pensions are so low; they are among the lowest in western Europe. On that account, we urgently require an effective pension reform which is not content with holding lines but which again allows to our pensioners a worthy old age, as is already a self-evident given in Austria, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, even in France, and of course first of all in Switzerland. Yet if the government would simply use all the money which you put into saving climate and planet, our old people could again participate in social life, again drink a cup of coffee outside the home, perhaps even sometime again be able to go to the movies or the theater – that would be something. Participation besides is for them so important – not only for marginal groups, participation must also be intended for the large group of people who built our country, whose resources you now so blithely squander. For long is it known that also many children among us grow up in poverty. Many of our single households are poor, even so as almost 10 percent of our employees who work part or even full time who are not able to live thereon. Migration also has increased poverty here. It has in two perspectives become a great burden. On one side, it leaves behind many migrants in poverty who hoped to find their fortune here; on the other side, it increases the wage pressure in the low wage sector of our economy and thus also increases poverty in other population segments. Immigration in an economic perspective can only function if the incoming people are well qualified and migrate directly to a presently available job. Ladies and gentlemen, it is thus time, high time, to newly order the priorities and again place the citizens at the center of politics. That works by shaping up the economy, by strengthening the economy; since it is the economy and not the politics which creates prosperity. And a little tip: The announced gas emergency would very well be avoidable. You have two opportunities: Either you turn on Nord Stream 2, or you take back the missing turbine for Nord Stream 1, despite the objections of the Ukrainians. Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): We already know your record. That is nothing new! Then we all have gas again. Thank you.

• published: 28 Jul 2022
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