As of: February 5, 2024, 3:11 p.m
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Familiar faces at the New Year's reception of the CSU district association in Andechs (from left): Georg Scheitz, Ute Nicolaisen-März, Prof. Ursula Männle, Stefanie von Winning, Harald Schwab, Prof. Angelika Niebler, Dr.
Ute Eiling-Hütig, Dr.
Brigitte Kössinger, Ludwig Horn, Stefan Frey and Andreas Lechermann.
© Andrea Jaksch
District CSU appears combative at New Year's reception before European elections.
District
– “A strong Germany in a strong EU,” said District Administrator Stefan Frey at the Starnberg District CSU’s New Year’s reception.
In the well-attended hall of the monastery inn on Friday evening, everything revolved around the upcoming elections to the European Parliament.
An expert in this field was a guest: Prof. Angelika Niebler has been a member of the European Parliament for the CSU for 25 years.
Member of Parliament Dr.
Ute Eiling-Hütig emphasized the diverse challenges facing the EU, including securing energy supplies, managing migration flows and fighting increasing bureaucracy.
She urgently warned of a “Dexit,” which she described as “the end of the German economic model,” and underlined the importance of the EU internal market, into which 55 percent of all German exports would flow.
She clearly criticized the AfD as a “threat to democracy and Germany as a business location”.
Angelika Niebler followed up on this and praised the citizens' movements against populism and for preserving democratic values.
She recalled that “our prosperity, peace and freedom” are based on what “has been built in Europe over 70 years”.
On the subject of migration, she criticized the Federal Interior Minister, who had announced in Europe that Germany still had absorption capacity.
And they hear that “the high social standards in Germany” are a pull factor and that Germany is therefore “part of the problem”.
Nevertheless, she was optimistic: the introduction of the first test procedures at the EU's external borders was a step in the right direction.
“I understand the anger in your stomach about what is currently happening in Berlin,” she said.
However, it was a mistake to vote in protest at the European elections for a party “that doesn't want to shape everything, but wants to destroy everything” and “that has nothing to do with Europe,” she emphasized.
In view of the war in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, the attacks by the Houthi rebels on merchant ships and a China that is positioning itself as a world power, she quoted Cicero: “If you want peace, you must prepare for war.” It was accordingly correct the deployment of the 90,000 soldiers who took part in a NATO exercise and “rehearsed an emergency”.
As a farmer, Andechs' mayor Georg Scheitz focused on agriculture.
“I look at Europe because many of the things that farmers have to pay for can be traced back to EU directives,” he said, condemning efforts to relax the rules on the approval of genetic engineering in Europe.
“This is being discussed vigorously,” confirmed Niebler and promised to take the criticism into account.
And she concluded with an appeal: “Europe is worth all the effort.
Here everyone can live how they want, can say what they want and be how they want." Frey added: "Especially today, in this time of threat at the border, this solidarity is so important." Because: " Complex issues cannot be solved with simple answers.”
Michele Kirner