René Springer

René Springer 2020

René Springer (born July 15, 1979 in East Berlin ) is a German politician in the Alternative for Germany (AFD). He has been a member of the German Bundestag since the 2017 federal election .

Life

After completing secondary school , which he completed in Berlin in 1996, Springer was a contract soldier in the Navy from 1997 to 2009 . There he completed an apprenticeship as an electronics technician and advanced training to become a master in electrical engineering , later he taught at a marine vocational school. In 2006/2007 he was deployed to Afghanistan for six months as part of the ISAF .

This was followed by a degree in political science at the University of Greifswald , which he completed in 2014 with a thesis on emotions and nationalism - fear and secession in Scotland . Springer's master's thesis was awarded 2nd place in the 2014 Kurt von Fritz Prize of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. After completing his studies, he worked briefly for the German Society for International Cooperation in a project on rural electrification in Mozambique .

From 2004 to 2009 Springer was a member of the SPD . At the end of 2014, Springer became personal advisor to the then chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in the Brandenburg state parliament , Alexander Gauland . In 2015 he joined the AfD. In 2016 he became the parliamentary group leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the state parliament, and in 2017 he became Gauland's personal advisor again.

In the 2017 federal election , Springer was a direct candidate in the Potsdam - Potsdam-Mittelmark II - Teltow-Fläming II constituency with 12.3% of the votes. Since the first five candidates on the state list of the AfD Brandenburg were elected to the Bundestag , Springer, who ran in third place on the state list, was able to move into the Bundestag.

On May 5, 2020, he was elected spokesman for labor and social affairs by the AfD parliamentary group.

Political work and positions

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Lean welfare state

Springer has repeatedly advocated a leaner and more efficient welfare state . In particular, he referred to the, in his opinion, excessive administrative costs of the job centers and the associated additional costs for the taxpayer.

Welfare State and Immigration

In 2019, Springer criticized the federal government's plan to facilitate immigration to the Federal Republic of Germany . In doing so, he mainly referred to current labor market data, according to which the number of foreign unemployed in Germany rose by 33.1% from 2010 to 2018, while the number of unemployed Germans fell by 43.1% in the same period. The number of foreigners looking for work had risen by 64.7%. Against the background of these figures, Springer criticized the federal government's immigration policy : "Despite the increasing demand for skilled workers, immigration over the past few years has led to rising unemployment rates even among qualified foreigners." The Skilled Workers Immigration Act will not reverse this trend, but rather intensify it. He does not see how the law could prevent further immigration into our social systems. Springer and the AfD parliamentary group subsequently demanded a change from cash to benefits in kind with regard to the provision of asylum seekers. In August 2019, statistics from the Federal Employment Agency showed that Hartz IV recipients belonged to around 2 million foreigners. In 2007 it was around 1.3 million. Among the foreign Hartz IV recipients, claims of 2.4 billion euros were made to citizens from other EU countries from September 2018 to August 2019 States. 6.1 billion Euros went to people from the eight most important countries of origin of asylum. Springer said: "The dramatic increase in Hartz IV expenses for foreigners shows that the government has completely underestimated immigration into the social security system and the resulting financial burdens."

Unemployment benefit I and II

Springer also criticized the long-term consequences of the Hartz IV reforms. The Federal Ministry of Labor replied to an AfD request that almost one in five of the 5.5 million Hartz IV recipients at the time had been dependent on state support for at least ten years. Springer then told the press that the aim of the Hartz IV reforms was to improve integration into the labor market. “Instead, we see hundreds of thousands who end up in the Hartz IV system again after a short time.” As a result of the increasing indebtedness of single parents in Germany, Springer called for greater support from the federal government for single parents. "Those who suffer are mainly single mothers and their children."

Child benefit

Springer demands that the Merkel IV cabinet indexing of child benefit to children living in other EU countries be introduced. The EU Commission has so far rejected a new regulation.

Annuities and pensions

In 2019, Springer's inquiry to the federal government revealed that in 2017 over 11 million employees subject to social insurance earned so little that their pension entitlements did not exceed the level of the state's basic security even after 45 years of contributions . In its answer, the Ministry of Labor stated that the basic security in old age averaged EUR 814 per month in 2017, although the need varied greatly from region to region due to the different cost of living . Springer commented on this: “For years the number of employees subject to social security contributions who do not earn enough to get a pension above the basic security in old age has been increasing. Low wages and atypical employment are the drivers of this worrying development, which is likely to be exacerbated by digitization and automation. ”With a further request to the federal government, Springer made it known to the public that the gap between statutory pensions and civil service pensions has been widening in recent years has opened further. According to the information, a full-time employee with average earnings would have had to work 53.4 years in 2018 in order to achieve the minimum pension level of EUR 1,708.87 per month with his statutory pension . Federal officials are entitled to this after 5 years. As a result, pensioners received an average of EUR 760 per month. The average retirement pension of retired federal civil servants, on the other hand, was EUR 3,080. Springer told the press: “With all due respect for the performance of the officials, this is disproportionate and unjust. Obviously, the federal government is more interested in a good civil service provision than in a good pension for millions of employees. "

Temporary work

Springer campaigned for the implementation of the principle of “equal pay for equal work”, which has been anchored in law since 2017. In a further inquiry to the federal government, he found out that a good 70 percent of temporary workers in Germany do not benefit from the legal requirements for the same pay as regular employees. Springer pointed out that in the area of temporary work, 46.1 percent of employment relationships end after less than three months. According to the Federal Employment Agency, the average gross wage of full-time agency workers in 2019 was 1,928 euros. By contrast, the median pay of employees with full-time jobs was 3,304 euros.

Foreign missions of the Bundeswehr

At Springer's request, the Ministry of Defense stated that from 1992 to 2017 inclusive, a total of 413,988 members of the Bundeswehr had participated in humanitarian, peacekeeping and peace-building missions abroad. Since 1992, 109 soldiers of the Bundeswehr have been killed on missions abroad. Since the Bundeswehr began operating in Afghanistan, 123 German soldiers and 2 German women soldiers have been wounded in combat operations there. The number of Bundeswehr personnel with mission-related post- traumatic stress disorders rose by more than 30% from 2016 to 2020. The number of treatments of soldiers by civilian psychiatrists more than quintupled between 2011 and 2020. Against this background and the cost of the deployment of around 11.9 billion euros up to 2018, Springer also questioned its relational benefits. He took the view that the Bundeswehr had been “saved to pieces”. German security forces have "lost nothing in Afghanistan". Springer calls for the Bundeswehr to end its foreign missions in Afghanistan.

Controversy over right-wing extremist employees

Like all members of the Bundestag, Springer employs several people to handle his mandate tasks and support his parliamentary work. He hired the former state chairman of the Junge Alternative in Brandenburg Jean-Pascal Hohm, one of twenty-seven activists and supporters of right-wing extremist organizations among the employees of AfD members of the Bundestag , according to research by Zeit Online . Hohm had previously been an employee of the state parliamentary group of the AfD Brandenburg , but was dismissed after reports of Hohm's contacts with the radical right-wing Identitarian Movement . The publicist Olaf Sundermeyer saw in "the young hope of the AfD" Hohm one of "the most active identities ever".

Web links

• Biography at the German Bundestag
• René Springer's website
• Valerie Barsig and Matthias Matern: Direct candidate René Springer: The man from the second row. In: Potsdamer Latest News Online . 12th September 2017 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Prize winners of the Kurt von Fritz Prize. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, accessed on August 5, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Tobias Schmidt : More and more money to integrate and manage less and less unemployment. In: New Osnabrück Newspaper. January 20, 2020, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Rasmus Buchsteiner : millions enforcement proceedings against the unemployed: job center call Hartz IV back into the billions. In: Hannoversche Allegemeine. June 18, 2019, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Tobias Schmidt : More unemployed foreigners - AFD warns of immigration law. In: New Osnabrück Newspaper. June 6, 2020, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Fewer lawsuits against Hartz IV in Berlin. In: RT German. January 16, 2020, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Payment claims of foreign Hartz IV recipients increased. In: Nordkurier. December 27, 2019, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Every second welfare recipient needs support after job placement. In: Der Tagesspiegel. February 22, 2020, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Increased indebtedness of single parents in Germany. In: Zeit Online. September 26, 2019, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
9. ↑ CSU and AfD for reform of child benefit transfers abroad. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine. October 4, 2018, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
10. ↑ 343 million child benefit will be transferred to foreign accounts. In: Der Tagesspiegel. March 21, 2018, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
11. ↑ Spiegel.de: EU Commission rejects the new regulation of child benefit , August 15, 2018
12. ↑ More than 11 million workers are threatened with mini-pensions. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung. May 2, 2019, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
13. ↑ Rasmus Buchsteiner : So great are the differences between pensions. In: editorial network Germany. November 16, 2019, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
14. ↑ Rasmus Buchsteiner : Equal pay for equal work? Contract workers often get nothing. In: editorial network Germany. February 25, 2020, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
15. ↑ Editor : So far, almost 437,000 German soldiers have been deployed abroad. In: Bundeswehr Journal. November 22, 2018, accessed June 30, 2020 . 
16. ↑ Editor : Afghanistan Mission: Death, Wounding and Mental Suffering. In: Bundeswehr Journal. March 8, 2018, accessed June 30, 2020 . 
17. ^ Gregor Mayntz : Again more soldiers are mentally ill. In: RP Online. February 18, 2018, accessed June 30, 2020 . 
18. ↑ Peter Carstens : The invisible application wounds. In: FAZ.net. February 27, 2019, accessed June 30, 2020 . 
19. ↑ Editor : Bundeswehr has problems treating traumatized soldiers. In: aerzteblatt.de. November 19, 2018, accessed June 30, 2020 . 
20. ↑ Editor : AfD: The German mission in Afghanistan has cost 16.4 billion euros so far. In: epochtimes.de. April 18, 2019, accessed June 30, 2020 . 
21. ↑ AfD: German Afghanistan mission has so far cost 16.4 billion euros. In: Epoch Times. April 18, 2019, accessed May 24, 2020 . 
22. ^ Kai Biermann , Astrid Geisler , Johannes Radke, Tilman Steffen: AfD MPs deal with right-wing extremists and constitutional enemies. In: Zeit Online. March 21, 2018, accessed August 5, 2019 . 
23. ↑ Felix Hackenbruch: Schreiber calls for the surveillance of some AfD members. In: Der Tagesspiegel . May 22, 2017. Retrieved August 5, 2019 . 
24. ↑ Olaf Sundermeyer , Jan Wiese: The Identitarians: Creative Storm Troop of the AfD. In: Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg . June 16, 2017, archived from the original on September 4, 2017 ; accessed on August 5, 2019 .