Speech – Mirjam Zwingli
English Club Moscow, 10th of May 2020
Entrepreneurs’ tax money – where has all the money gone?
On the occasion of the Corona crisis on the one hand and the 75th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany with 27 million Russians dead I gave a speech before the English Club Moscow. I spoke from the perspective of an owner of a small enterprise a hotel business. Also i spoke as a critic of our political and economical system in Germany:
‚I have been executive partner of our small but successful hotel business for 10 years. I am also Representative European Relations of the Westminster Russia Forum London. I am member of the German Russian Forum Berlin and the Business Club Germany-Russia Berlin, to name a few. I will come straight to the point because i want to adhere to the speaking time.
Due to the Corona crisis our hotel business is facing insolvency. So far we have received basically no government help or rescue funds. It is key to know that in Germany the small and medium enterprises pay 90 % of tax money and provide most jobs.
While German SME‘s are struggling to survive the German Defense Ministry announce their plans for the coming years to spend our tax money on fighter jets capable of nuclear weapons worth billions and billions of dollars.
There are no real signs of protests against this in Germany. Instead we see silent acceptance and a sentiment that these defense spendings might surely be somehow justified. Why is that?
The perception that Russia has been Europe‘s big enemy seems to be in people‘s minds to a certain extent and mainly caused by media coverage. This is the only plausible explanation for people silently accepting these immense arms expenditures. Also, big players like Lufthansa receive billions of rescue funds, at the same time paying out dividends obviously to a large part to their owners and not to their common shareholder.
Of course there is not enough of my tax money left to spend on saving my business. This current situation shows in what way big interests and the media affect all of us personally.
I am working on my doctoral thesis to show in which way German quality media covers Russia. And how this is related to big political and financial and military interests.
Thank you very much for your time.‘
