Hans-Georg Maaßen is the former president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) in Germany. He was forced out of his position because he refused to corroborate the government’s disinformation about a “manhunt” in Chemnitz.
In the following excerpt from an interview with The Epoch Times, Mr. Maaßen discusses illegal mass migration across the Mediterranean into Europe, and the current policies of the Italian government for dealing with it.
Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:00 | Dear viewers, welcome to an Epoch Times exclusive interview with | |
| 00:05 | the former Constitutional Protection/Intelligence President Hans-Georg Maaßen in our Berlin studio. | |
| 00:11 | The questions range from China’s spying activities in Germany | |
| 00:15 | to Salvini’s policies in the Mediterranean, and include | |
| 00:18 | German topics such as domestic security, migrants and asylum seekers. Additional topics are: | |
| 00:23 | The silence of many citizens, what he calls the “marketing politics” of many politicians today, | |
| 00:28 | and the merger of the media and politics. | |
| 00:32 | His credo: “Politics should be authentic.” He believes that a politician | |
| 00:37 | should stand up for certain positions and defend them. | |
| 00:41 | This interview was conducted by our Assistant Chief Editor | |
| 00:45 | Renate Lilge-Stodieck and Editor Florian Godovits. | |
| 00:48 | Mr. Maaßen, as I’m sure you’re aware: Matteo Salvini, | |
| 00:52 | the Italian Minister of the Interior, was quite pleased that | |
| 00:57 | the Italian Parliament decided that much harsher penalties | |
| 01:02 | could be imposed on NGO ships — in other words, aid organisations — that | |
| 01:08 | send rescue ships to the Mediterranean. Now harsher penalties | |
| 01:14 | will be imposed against these ships and those organisations. | |
| 01:22 | The media in Germany tend to be sceptical about this, | |
| 01:28 | and they often accuse Salvini of not only risking people’s lives | |
| 01:35 | for a few more votes, but simply not saving those who will sink | |
| 01:41 | in the Mediterranean with these boats. What is your assessment? | |
| 01:49 | I can understand the attitude of Salvini and also of large parts | |
| 01:53 | of the Italian government and the Italian population. | |
| 01:57 | What we see in the Mediterranean is a drama, a scandalous tragedy, | |
| 02:02 | in which many people have died so far. | |
| 02:08 | What we see happening here isn’t a regular sea rescue, and what we see | |
| 02:13 | aren’t people in real distress at sea: it is smuggling. | |
| 02:18 | These people are victims of unscrupulous smuggling organizations. | |
| 02:23 | Smuggling organisations that start working | |
| 02:27 | in sub-Saharan African villages, recruiting people, encouraging them to come along, | |
| 02:32 | Smuggling them across the Sahara to North Africa, | |
| 02:37 | and then putting them on boats. They’re put on ships or boats that are | |
| 02:43 | unsuitable for the high seas in hope that NGOs or others will “save” | |
| 02:50 | these poor people who are on these boats that are unsuitable for the high seas. | |
| 02:55 | This means these smugglers have already included in their business model | |
| 02:59 | the likelihood that these people will be picked up by NGO boats | |
| 03:03 | and brought to Europe. This shows we are dealing with a highly criminal structure | |
| 03:09 | at the expense of many thousands of migrants | |
| 03:14 | who want to come to Europe. I am talking about migrants. They are not refugees. | |
| 03:19 | People are given hope, promises, and then brought into | |
| 03:22 | a very, very difficult situation on the Mediterranean. | |
| 03:25 | Thousands have fallen into real distress, many have drowned. | |
| 03:29 | So in that respect, I can understand what the Italian government | |
| 03:34 | is saying: We must stop this. From an Italian point of view, | |
| 03:39 | stopping this starts by trying to prevent these NGOs — | |
| 03:44 | or the so-called NGOs — from being part of this business model. | |
| 03:47 | In my opinion it must go further than that. | |
| 03:50 | We have to stop the smuggling activities in North Africa, | |
| 03:54 | so people do not get on the boats or the ships. | |
| 03:58 | We must stop them from appealing to people in their home villages | |
| 04:02 | and persuading them to embark on the long journey. | |
| 04:06 | I think this is a very big project for the European Union. | |
| 04:10 | This process has been on going for years, the process of migration across the Mediterranean, | |
| 04:16 | and unfortunately not so much has happened since then, at least from my point of view. | |
| 04:20 | Mr. Maaßen, thank you very much for your time. —You’re welcome. |
Of course its planned…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_for_the_Mediterranean
This NGO’s are human trafficking fir money , they Don’t care about this people, they just want them dump them to Italy, Spain or Malta , that is big scandal!!, unfortunately Western European countries are not working together to stop this illegal madness, it’s a tragedy for Europe , European people and for this who pay money to smugglers,?including this filthy NGO ..
the colonization of every western democracy is definitely been planned by the communists. they have been colonizing the united states since the 1980s.
sorry but there is nowhere in the interview the notion from him that this is a planned EU project. he only refers the “big project of the EU” to the fact that he thinks the EU should stop the criminal activities.
Such imprecise translations lead to a bad impression.
Sorry, Mr. Mustermann.
The term “big project of the EU” means by the definition of the word “project” a planned activity in order to obtain a certain result.
Of course, planned more or less well, but planned.
So, your assertion that this is not a planned activity make no sense.
Garibaldi didn’t unite Italy. He divided North Africa from Italy.