Social policy When members of the Merkel's Christian Democrats in 2012 called on parliament to grant gay couples the same tax benefits as married heterosexuals, Hasselfeldt successfully railed against the idea. "Marriage between a man and a woman must be especially protected because it is fundamentally oriented towards the propagation of life —which isn't the case in homosexual relationships," said Hasselfeldt. In June 2017, she voted against Germany's introduction of
same-sex marriage. In a 2012 letter to
Amazon.com CEO
Jeff Bezos, Hasselfeldt asked the online retailer to suspend sales of a children's puzzle bearing the image of the crematorium at the
Dachau concentration camp, calling the product 'a slap in the face' for
Holocaust victims. Just from the Bavarian capital of Munich, Dachau lies within Hasselfeldt's constituency. In 2014, Hasselfeldt publicly rejected complaints against her party over its slogan "those who commit fraud will be [kicked] out" - a claim that migrant workers could exploit
social welfare.
European policies A proponent of strict austerity policies during the
Eurozone crisis, Hasselfeldt helped organize a majority of German lawmakers to approve a series of measures to assist Greece recover from its
government debt crisis. In 2011, she demanded that Italy must do more to convince financial markets of its creditworthiness after a rating downgrade by
Standard & Poor's. In 2013, she said Germany was watching France "with a degree of concern" and criticized French President
François Hollande for not implementing spending cuts and structural reforms with "sufficient vigor." In a reaction to the European Commission's decision to give France two extra years to cut its deficit in early 2015, Hasselfeldt wrote to the body's president
Jean-Claude Juncker in a letter to say that the timing of the decision – coinciding with the euro zone vehemently urging
Greece to stick to rules set by the Eurogroup despite significant domestic resistance – "should not create the dangerous impression that we want to apply double standards," and that the same rules needed to apply to all countries whatever their size. Criticizing
Herman Van Rompuy's 2012 road map for a eurozone-wide fiscal policy, Hasselfeldt rejected proposals for a "eurozone fiscal capacity", arguing the idea looked to her like a "transfer union." In the context of
Turkey's largely failed attempted to ban microblogging service
Twitter in 2014, Hasselfeldt reaffirmed that "[her] position has always been that Turkey should not be allowed into the EU, and that we are pursuing the principle of privileged partnership." In 2016, Hasselfeldt warned that Britain should not expect to have preferential treatment in case of a
Brexit, saying "to me, it is clear: exit means exit. Citizens have to know that with this decision there will be no special treatment for Britain."
NSA surveillance and Edward Snowden In 2014, Hasselfeldt blocked an opposition bid to bring
Edward Snowden to Germany to testify, saying that inviting Snowden to Germany would harm relations with the U.S. and probably force the German government to extradite him to face U.S. espionage charges for unveiling
National Security Agency data on surveillance. ==Awards==