Enlarge image
Vaccine against the coronavirus: will vaccination be compulsory for everyone?
Photo: Martin Dziadek / Die Videomanufaktur / IMAGO
Olaf Scholz set the schedule himself: In November he told ZDF that he thought it would be right for everyone to be vaccinated from “beginning of February, beginning of March”.
That can hardly be achieved, as is now becoming apparent.
What is the state of the political debate?
What suggestions are there?
And how could such a duty be enforceable?
Do we need to be vaccinated?
All the heads of the state governments, Chancellor Scholz, the majority of the members of the Ethics Council say: yes.
Proponents believe that vaccination is necessary because the German quota is too low to contain the pandemic in the long term.
More than 70 percent of the population are vaccinated twice and more than 40 percent are vaccinated three times.
Around a fifth of Germans aged four and over are not vaccinated, and no vaccine has yet been approved for younger people.
But with the Omikron variant, doubts about the necessity of vaccination grow.
Figures from South Africa and the UK show that this virus could be milder than its predecessors.
It is uncertain to what extent the findings from abroad can be transferred to Germany.
In addition: For the current fourth wave, the compulsory vaccination would come too late anyway, as it takes weeks for everyone to be vaccinated and for the protection to work.
These questions are apparently already having an effect on the mood: A clear majority in the population is in favor of a general vaccination requirement, but approval is crumbling, as a SPIEGEL survey showed.
Why is compulsory vaccination by March unrealistic?
The process is delayed because the members of the Bundestag should decide independently of their parliamentary groups.
Unlike usual, the parliamentarians first have to get together in groups, formulate proposals and try to organize supporters for them.
The Ampelkoalition decided to take this route because there are reservations, especially among the FDP politicians, about a general corona vaccination requirement.
But even in the parliamentary groups of the SPD and the Greens, not all are apparently convinced of the idea.
That is why the Chancellor does not want to submit his own draft law, but leaves it to Parliament.
The coalition factions intend to hold an orientation debate in the Bundestag at the end of January.
In such fundamental debates, many MEPs give short speeches.
In the last electoral term there was a new regulation for organ donation.
Because only one week of parliamentary sessions is planned in February because of the carnival, the MPs will not be able to make a decision on specific legislative proposals until March 14th at the earliest.
Then the Federal Council would have to agree, that would not be possible before April.
SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich has meanwhile announced that members of his parliamentary group would submit a draft law immediately after the orientation debate.
Parliament should not take more than two months to reach a decision in the Bundestag, he said.
What is the role of the opposition?
The CDU and CSU used the topic to drive the government forward.
Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus and NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst accuse Scholz of delaying the compulsory vaccination.
The designated CDU chairman Friedrich Merz made a similar statement.
In order to further increase the pressure, CDU politician Christoph Ploß suggested a special session of the Bundestag in SPIEGEL.
The decision should not be postponed for weeks.
"It's about life and death."
However, the Union itself is acting contradictingly.
The CSU health expert Stephan Pilsinger had told the newspapers of the Funke media group that the Union wanted to initiate its own application that would suggest compulsory vaccinations for people aged 50 and over.
The managing director of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei, immediately whistled his colleague back.
There is no application from the Union, and one is not being worked on either.
The federal government must make a proposal.
Displeasure is also growing outside the Union.
Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann said: "I am dissatisfied with the whole process." Even before Christmas, the state governments had asked the Bundestag and the federal government to present a schedule.
That didn't happen.
What suggestions are on the table?
The first application came from a group around FDP vice-president Wolfgang Kubicki, who clearly speaks out against compulsory vaccination.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) is working in his own words "as a member of parliament" on a proposal for mandatory vaccination for all people over the age of 18.
There are further proposals between these poles: The FDP health politician Andrew Ullmann, for example, suggested an age-dependent regulation like in Italy.
There, the obligation applies to people over the age of 50.
Janosch Dahmen from the Greens proposed a two-stage approach: First, the facility-related vaccination obligation that has already been decided should be extended to other areas such as the fire brigade, the police and the penal system.
This should be followed by a general compulsory vaccination "as soon as possible".
Would a general compulsory vaccination be constitutional?
It's not that easy to answer.
Among other things, it depends on what the goal is.
It is conceivable to focus on protecting the health and life of particularly vulnerable groups of people.
But it should also be about maintaining the functionality of the health system.
It might therefore be necessary to differentiate between risk groups.
"In any case, not all parts of the population are equally at risk," says the Giessen constitutional lawyer Steffen Augsberg, who is also a member of the German Ethics Council, but has spoken out against a general vaccination requirement with three other members in the current situation.
"You would have to explain exactly what criteria, such as age, are used to make the vaccination compulsory, and why." (Read more about it here.)
One thing is clear: there must be an exception for people who have individual medical reasons against vaccination.
Children under the age of twelve would also have to be exempted as long as there is no general vaccination recommendation for them by the Standing Vaccination Commission.
How could a general compulsory vaccination be practically enforceable?
So far, one or two vaccinations have been assumed - depending on the vaccine - in order to be legally considered "vaccinated".
It is also conceivable that a booster vaccination will also be prescribed in the future.
Or a vaccination with a new vaccine that works better against the Omikron variant.
Unlike in Austria, for example, there is no central register in Germany in which vaccinations are recorded.
It would make it easier to monitor mandatory vaccinations, but it is controversial among health ministers.
Those who refuse to be vaccinated should pay.
Up to 2500 euros are under discussion.
If someone doesn't pay, coercive detention could even be considered.
However, this will be difficult to enforce in practice.
Could the Federal Constitutional Court stop compulsory vaccinations?
As a federal law, a regulation on compulsory vaccination could be attacked immediately at the Federal Constitutional Court.
The general rule is that a coercive measure must be proportionate, i.e. there must not be any »milder means« - measures that are equally suitable, but interfere less strongly with fundamental rights.
Since the corona vaccination campaign has now been running for almost a year and there have already been many very low-threshold offers, "there are now quite weighty arguments that the milder means are slowly being exhausted," says Jens Gerhardt.
The deputy head of the Munich Health Department has commented on the Infection Protection Act (IfSG) from a legal point of view.
With material from the agencies