How much can you loosen your everyday corset without risking a relapse in the corona pandemic? Chancellor Merkel follows the cautious path and has prominent companions.
Berlin (dpa) - Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) receives prominent support from her party for her warnings of a research-based approach to easing everyday restrictions in the corona crisis.
CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer shared the concerns of the head of government, and the candidates for CDU chairmanship Norbert Röttgen and Friedrich Merz also expressed themselves in this direction. Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) campaigned for pragmatism.
In particular, North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) is driving the debate about further easing in times of the corona pandemic. The CDU vice is also running for party leadership. The "Welt" (Saturday) said Laschet about his course in the Corona crisis: "I experience criticism, also polemical, but also as much encouragement and encouragement as never before in my political life." Laschet at the same time campaigned for the unity of the countries and opposed an "outbidding competition of any kind".
The CDU foreign expert Röttgen, who like Laschet and Merz actually wanted to apply for the successor of Kramp-Karrenbauer at a special party conference this weekend, called advocates of an opening strategy as "loosener and exit strategists". These are "on the wrong path". "We went further in easing the situation than justified by the objective development of the pandemic," said Röttgen to the editorial network Germany (RND / Saturday). "If the feeling spreads that the all-clear is now valid and everything will soon be back to normal, we will notice this very painfully in the infection numbers in two weeks," warned the CDU foreign expert.
Ex-Union faction leader Merz warned with regard to the lifting of restrictions in everyday life: "This must be done carefully and with judgment. Merz expected in the" Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung "(Saturday) to give a long phase," in which we "corona-appropriate" have to live and work ".
In the SWR interview of the week, CDU boss Kramp-Karrenbauer expressed concern that the federal-state agreements "had been interpreted very differently in some cases". "It is always very difficult for the federal states, which are then more cautious on the road, to maintain such a line, also with regard to their own population, if there are neighbors who do it differently," complained the Minister. You want "more uniformity" here.
Saarland's Prime Minister Tobias Hans expressed "great concern that we will find out at the end of April that we have slipped further into the crisis." If the number of infections rose again, the wheel had to be turned back, Hans told the "Rheinische Post" (Saturday). At the same time, he spoke out in favor of not taking the maximum size of 800 square meters as a yardstick for store openings, but 20 square meters per customer. At the conference with Prime Minister and Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) on April 30, he would suggest that.
Health Minister Spahn argued that it is important to talk more about general criteria than about square meter numbers in the next steps. Distance and hygiene rules are crucial, Spahn told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Saturday). The CDU politician advocated pragmatic easing of restrictions in the corona crisis. "Parties or festivals are extremely risky," said Spahn. "On the other hand, those who go shopping in a store with the necessary distance from others or who keep themselves fit while exercising in the gym should be able to do that."
In the areas of day care centers and schools, the acceptance of citizens for the restrictions is currently being significantly strained, the minister said. The demands for children, working parents and single parents are very large. He also had the impression that the countries were not operating consistently.
On Monday, the culture ministers of the federal states want to speak in a conference call about the most uniform possible arrangements for the gradual opening of schools. Health protection is "of course a top priority". said the KMK chairwoman Stefanie Hubig (SPD). The KMK will bring about the final coordination of a concept that Chancellor Merkel and the country heads can advise on. "In it we make recommendations from the school transport to the hygiene and distance regulations to be observed, the break organization up to the group size and the lesson times."
So far, restaurants and hotels are excluded from the easing. Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer considers the reopening of restaurants at the end of May to be conceivable. The gastronomy needs prospects, said the CDU politician on Friday evening in the program "ARD Extra". "That is not possible now. But for the end of May I am definitely considering it here in the Free State of Saxony," said Kretschmer. Always against the background that the infection numbers are manageable, he added.
