A smooth summit?
Almost - pressure from the Chancellor was obviously necessary.
Meanwhile, Markus Söder throws himself into chancellor pose, Armin Laschet reveals a problem.
And new adversity is already looming.
At their Corona summit on Sunday (December 13th), Chancellor Angela Merkel and the prime ministers agreed on new pandemic measures for Germany.
Apparently the seemingly smooth meeting was preceded by pressure from the Chancellery.
The appearance of CSU boss Markus Söder subsequently caused a stir.
But despite the new unity, politics in Germany is already threatened with new hardships.
Berlin
- no argument.
Unity and apparently smooth decision-making: In view of the dramatic number of cases, the Chancellor and the countries at their
Corona summit on Sunday
for perhaps the first time in the
virus crisis achieved
a real solidarity.
The
Christmas lockdown
is coming - but the demands could hardly be ignored.
But the
debate about the pandemic measures
will probably not end there.
Several questions remain unanswered: Will the steps be enough to reduce the still rising number of infections?
What if not?
Does the new harmony possibly even open the gates for legal action?
Meanwhile, the opposition is putting its finger into an open wound -
the long-term corona concept that the governments promised long weeks ago is
still pending in
Germany
.
Corona summit: New measures for Germany - Merkel is putting pressure on internally
The most important
results of the Sunday Corona summit
can be summarized more or less succinctly: Large parts of the retail sector are expected to close their doors on Wednesday by January.
The long sought
-after Christmas easing
* will be cut significantly.
School operations are to be cut back sharply.
And
there is new help
for the
economy
.
It already seems clear: overnight, possible successes of the measures will not show.
Chancellor Angela Merkel
(CDU) said that she expected the
numbers to rise “about ten days”
- by then, infections that have already occurred will show through in the statistics.
That could mean that
the effect of the new rules will be visible
on
Christmas Eve
.
Or maybe not.
Merkel herself had apparently pushed for
uniform tightening
before the round
.
The
Chancellery
, it is said, is said to have made it clear: As long as there is no sufficient readiness for what is necessary, Merkel will
not
agree to
a new round with the Prime Minister
.
Too often, the Chancellor has had to experience that her demands were negotiated down because there was great pressure to reach an agreement and her side did not want to let the negotiations break.
That shouldn't happen again.
Corona summit: Chancellor strategy for new measures worked - but the new agreement in particular could become a problem
The little rhetorical trick has apparently worked.
Even before the summit, several
prime ministers had called for
clear measures.
On Friday there was partly an outbidding competition in calls for a quick meeting.
The regional leaders
Markus Söder
(CSU, Bavaria),
Winfried Kretschmann
(Greens, Baden-Württemberg) or
Michael Kretschmer
(CDU, Saxony) even made “advance payments” with their own regulations.
In less affected countries such as Lower Saxony, the defense against nationwide measures quickly crumbled.
Paradoxically, this could be doomed - as at least one renowned
constitutional lawyer
fears.
Despite the new Infection Protection Act *,
the specific order of the state or municipality is always decisive
for
courts
when examining the admissibility of a measure, said the
expert Ulrich Battis
the
Handelsblatt
.
He admitted lawsuits had a chance of success: A lonely stretch of land with a comparatively low incidence in
Schleswig-Holstein
could not be treated in the same way as
Berchtesgadener Land or Berlin-Kreuzberg
.
Corona summit on Christmas lockdown: next hardship looms - FDP misses the "strategy"
But even apart from this problem,
Merkel and the Prime Minister could
soon face icy headwinds.
Above all, the
FDP
pointed out a shortage on Sunday - it still misses a tangible
strategy in the fight against corona
.
It is possible that this criticism will soon spread.
Or the practical consequences of the rather short-term course are reflected in difficult solution-finding peaks.
"The government must now use the emergency brake to develop a sustainable strategy," demanded the Liberal party leader,
Christian Lindner
, in a statement in Berlin.
"Ten months of pandemic and there is still no fundamental strategy of what to do under what circumstances," added
party vice Michael Theurer
in a tweet.
These objections are not new.
But they still seem very topical.
10 months pandemic and there is still no fundamental strategy of what to do under what circumstances.
Ad hoc measures are still taking place - this cannot continue.
https://t.co/3LkjaIUWSh
- Michael Theurer (@EUTheurer) December 13, 2020
Corona: Söder practices the chancellor pose - Laschet openly reveals a problem
It doesn't help that
NRW Prime Minister and CDU candidate for chairmanship, Armin Laschet
, spoke openly on Sunday about a political problem that, in his opinion, is difficult to solve.
The
pandemic
taught: Any
forecast
that is aligned over four weeks "goes wrong", he said.
"It usually turned out differently than the experts advised and than we ourselves also specified in our regulations."
Söder
, who spoke at the press conference that day for almost twice as long as the Chancellor and was very supportive of the state, actually already in the style of a candidate for Chancellor - "Dear Sir or Madam, dear fellow citizens" - and later
speech to
almost all relevant
TV stations
and answer stood, but warned against being too optimistic.
The
lockdown is
planned for January 10th.
But he also said explicitly: “As long as it takes.
Corona does not adhere to the dates of the Prime Minister's Conference, Corona does not adhere to public holidays. ”This statement could also be interpreted as a certain lack of strategy.
(
fn with material from dpa
) *
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