The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Mr. Reiter, are you a Söder-light? Munich-OB looks to Corona year and is very personal

2020-12-21T09:40:37.914Z


The Covid-19 pandemic has robbed the city of much of what it actually is. Mayor Dieter Reiter sums up the past months - and gives an insight into his emotional world.


The Covid-19 pandemic has robbed the city of much of what it actually is.

Mayor Dieter Reiter sums up the past months - and gives an insight into his emotional world.

  • No beer garden, no

    Oktoberfest

    , no theater or opera: There

    was

    not much of the

    Munich *

    flair

    to be felt in

    2020 due to

    Corona

    .

  • Mayor

    Dieter Reiter

    (SPD) in an interview about government work under the sign of the

    pandemic

    - and the town hall alliance with the

    Greens *

    .

  • What are the city leaders planning for

    2021

    ?

    Reiter gives a view.

Munich - Lord Mayor

Dieter Reiter *

(62, SPD *) has been back in the town hall office since Friday.

He was previously in

quarantine

for ten days

because his mother tested positive for

Corona *

.

On Monday Reiter visited

the new

vaccination center

together with Prime Minister

Markus Söder

(53, CSU)

.

These days: They are all about

Corona *

- like the months before.

In the

tz

interview, Reiter looks back on an extraordinary year:

The year has started well for you with the clear success in the OB election.

After that, the months were dominated by Corona.

When did you realize that this was not going to be a normal year?

Dieter Reiter

: Pretty quickly.

The election campaign was already dominated by the pandemic.

And an election party was out of the question, neither privately nor with the party.

Instead, it continued with meetings of the

city ​​crisis team

.

For the first few weeks we were all quite surprised by the development.

Nobody knew more details, nobody knew how best to deal with the virus.



The only halfway understandable insight was to reduce the number of contacts - which

also happened

with the first

lockdown

.

But that it would not be a normal year was

clear to everyone

when the

Oktoberfest was canceled

(April 21, editor's note)

.

Not fun for an OB to have to say something like that.

Throughout the spring and summer, I had the slightest hope that we

might be spared

the

second wave *

.

Unfortunately it turned out differently.

What did you miss most this year?

Reiter

: Normality.

That you don't have to think about every step: Can I do that now?

Can i do that now

That you can meet friends or family without counting.

That you can

go to the beer garden

without a

mask *

and without entering your name - to the cinema, to the theater, to a concert without thinking.

The

Spider Murphy Gang

described the Munich attitude towards life

very well

with the song

It's summer in the city again

.

But none of that happened this year.

You

missed

the typical carefree

Munich flair

.

Beyond Corona, politics was still made - with a new green-red town hall government.

What grade would you give the coalition?

Reiter

: In terms of content, it went very well.

We have tackled the issues that were laid down in the coalition agreement.

There is still room for improvement in terms of communication and cooperation.

Expressed in school grades: a

two minus

.

But that's not a big surprise when I think back to the first three years with the

CSU *

.

I fought one or two ostriches with the second mayor.

The current conflicts are comparatively harmless.

And

I have a very constructive relationship

with Mayor

Katrin Habenschaden

.

After a good year in government with the CSU, you gave the coalition a straight two ...

Reiter

(laughs)

: Maybe my demands have grown.

In my last term of office as mayor, I want to move a lot - although Corona inhibits a lot and has enormous

financial effects

.

Of course, I would have preferred to think, for example, about how we can make the

square in front of the opera

something like a piazza in Italy for Munich residents.

But these are more of a dream projects.

The financial situation is simply different due to the pandemic.

That's why I'm not entirely satisfied, that's why I am two minus.

Are housing and social issues inviolable for you despite the financial crisis?

You have emphasized this several times ...

Reiter

: Definitely.

We will

not be able to save on

social spending

at all.

Because the effects of the Corona crisis will continue to affect many people next year.

And despite falling revenues, we will also

have to spend more money

in

education

.

For example, for

hardware

to ensure distance teaching in schools for everyone.

We must also take care of the elderly.

Which corona effects are you most concerned about: economic, social or health?

Reiter

: Clearly the health ones.

Especially after my mother falls ill, I know how quickly the subject of Corona reaches you personally.

I wasn't in quarantine voluntarily, but because it had to be.

The city has

set up and financed

things like the

corona test station

on

Theresienwiese

, or the

contact tracing teams

.

The question is how much money we will get back from the federal government or the state after the crisis.

Of course, the increasing division in society also plays a role.

But I think Munich is very cohesive.

Hopefully there will be a quick normalization when people can move freely again.

You have shown yourself to be an advocate of strict measures during the crisis.

Are you Munich's “Söder light”?

Reiter

(laughs)

: Naaa.

It is clear that from the start I implemented measures * that I felt were necessary and responsible.

In close exchange with Prime Minister

Markus Söder

, other representatives of the state government and of course my health experts.

The development shows that we did not take excessive measures - on the contrary, if you look at the current incidence values.

A

lockdown light

is just a lockdown light - with obviously too many possibilities of infection.

* tz.de and Merkur.de are part of the Ippen-Digital editorial network.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-12-21

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.