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Employees of the Löbau vaccination center stand in front of empty vaccination booths
Photo: Sebastian Kahnert / dpa
The opposition strongly rejects the move by Chancellery Minister Helge Braun (CDU) on possible restrictions for non-vaccinated people.
This would be "the introduction of compulsory vaccinations through the back door," said FDP Deputy Chief Wolfgang Kubicki to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
"Moreover, such a categorization of basic rights into a first and a second class is clearly unconstitutional."
Braun had told »Bild am Sonntag«: »Vaccinated people will definitely have more freedom than those who have not been vaccinated.« If there is a high incidence of infections despite test concepts, people who have not been vaccinated will have to reduce their contacts.
"That can also mean that certain offers such as restaurant, cinema and stadium visits would no longer be possible even for those who have not been vaccinated because the residual risk is too high."
Braun does not think a new lockdown is necessary as long as the vaccines against the Delta variant help.
A high fourth wave would have an impact on companies due to massive quarantine.
"And for those who have not been vaccinated, there will have to be test obligations and, in the case of high numbers of infections, further tightening." He considers this to be legally permissible because the state must keep the health system functioning.
The exercise of fundamental rights could not be made permanently dependent on "good behavior" that the Chancellery defined as correct, Kubicki criticized the statements.
"The federal government hereby accepts a massive division of society."
Bartsch: "No more weekly announcements from the Chancellery"
The parliamentary managing director of the FDP parliamentary group, Marco Buschmann, told the newspapers of the editorial network Germany on Monday, "of course" incentives for the highest possible vaccination rate are necessary.
"But if it is certain that the tested, vaccinated and convalescents pose no risk in the same way, then they must not be treated differently," he said.
"Otherwise that would be a violation of their basic rights."
There was also criticism from the Left Party: "We have to put an end to new announcements from the Chancellery every week," said parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch to the Funke newspapers.
For the period from September onwards, “clear, comprehensible, constitutional regulations” should be the goal.
This applies above all to ensuring classroom teaching in schools.
Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) now also believes compulsory vaccination is conceivable - but not in the near future.
"I cannot rule out compulsory vaccination forever," he told the German Press Agency.
Kretschmann warned that it could be "that at some point we will only allow certain areas and activities to be restricted to vaccinated people."
The pandemic will not be brought to its knees without vaccinations.
The virus could come back just as dangerously as it did last fall, he warned.
"If there are variants against which the vaccine is no longer as effective, we are immediately in a different situation." Vaccination is therefore a civic duty for him.
"Every responsible person should just do that."
pbe / AFP / dpa