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Annoyed by the corona switches: Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Die Linke)
Photo: Martin Schutt / picture alliance / dpa / dpa-Zentralbild
The latest edition of the Prime Minister's Conference takes place without some Prime Ministers.
Bodo Ramelow (Die Linke) and Michael Kretschmer (CDU) do not take part in the corona switch of the federal and state governments, as SPIEGEL learned from participants in the round.
The state heads of Thuringia and Saxony can therefore be represented by their heads of state chancellery.
Ramelow is currently on vacation in Tyrol, the country boss is sharing pictures of his time-out on Facebook.
According to his state chancellery, Kretschmer is also currently on vacation.
All other prime ministers are connected.
Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), Berlin's Governing Mayor Michael Müller (SPD) and Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) conduct the round of Berlin.
During the corona pandemic, the Prime Minister's Conference became the most important instrument of the federal and state governments in the joint fight against the emergency.
The participants seldom agreed; in the past, some groups met until late at night.
The current round should, among other things, be about boosting the vaccination campaign.
Saxony and Thuringia are among the federal states with the most unvaccinated people, and they were also one of the hardest hit by the pandemic.
"Candy Crush" and troll tweets
Ramelow had already caused outrage at previous Corona switches.
He had admitted that he occasionally played the Candy Crush game on the cell phone.
At the time, the allegation was that Ramelow was not involved when politicians were discussing corona deaths and restrictions on freedom.
Ramelow told SPIEGEL that he had "never made a secret out of the game."
Ramelow made another faux pas during the notorious Prime Minister's Conference on Easter. The participants met until late at night, Merkel left several prime ministers out, then a mini-shutdown over Easter was first decided - and then called off again with the Chancellor's apology. Ramelow had tweeted several "Ääääääs" during the round. He couldn't understand the excitement about his tweet afterwards. "I tweeted something meaningless in a meaningless situation."
At the now-scheduled Prime Minister's Conference, the federal and state governments want to clarify, among other things, which indicators should be used in the future in addition to the incidence values to record the corona situation - and whether the free citizen tests will be abolished.
As early as early Tuesday afternoon, the group agreed on an extensive development fund after the flood disaster in July.
The federal and state governments are to jointly provide 30 billion euros, and a special session of the Bundestag on the package is planned for the end of August.
mrc / flo / til
