Vaccination advocates rely on compromise
Created: 04/05/2022, 18:09
Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) speaks at a press conference on the new quarantine rules.
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
Will there be a general corona vaccination requirement in Germany or not?
The Bundestag will decide on Thursday.
Whether the search for a compromise will be successful remains to be seen.
Berlin – Shortly before the decision in the Bundestag on Thursday, the advocates of compulsory corona vaccination continue to strive for a majority.
"I still believe that we will decide on compulsory vaccination on Thursday," said Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) on Tuesday in Berlin.
The MPs are willing to take a sensible approach against an impending new corona wave in the fall.
SPD faction leader Rolf Mützenich said: "We will try everything until the end that there is a compromise between the different groups."
Mützenich referred to a compromise proposal that advocates of compulsory vaccination from the age of 18 had made the day before.
The draft now also includes various elements from other proposals.
It is now all the more important to do everything for a broad majority to make vaccination compulsory, which may be graded according to age.
Decision without faction specifications
The Bundestag is to decide on the controversial vaccination requirement, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is also campaigning for, this Thursday without the usual parliamentary group guidelines.
However, there is already a dispute about the order in which the various initiatives will be voted on.
Union faction leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) said: "I want to expressly warn the coalition against manipulation on Thursday in the order of the votes with regard to this topic."
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The first parliamentary director of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei (CDU), had said that there were no final regulations for such votes in the Bundestag's rules of procedure.
However, it is part of the parliamentary tradition that the most extensive motion is voted on first.
This would be the application with compulsory vaccination from the age of 18 or modified to 50 years.
Finally, it would be the turn of the two existing applications against compulsory vaccination.
"Reversing this order would, in my view, be grossly abusive," said Frei.
That would also "severely undermine" the acceptance of a decision.
Meanwhile, the planned end of isolation requirements for people infected with corona in Germany on May 1st has met with widespread criticism.
Scientists, social organizations and politicians protested sharply against additional easing shortly after the end of many state protection requirements.
Lauterbach defended the new rules agreed with the states.
The federal and state governments had agreed that infected people should voluntarily self-isolate for five days in the future - as an urgent recommendation, but no longer as an order from the health department.
dpa
