Tuesday, January 11, 2022
After criticism about slow pace
SPD names schedule for vaccination decision
In the debate about compulsory vaccination, Chancellor Scholz has become increasingly on the defensive due to a lack of a schedule. Now the SPD parliamentary group is declaring that key points for a bill will be presented at the end of January. Scholz’s target date still doesn’t seem feasible.
The SPD wants to make a concrete proposal for the introduction of a general vaccination requirement in Germany at the end of January. Immediately after the first “orientation debate” in the Bundestag, which is to take place in two weeks, members of the SPD would present key points for a draft law, said parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich. They should then be the basis for a group proposal together with parliamentarians from other parliamentary groups. Parliament shouldn’t take more than two months to reach a decision in the Bundestag, said Mützenich: “We’ll have that finalized in March, of course.”
Six weeks after today’s Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz – then Vice Chancellor – spoke out in favor of a general vaccination requirement, there is now for the first time a schedule for the implementation of the project. However, it could take longer to reach a decision than Scholz suggested. The SPD politician had named the desired dates for the introduction of mandatory vaccinations in early February or early March. That could only be done with special sessions of the Bundestag.
Scholz had come under increasing pressure in the past few weeks. The Union had accused him of weak leadership in the debate and asked for a timetable. The SPD is now complying with this demand and is taking pressure out of the boiler. Mützenich was determined to do everything possible so that the decision could be made before the end of March. With a view to a long phase without Bundestag meetings in February, the SPD parliamentary group leader did not rule out special parliamentary sessions. “If necessary, we (…) are always in a position to deliberate in the German Bundestag,” he said.
Kretschmann: “We lose a lot of time”
The Ampel-Coalition had agreed that the MPs could freely decide whether to be vaccinated without having to stick to a certain group line. From the ranks of the SPD, Greens and FDP, there has so far only been one application by members of the Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki of the FDP, in which a vaccination requirement is rejected.
However, before the SPD presents the key points for compulsory vaccination, the orientation debate is to take place in the week of January 24th to 28th. In principle, Mützenich invited all parliamentarians to participate in a joint group proposal afterwards. With regard to the AfD, however, he added that it had failed to do anything in recent months to respond to the challenges of the pandemic with provocations. He was confident that the majority of the SPD MPs would vote in favor of the general compulsory vaccination.
Shortly before Mützenich’s statements, even Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann from the Greens criticized the speed of the vaccination debate: “We are losing a lot of time.” The Prime Ministers had asked the Federal Government and the Bundestag to present a schedule before Christmas. FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr said he did not want to be set for a specific week of meetings for a vote. But: “If you come to a decision in the first quarter, then I see no problem at all, to implement it so far that it would be effective in the fall.” In any case, compulsory vaccination against the current Omikron wave would come too late, said Dürr. It would also be “great” if there was no need for mandatory vaccination, because more booster vaccinations would increase the likelihood of moving from a pandemic to an endemic situation, i.e. a less serious situation.
Survey: 70 percent still approve of compulsory vaccination
In the Union there was a back and forth on the question. In the afternoon, the top of the Union parliamentary group made it clear that the CDU and CSU are currently not presenting their own legislative proposal for compulsory vaccination in the Bundestag. The CSU health politician Stephan Pilsinger had previously announced his own union proposal in the newspapers of the Funke media group. Finally, Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus offered the traffic light government talks about compulsory vaccination. If you make such a compulsory vaccination, you need “a broad democratic consensus and not a situation where you then have four group applications and one group application then just gets through somewhere,” said Brinkhaus.
The parliamentary managing director of the AfD parliamentary group, Stephan Brandner, announced his own AfD application against the introduction of mandatory vaccinations. “We will not take part in group proposals that will only serve to conceal the verbal behavior of the other parties.”
According to a Forsa survey, the majority of people in Germany are in favor of a general vaccination requirement. 70 percent of those questioned were in favor, 28 percent against. However, approval has fallen slightly. Because in the RTL / ntv trend barometer from December 20, 72 percent had spoken out in favor of compulsory vaccination. Support is therefore highest among supporters of the SPD (84 percent) and the Greens (74 percent) as well as those of the CDU / CSU (79 percent). FDP supporters, at 57 percent, were mostly negative about a general vaccination requirement. The rejection of AfD supporters was even higher at 89 percent.