Tuesday, January 04, 2022
CDU politician in the “ntv early start”
Frei: CDU must “be able to endure” Maassen’s opinion
Hans-Georg Maaßen is becoming more and more of a problem for the CDU and thus also for the Union. Some members are already calling for exclusion from the party, but Thorsten Frei warns against such discussions.
Thorsten Frei, Parliamentary Managing Director of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, has spoken out against the exclusion of Hans-Georg Maaßen from the party. “As far as exclusion from parties is concerned, it is very clear that something like this is rightly extremely difficult in Germany. Democratic parties have to be able to withstand a wide range of opinions. That is why I would not lead such discussions that only lead to the short grass,” said the CDU politician in the “ntv early start”.
Most recently, for example, Schleswig-Holstein’s Minister of Education, Karin Prien, who is a member of the CDU federal executive committee, called for Maassen to be excluded. On the other hand, the CDU MP and health policy spokesman Tino Sorge spoke out against an exclusion of Maassen. “Maaßen provokes, tests limits and then celebrates himself as a martyr who is supposed to be silenced. As a large people’s party, however, we also have to deal with such opinions,” Sorge told ntv.de.
Maaßen, former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, had repeatedly spread conspiracy theories over the past few days and weeks with a view to the corona pandemic. Frei called in the direction of Maaßen to stop pouring oil on the fire and to de-escalate it. Attacks on constituency offices of various politicians have shown that the mood can “easily change”. Next: “That’s why I really advise you to be careful around the edge of the platform.”
“Especially no overloading of the critical infrastructure”
With a view to the Prime Minister’s Conference on Friday, Thorsten Frei does not yet see any acute overloading of the critical infrastructure due to the spread of the Omikron variant. Although it could “definitely be the case that in the end you have to reduce quarantine times”, this is also associated with risks and must be decided in the respective situation. “At the moment, and foreseeable at the moment, we do not have the situation where we have to assume that the critical infrastructure will be overloaded,” added Frei.
The MP also called on the federal government to act “immediately” on mandatory vaccination and to submit a corresponding application. An introduction of a general compulsory vaccination must also take place on the basis of a stable database, for example via a national vaccination register: “This does not exist in Germany and that is why there is an urgent need for action,” said the CDU politician.