Tuesday, November 30th, 2021
Emergency brake, lockdown, mandatory vaccination
Habeck and Esken agree to tightening
In view of the high number of infections and the fear of omicrons, stricter measures are considered safe. Green leader Robert Habeck speaks of a possible “lockdown for the unvaccinated”, SPD leader Saskia Esken excludes “nothing”. The decision from Karlsruhe on the federal emergency brake will be decisive for the resolutions.
In view of the new Omikron variant and the force of the fourth corona wave, the federal and state governments are discussing stricter measures. They hope that the first fundamental decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court on previously imposed restrictions on freedom in the pandemic such as the federal emergency brake, which will be published in Karlsruhe in the morning, will provide specific guidelines about their scope for action. In addition to the outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel from the CDU, her designated successor Olaf Scholz from the SPD also takes part in the deliberations with the heads of state government.
Greens boss Robert Habeck considers stricter measures to be inevitable. “It is completely clear what has to happen: The contacts have to be reduced, 2G has to be implemented nationwide in a binding manner for all public institutions except for the needs that one has in supermarkets or pharmacies,” said Habeck in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”. “We will have to contest the winter with further uniform measures.”
Habeck emphasized that the federal states already had a “bundle of options on the table” to respond to the emergency, citing the cancellation of Christmas markets, stricter contact restrictions and an expansion of the 2G rules as examples. “That is – it has to be said so hard – a lockdown for the unvaccinated.”
The SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken does not rule out further lockdown measures. “In these days I would strongly recommend not excluding anything to anyone who also has responsibility in politics, because we do not know how things are going,” said Esken in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin”. With a view to the decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court expected in the morning on the restrictions on freedom imposed in the pandemic, she said: “We have to look at the judgment and its reasoning very carefully, of course, but we are also in a different situation today.” Esken referred to the higher vaccination quota than in the spring, “so that those who have had themselves vaccinated and who are now being boosted can expect that we will differentiate on the issue of restrictions, contact restrictions and restrictions for large events and similar”.