The Bundestag should decide on the general obligation to vaccinate as a question of conscience. The CDU right-wing politician Jan-Marco Luczak calls this a “politically transparent manoeuvre” by the government. In an interview with ntv.de, he explains why the Union will not join any of the traffic light proposals. The vaccination mechanism proposed by the Union is currently better than compulsory vaccination, says Luczak. To do this, however, the FDP would have to shed its “register phobia”.
ntv.de: For a long time, the Union advocated compulsory vaccination, but not anymore. How does this change come about?
Jan-Marco Luczak is a member of the Bundestag, lawyer and state treasurer of the Berlin CDU.
(Photo: picture alliance / Flashpic)
Jan-Marco Luczak: We are in favor of compulsory vaccination, but only when we need it. We can no longer break the omicron wave with compulsory vaccination and we do not yet know what the situation will be like in late summer and early autumn: How dangerous is the variant that may then prevail? How effective are the vaccines against it? Who will be particularly affected? At the same time, of course, we have to make provisions for what might happen.
The traffic light fractions also want to take precautions. They have already made three suggestions for this. Why couldn’t the Union agree on any of these proposals?
The federal government is responsible for presenting its own bill. Olaf Scholz wants general vaccination and so does Karl Lauterbach. Apparently there is no majority in the coalition for this. Now to declare the whole thing a question of conscience is a politically transparent maneuver. Neither in the case of the facility-related vaccination requirement nor the measles vaccination requirement did the question arise as to whether this was a question of conscience. The fact that the traffic light does not have its own majority and does not have a clear course on this central issue for fighting the pandemic is a blatant leadership failure on the part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, that must be made clear. That is why we as a Union do not join any of the group motions.
After two years of restrictions, isn’t it a matter of getting the pandemic under control together as quickly as possible?
Yes, we are constructive as the opposition. That’s why we as a parliamentary group are always ready to talk and have also submitted an application ourselves. Nevertheless, we do not let the federal government out of its responsibility, it is they who have to present something.
The SPD has now made the Union an offer to talk in order to work out a joint vaccination proposal. Will you accept that?
The fact that Rolf Mützenich is submitting an offer to talk to the Union faction may be due to the fact that there may not be a majority for the individual applications. The government would end up empty-handed. However, that would also be bad for the country. So if the traffic light is ready to accept parts of our proposal, one could talk about forming a new initiative.
The Union’s application does not speak of compulsory vaccination, but of a “vaccination mechanism”. What’s the difference?
It is a staggered and modified compulsory vaccination. We are not introducing general vaccination now, but we are creating the infrastructure for it, such as a vaccination register. That’s the mechanism. If we then need vaccination and activate it by means of a Bundestag resolution, it must be possible within four to six weeks to vaccinate the population groups that are then specifically at risk from the virus.
When would this case occur? Your application states that the Bundestag will only decide on compulsory vaccination if the situation worsens.
The German Bundestag must decide that. It’s about us looking at how the pandemic is going around the world. The experience of the last two years shows that there is a high probability that the virus mutations do not occur here, but in other parts of the world. If it becomes apparent that a new, more dangerous mutant is emerging, we must activate compulsory vaccination so that we still have enough time to put all the mechanisms into effect.
By the time the first reliable data are available about how contagious and dangerous a mutant is, the wave has often already started. How does your proposal manage to get in front of the wave?
By clarifying the legal issues now and having the necessary infrastructure ready. Then we can act quickly. We had days in June last year when we vaccinated up to 1.6 million people a day. If you extrapolate that, you get 35 million people vaccinated within 20 working days a month. If the compulsory vaccination does not address the entire population, but possibly only the part that is particularly threatened, all these people can be vaccinated within four to six weeks.
Why can’t the Bundestag decide now which groups are to be vaccinated first? Then, in an emergency situation, the only question would be yes or no, which would save time.
The point is to see which groups are overloading the healthcare system. If older people become more seriously ill and end up in intensive care units, compulsory vaccination could be limited to this group. However, it cannot be ruled out that it is a variant that primarily affects younger people. We have to react to that, which is why our application is a flexible system.
You could avoid this sprint in the last few meters if you start running now.
The reason why we are not currently saying in the application that we need general vaccination is a constitutional one. Even without mandatory vaccination, Omikron does not push our healthcare systems to the limit. This makes it difficult to justify the obligation to vaccinate under constitutional law. On the one hand, we need precautions, but on the other hand, we also have to consider the proportionality of the encroachment on fundamental rights through the obligation to vaccinate.
The intensive care units are not at the limit at the moment, but other areas such as schools or retail are. Wouldn’t it justify universal vaccination if these areas were helped?
With a general obligation to vaccinate, we can no longer do anything in these areas either, since the numbers are going down. That’s why it doesn’t matter what we decide now – it no longer affects the schools. It is therefore always about the perspective of late summer and early autumn. Then the primary goal is not to overload the health systems. I see the considerable impairments for schools and the economy due to the contact restrictions and other protective measures, these are also encroachments on fundamental rights that play a central role in the question of justifying compulsory vaccination.
Why is facility-related compulsory vaccination currently constitutional? The Union supported the fact that this was introduced.
It is correct because it is about protecting vulnerable groups. They depend on their caregivers not exposing them to health hazards. As legislators, we have a duty to protect these people. That is why it is now a law that must also be implemented.
Mr. Söders seems to see things differently…
I think there has been a bit of exaggeration. Markus Söder wanted to point out the problems: How does a facility deal with it when nurses are suddenly missing? How to answer the numerous labor law questions? Regulating all this would have been the task of the federal government. She hasn’t done that in the past few weeks.
Wouldn’t it have been enough to point out the problems? Why was the announcement needed to “de facto” suspend the enforcement of compulsory vaccination?
Markus Söder made it very clear that, of course, it is not about suspending an existing law when he noticed the direction in which the discussion was going. Otherwise, that would put an ax to the root of the rule of law. It cannot and must not be about that. Söder wanted to point out the deficits and he managed to do that insofar as we now have them on the agenda.
According to your application, there should be a vaccination register in order to set up the infrastructure for a possible compulsory vaccination. How do you solve the data protection problems that the traffic light sees?
I think the privacy issues are fake. The colleagues of the FDP obviously have a real register phobia, because even the data protection officer of the Bundestag thinks such a register is possible. During the election campaign, the FDP said: Digitization first, concerns second. They say it would take two years to set up such a register. I do not think so. All those who have already been vaccinated have a QR code to prove their vaccination. If we make it possible to upload this code via the Corona-Warnapp and store it in a central location, we have all the data that is necessary.
If vaccination were to be activated, how high would the fine be for those who still don’t get vaccinated?
Probably in the triple digits. For example, you get a fine of 300 euros, but you still have six weeks to catch up on the vaccination. In that case, the fine would be waived.
Who should enforce this?
Where the datasets are located at the end is secondary. It is more important that the legislator sends a signal with the obligation to vaccinate. We have already had other measures during the pandemic that worked without strict controls. There was also no policeman in front of the door and checked how many guests you had. In Germany we are fortunate and have a tradition that people generally act in accordance with the law.
Sarah Platz spoke to Jan-Marco Luczak