Scholz and the obligation to vaccinate: This time it wasn’t Lauterbach’s fault

Scholz and the obligation to vaccinate
This time it wasn’t Lauterbach’s fault

A comment by Sebastian Schneider

In the past few weeks and months, Karl Lauterbach has not always cut a good figure as Minister of Health. However, Chancellor Scholz is primarily responsible for the failure to vaccinate.

Maybe it had a higher meaning. While the Bundestag decided on the introduction of compulsory vaccination, Chancellor and Minister of Health did not sit next to each other. While Karl Lauterbach was working on his speech between the SPD MPs, Olaf Scholz from the government bench had to watch how badly he had miscalculated on this topic, which was supposedly so important to him, and the votes of the traffic light coalition for compulsory vaccination would not be enough in the end.

He has repeatedly made it clear that compulsory vaccination was a concern for Scholz. The duty would be necessary next fall, he said. The fact that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was even supposed to leave the NATO meeting in Brussels early and was summoned by Scholz to the government bench in Berlin shows that she was still important to him today and that every vote counted. But to say yourself: “We’re going to do it this way now”, Scholz didn’t do that.

Of course, the traffic light could also blame the Union parties for it did not work out with the vaccination requirement. In the debate, MPs from the SPD and the Greens in particular had repeatedly fought for their votes, and told the largest opposition party that their two motions were not that far apart. accused you of party tactics. It was Lauterbach himself who appealed: “We need your government support today.”

Traffic light had no majority

The fact that the minister had to beg from the Union is not his fault. On the contrary: Lauterbach supported all possible concessions. When it became apparent that the application for compulsory vaccination from the age of 18 would not get a majority, he and the other vaccination supporters of the traffic light parties agreed to compromises and agreed on a draft for compulsory vaccination from the age of 60. Lauterbach had to support a different draft because otherwise there would not have been a majority in Scholz’s coalition. Just like with the Infection Protection Act, when suddenly it was Lauterbach of all places who had to defend the omission of most of the corona measures.

Sure, there are enough reasons to criticize the health minister. A few months ago there were discussions about the convalescent status, which was first shortened by the Robert Koch Institute and later extended again by Lauterbach. Only three days ago there was the communication debacle about the lifting of the isolation requirement. The fact that Lauterbach revised his decision first on a talk show and then on Twitter in the middle of the night damages his credibility. However, he apologized for his mistake in temporarily collecting the isolation requirement.

Unlike Scholz, who didn’t say anything. He has entrusted his minister with a project that was almost impossible from the start. And in which Lauterbach and a large part of the Greens and SPD MPs have worn themselves out. The fact that compulsory vaccination has failed for the time being is a defeat for the chancellor, who failed to organize the necessary majorities in his coalition – and to draw the necessary conclusions in good time. Instead, he sent Lauterbach into a hopeless fight, at the end of which the coalition partner FDP voted almost unanimously with Wolfgang Kubicki against any compulsory vaccination. But Scholz would rather sacrifice the reputation of his own minister than tear down the façade of a unified coalition.

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