Tuesday, November 30th, 2021
U-turn in corona policy
All signs point to mandatory vaccination
From Maximilian Beer
What was long considered impossible will become reality in the coming spring: The general obligation to vaccinate against the coronavirus is getting closer, the Bundestag should decide on it in February or March. But many questions are still open.
The fact that it is seldom wise to rule out tomorrow’s decision today applies to life in general, but it is especially true of politics. If definitive proof was necessary for this finding, the corona pandemic with all its waves and twists made it impressive. Is it mandatory for everyone to be vaccinated? The federal government said for a long time that there will be no such thing. The Chancellor spoke out against it, as did her head of the Chancellery, and the Minister of Health warned against a division in society. Olaf Scholz, Vice Chancellor, also described a debate on vaccination requirements as “wrong” in September.
But now there are growing signs that this self-imposed taboo will be broken by the new government and an obligation to immunize will come. With the announcement by the new Prime Minister-designate Scholz that a corresponding proposal will be submitted to the Bundestag by the beginning of March at the latest, it is clear that what was once denied will soon become a question of conscience for parliamentarians. “We will bring a legislative procedure on the way, where every member of parliament can vote according to their conscience on a general vaccination requirement,” said Scholz at the television station of the “Bild” newspaper.
Politicians are rethinking
Scholz’s confession is the preliminary climax of a phase of rethinking in politics. Because the vaccination quota in Germany seems too low to be able to master the pandemic in the long term, leading scientists such as the virologist Christian Drosten warned and warned that the so-called vaccination gap must be closed so that Corona does not become a permanent crisis.
The calls for an obligation to immunize became louder: Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder called for it, as did his Baden-Württemberg counterpart Winfried Kretschmann, and the leader of the Greens, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, recently again spoke out in favor of a change in the law. “We just can’t go on saying: The freedom of the individual takes precedence over the freedom of the general public,” she said in the ZDF talk “Hard but fair”.
That afternoon, government spokesman Steffen Seibert announced that “in addition to facility-related vaccination requirements, a prompt decision on general vaccination requirements should also be prepared”. Greens boss Robert Habeck insists on starting preparations immediately. A general compulsory vaccination would be a far-reaching interference with the freedom of the individual, said the soon-to-be Vice Chancellor. But it protects life and ultimately also the freedom of society.
Lawyers and ethicists consider duty to be feasible
When does individual freedom end? When is an interference with the physical integrity justified in order to preserve the freedom of a society? It is considerations like these that determine the debate about a general corona vaccination obligation and which should above all concern a party of the future traffic light government: the Free Democrats, the FDP, which not only carries the topic in its name, but also focuses on it their campaign. How will the Liberals decide? The parliamentary managing director of the FDP and designated Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann, like Scholz, advocates releasing the members of parliamentary groups from discipline. “The general compulsory vaccination touches on many difficult questions,” he told the editorial network Germany. “In the past, when it comes to such medical-ethical issues, it has proven useful to make them a question of conscience.”
In the meantime, the German Ethics Council also believes that a general compulsory vaccination may be conceivable despite the risk of lowering the voluntary acceptance of vaccinations through paternalism. Vice-chairwoman Susanne Schreiber told the “Rheinische Post” that the worsening pandemic situation could not be ignored: “Depending on the drama of the situation, legal requirements on vaccination obligations – if necessary, staggered according to the level of risk – can be made under such difficult circumstances ethical point of view no longer fundamentally rejected in order to get the pandemic under control in the long term. “
The keyword here is “long-term”: It’s about prevention, i.e. about preventing a fifth, sixth or seventh corona wave. And if you follow legal experts like the constitutional lawyer Ulrich Battis, the administrative lawyer Hinnerk Wißmann or the law professor Franz C. Mayer, the general compulsory vaccination in the current situation will not fail because of the Basic Law.
The traffic light will have to explain
Nevertheless: Many questions are still unanswered, as emphasized by the Mayor of Bremen, Andreas Bovenschulte, after today’s Bund-Länder-Round. The SPD politician reported that there was broad approval in the conference, but there are still uncertainties. For example, it must be clarified whether such an obligation also extends to children and young people. What medical or religious exceptions are conceivable? It must also be determined how a general vaccination obligation is to be enforced, whether one relies on coercion or fines. Austria can possibly serve as a model here: The neighboring country wants to be the first EU member to introduce mandatory vaccination for everyone on February 1, 2022, fines of up to 3600 euros are under discussion for those who refuse.
And other big questions are still unanswered, they concern less the compulsory vaccination or its implementation per se, but above all political communication – that of the future federal government. In the event of a decision in favor of mandatory immunization, how does the traffic light coalition manage to justify this turnaround in German corona policy in such a way that it can be believed in future creeds and exclusions? So how does she manage to explain this decision, especially when the fourth wave has possibly subsided, when measures are eased and the hope for a better spring outweighs the concern about the next wave?
The majority of people in Germany are in favor of compulsory vaccination. The traffic lights will have to convince others that they want to act with foresight, even if the freedom of the individual is violated.