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Anger over the failure of the federal-state round on the crown crisis has not abated the next day. “Time is running out,” Ute Teichert, director of the Federal Association of Public Health Service Physicians, told WDR. The health authorities are up to their necks, uniform resolutions would have “been of great help to us.”
“That could still take bitter revenge,” the teachers association warned. “Completely inexplicable and frankly irresponsible,” President Heinz-Peter Meidinger told the “Watson” news portal that prime ministers had decided not to require a mask nationwide in schools.
The tenor of criticism everywhere: Why have the country’s leaders met for hours with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) when in the end only a meager appeal is put on paper? As the curve for new infections may become flatter, a true reversal of the trend is not yet in sight.
(Keep track of things: every business day around 5pm, the SPIEGEL authors answer the questions for the day. Here you can request your news summary by email.)
The expectation is now high that the next round on Wednesday will come out in a week. Above all, countries are under pressure: they now have to conclusively explain how they want to break the second wave of pandemics. It will not be easy after the uprising against the chancellor.
Merkel wanted more on Monday. He had drafted a motion for a resolution that envisaged stricter rules, especially for schools, including classes cut in half and a general requirement for masks. But the prime ministers let the chancellor appear. Their argument: It had been agreed in advance not to toughen the measures on Monday, they just wanted to take stock of the closure.
Furthermore, the country’s leaders were outraged by the Foreign Ministry’s actions. The federal government had sent a document too quickly, which was then immediately leaked to the media. This is not the way to deal with yourself, several heads of country complained on the video switch Monday.
Merkel looked offended, participants in the round said. His conclusion: So the next time the federal states should make a motion for a resolution. The mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller, current president of the Prime Minister’s Conference (MPK), confirmed this in the subsequent press conference with Merkel. What is needed is a procedure “with which you can address the questions more intensively and better than in the last two or three sessions,” Müller said.
That means: Now it is the turn of the countries to move. According to information from SPIEGEL, they want to prepare a document for Monday night that must be sent to the Foreign Ministry no later than Tuesday morning. According to the plan, the federal government will present its proposals and coordinate them with Bavaria and Berlin. At the next video session with Merkel on November 25, a document that has been largely coordinated should be available.
Merkel’s calculation could work
But there is also skepticism in some countries that things are going so well. Some people think that it is a problem in itself that Müller’s Berlin state government is currently in charge. Furthermore, prime ministers with a high number of infections have completely different interests than those for whom the situation is relatively more relaxed. One thing is clear: it would have been much easier for the country’s leaders to vote against Merkel’s proposal than to develop a plan themselves.
The chancellor, on the other hand, can be satisfied despite her defeat on Monday. According to the public impression, she is the driver who realizes the seriousness of the situation; prime ministers, on the other hand, are there as a brake. “I will remain the impatient party in this matter,” Merkel told a “Süddeutsche Zeitung” conference. “And I am happy for the support I receive.”
Merkel’s calculation is likely to be: on Monday, she still could not prevail. But by the next round, the pressure on prime ministers could grow so high that they finally decide on the strictest measures. Merkel had already imposed herself in October in a similar way. At the time, in an interview with the federal states, he complained that doing what they did here was not enough: “Then we will be back here in two weeks.” This happened, and 14 days later the MPK agreed to the closure of November.
Countries want to keep schools open
Countries have the biggest problem with Merkel’s plan for schools. He did not hide the fact that he was skeptical of a general change model for schools in Lower Saxony, said SPD Prime Minister Stephan Weil. 80 per cent of the schools in his country are currently in normal operation. “As long as we can represent him, we want to avoid that children and young people have to spend half their time at home.”
Apparently all countries except Bavaria see it similarly. But whether prime ministers can stay this course will largely depend on the number of infections in the coming days. Karl Lauterbach, an SPD health expert, still considers the Foreign Ministry’s plans to be correct, which were rejected on Monday. “I hope and hope that countries make an equally good proposal,” he says.
Even if the number of infections has stabilized, that does not mean that the situation in intensive care units is improving, according to Lauterbach: “We have to do more, and I am sure that countries will also see it that way.”
