[ad_1]
Merkel toughened up federal state resolutions: Christmas holidays begin on December 16
| Reading time: 4 minutes
Söder justifies bringing forward the Christmas holidays
After NRW, Bavaria also prefers the start of the Christmas holidays. This should reduce the risk of infection. Prime Minister Markus Söder explains why it is necessary to extend the partial blockade and tighten the measures.
Nationwide, the Christmas holidays should start on December 16. The country’s leaders agreed on this with the Foreign Ministry. There are also new guidelines for retail and monitoring of Corona requirements that the federal and state governments want to adopt tomorrow.
reThe Christmas holidays will be brought forward until December 16 throughout Germany. This stems from an updated version of the state draft for deliberations with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) on Wednesday, which was circulated on Tuesday night after discussions between the states and Chancellor Helge Braun (CDU). The Chancellor thus achieved an initial tightening of the resolutions on the eve of the talks.
Until now, the federal states wanted to make it possible for the nationwide Christmas holidays to begin on December 19. In the case of cold symptoms before Christmas, a more generous testing option should also be offered so that Christmas time encounters are as safe as possible. According to information from the German Press Agency, Merkel also suggests stricter contact restrictions than previously planned from negotiating circles.
The updated draft now states that compliance with crown requirements should be more strictly controlled across the board. Consequently, controls that are not suspected of being suspicious are also planned, especially in the border area, in order to verify compliance with quarantine regulations. Retail requirements also need to be tightened. In stores, it must be ensured that there is no more than one customer for every 25 square meters of sales area. Until now, there can be no more than one customer for every 10 square meters of sales area.
The decisive consultations between Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the prime ministers of the federal states will begin on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. A preliminary meeting of the prime ministers is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. M. Based on this information, it is not clear whether the Union and the SPD countries will consult each other separately beforehand.
Markus Söder (CSU) is also calling on the federal and state governments to toughen up previous state proposals before the crown’s consultations. The Bavarian prime minister said Tuesday on the sidelines of a meeting of the state parliament in Munich that some points still need to be refined and supplemented.
The chancellor announced that she would reconnect with the prime minister on December 14 or 15 to assess where the infection situation would be.
Brinkhaus against relaxation on New Year’s Eve
Earlier, the leader of the Union parliamentary group, Ralph Brinkhaus, spoke out against the relaxation of contact restrictions between Christmas and New Year proposed by the prime minister for stricter crown rules at least at the turn of the year: “People want to celebrate Christmas together with their family, this is not only very important for the elderly.” the CDU politician told “Spiegel.”
“But on New Years Eve we don’t really have to open it all up again.” Brinkhaus warned: “Christmas and New Year’s Eve together would probably delay us a lot.” When asked about a possible ban on firecrackers on New Year’s Eve, he said: “Basically, anything that doesn’t take place on New Year’s Eve is good in terms of infection.”
The mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller, for his part, considers that the relaxation of private contacts planned by the federal states during Christmas and New Year’s Eve is “appropriate”. “So many people have been through so much in recent months,” said the SPD politician. You have to say: “At a special time of the year, when the match is very, very important for many, we allow it too,” Müller said.
Holidays in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria start two days before
Before the new federal and state consultations on the future course to deal with the corona virus, the states ruled by the Union had spoken in favor of an extension of the holidays – at least that was the case in a joint document.
North Rhine-Westphalia had initially come forward and announced an earlier start to the holiday. There will be emergency care for students in grades 1-6 on December 21-22. The Education Ministry announced this to all schools in an email on Monday. According to the mail, the teachers are on normal duty both days.
Also in Bavaria, the holidays are extended by two days due to the crown. This means that students will not have to wait until December 23, but their last day of school will be December 18 (Friday) of this year.
“The risk of infection is significantly reduced by the waiting period of almost a week between school lessons and Christmas, so that families can celebrate in a healthy and carefree way,” Markus Söder tweeted on Tuesday. The Bavarian Radio had already reported on it.
Teacher and parent representatives are skeptical about the extension of the Christmas break. The president of the German Association of Philologists, Susanne Lin-Klitzing, called the plans “inconsistent, disturbing and hypocritical.” The strategy creates uncertainty, unpredictability and stress, he told WELT.
In most federal states, December 18 was scheduled as the last school day before Christmas.
[ad_2]
