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It is about solidarity and strategy, small and small and big hopes: once again this fall, Chancellor Merkel explains the new crown measures in the Bundestag. Not all are convinced.
An analysis by Wenke Börnsen, tagesschau.de
What great news should I say? This relaxation is not yet justified, that contacts must remain restricted, that at Christmas it is also a matter of individual responsibility, that the restrictions will probably continue to apply in January, but that vaccines give hope, so far, so clear.
Angela Merkel still looks a bit frazzled this morning, at least at the beginning of her speech. Seven and a half hours of arduous negotiations with prime ministers are left behind, and the press conference later in the evening concluded with: “See you tomorrow morning in the Bundestag.”
Merkel wanted more
It is a government statement in the true sense of the word: Merkel explains the resolutions of the Bund-Länder Round, a “Kungel round in the virtual back room”, as the leader of the AfD parliamentary group Alice Weidel will later criticize. The Chancellor defends the agreed contact restrictions, the temporary relaxation provided during the holidays, the additional requirements for retailers.
Now it is no secret that Merkel wanted more in the negotiations with the countries. She had already wanted to enforce stricter requirements in mid-November, and even now she is not convinced that yesterday’s measures are enough to significantly reduce the number of infections. She is not the only one in the Bundestag today who has doubts, as the subsequent debate will show.
Merkel shows her dissatisfaction only once in her 20-minute speech: on the subject of schools. She knows that the federal states are responsible for school policy. “But we also have the responsibility of the infection process in general,” he emphasizes for the federal government. Merkel and the head of the Chancellery, Helge Braun, had repeatedly made clear in their consultations with the Prime Minister that they did not consider the requirements in schools to be sufficient. However, the federal states had resisted the mandatory requirements.
“That wears us all down”
In the area of schools, “there is still potential,” says the leader of the Union’s parliamentary group, Ralph Brinkhaus. Your criticism is more fundamental. He wanted more consistent measures, such as a more uniform strategy for hotspots with a high number of infections. “This little by little ‘always one by one’ wears us down,” he says. And one more blow: “Leading in a crisis also means asking people to do something.”
All this is too little, agrees Green’s parliamentary leader Anton Hofreiter. He is “quite careful if the measures are sufficient.” The fact that the resolutions only lasted until the beginning of January is leading to the view. It is “very little planning and foresight.” You miss a longer-term strategy.
Wanted: a strategy
The word strategy comes up more frequently in this debate. Probably because it causes phantom pain to many deputies. In his opinion, there is no convincing strategy on the part of the federal and state governments in the fight against this pandemic, which Merkel once again calls “the greatest challenge since World War II.” A strategy for schools, critical points, for the economy, for risk groups, for the longed-for vaccines.
The constant extension and expansion of restrictions “is not a sustainable long-term strategy,” said FDP chief Christian Lindner. Once again he calls for the focus on risk groups. Talk about a “protective screen” for these people. This is time consuming and expensive because it affects a large population group. But it is justified and would again allow more social life in certain areas.
Isolate 27 million people?
Merkel sees it differently. It is not “ethically justifiable” to isolate 27 million people. No one should pretend that so many people can be protected by keeping them out of the public domain: “That won’t work and I don’t think it’s ethically justifiable either.” However, the federal and state governments agreed that risk groups should receive cheap FFP2 masks and rapid tests.
The leader of the left-wing parliamentary group, Dietmar Barsch, reminds Merkel of her own statement that a medium-term concept against the crown crisis is needed. Until today it is not available. “All theaters have prepared better for the Corona winter than the federal government,” he criticizes. Whether in schools, trains, nursing homes, or hospitals, the federal government has done very little in the past eight months.
Hope principle
If it’s not a convincing long-term strategy, at least the principle of hope. Merkel also implores it in her speech: vaccines would not solve the problem immediately, but they are “a light at the end of the tunnel.” He even believes that it may exist before Christmas. If so, they will be offered to those in the fields of medicine and nursing.
And something else gives him hope: that the vast majority of people adhere to the agreed restrictions. It is also the moment, near the end of her speech, when Merkel abandons the government’s declaration mode. “We are not powerless,” he says. Yes, the next few months would be difficult. But if “we defend each other more than ever, we will emerge from the crisis.” So solidarity, also a word that comes up often in debate.
