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After several other federal states, Saxony, which has been badly affected by the pandemic, has now decided to allow overnight stays in private hotels at Christmas. At the Chancellery, state resolutions make the head shake.
The federal government has criticized the decision of several federal states to allow hotel stays for family visits during the Christmas period. “Citizens are being asked to avoid tourist trips,” said government spokesman Steffen Seibert. Family travel is difficult to distinguish from this. Seibert referred to the Bund-Länder’s top round decision last Wednesday: “private use” of hotels was not included in the decision.
The federal states are responsible for implementing the resolutions in the restaurant and hotel sectors. Several prime ministers had announced that they would allow hotel stays for family visits in big cities during Christmas. After North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony also recently made the corresponding decision, despite the fact that Saxony currently has the highest rate of new corona infections in all the country. Five of the ten worst affected districts are in the eastern German state.
Merkel does not consider that the resolutions of the countries are controllable
At a virtual meeting of the CDU Presidium, Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized plans to open hotels in particularly affected federal states, as reported by the dpa news agency, citing several participants in the meeting. Merkel acknowledged the decision of the federal and state governments to relax strict contact restrictions during the holiday season. At the same time, however, she was quoted as saying that she lacked the imagination to suspect that particularly affected countries wanted to open the hotels.
According to the dpa, Merkel justified her criticism that it was not possible to check whether only guests visiting relatives in the region stayed in the hotels. Consequently, the Chancellor referred to such regulations in big cities like Berlin. It cannot be explained that the nurses of the Berlin Charité also have to work during Christmas. He did not expressly speak of Schleswig-Holstein or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in this context. Decreasing incidence values can be observed in some territorial states.
A “typically German” debate?
North Rhine-Westphalia Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann did not show sympathy for the federal government’s reaction. “The debate does not open me at all,” said the CDU politician. “A family visit is not tourism.” It is not your idea of justice if only the owners of a single family home with enough space could receive visitors during the holidays. For him, the discussion is not of great importance, but “typically German,” Laumann said.
Merkel and the prime ministers will meet on Wednesday for their regular December meeting. According to the government spokesman, Seibert, it should also be about fighting pandemics, but “no new resolutions on the matter” are expected.
