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The general debate in the Bundestag is supposed to revolve around the new budget. But the debt related to the crown leads to an exciting discussion about the big picture, about the imminent shutdown and about the course of the country after Corona.
No, even in the ninth month of the pandemic, the German Bundestag is not the main decision-making forum for crown politics. But after all, during the crisis, the country’s most important parliament has once again become the scene of controversial and relevant discussions. A budget debate, as in the general debate today, had much less fire before the crisis. But that may also be due to the two time levels that shaped this debate: on the one hand, the next few weeks, in which the country will likely enter a hard lockdown, on the other hand, the time after the crisis, in the costs and lessons of the pandemic. come to fruition.
Even if she was only allowed to speak after the leader of the AfD parliamentary group, Alice Weidel, which was entirely to be expected in her fundamental acid criticism, the chancellor once again deserved great attention. Despite the fact that Angela Merkel presented what was also expected: a call for a hard shutdown as soon as possible, as recommended by the Leopoldina scientists. It was more interesting how he said it: that is, Merkel, atypically personal. “I am very sorry, but if we have 590 deaths a day, that is not acceptable from my point of view,” Merkel said of the group meetings outdoors with mulled wine and waffles. Merkel also did not shy away from drama, recalling the human fate behind the numbers and tragedies taking place in the country’s clinics.
“If we have too many contacts now at Christmas and then it was the last Christmas with the grandparents, then we will have missed something,” he warned. It is also the implicit admission that the federal government has failed in its goal of providing people with a reasonably normal Christmas celebration. Merkel will likely speak with the prime minister before Christmas about what the shutdown should look like and will encourage countries to further restrict contact. “I think it is wrong to open hotels so that relatives can spend the night because it creates incentives again,” Merkel said of the Christmas relaxation. And: “I think it is correct to close the schools (…) for January 10.”
At the same time, Merkel tried her hand as a motivational speaker: “Winter lasts until mid-March. It is a manageable time. We have to make another effort now.” There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Blockade has support, volatility does not
While the countries disagree, at least the coalition parties are playing: “In the context of the numbers and burdens on our health system, more restrictions are necessary and justifiable,” said the leader of the SPD parliamentary group. , Rolf Mützenich. The leader of the union parliamentary group Ralph Brinkhaus praised the prime ministers (from their own ranks) who are now thinking of “doing more.” The CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt sank this template on behalf of his party chairman, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, and assured the chancellor: “We stand by your side when it comes to seizing opportunities to further reduce more contacts during the Christmas holidays. ” Younger people should not pass the virus to older people at celebrations.
Of the ranks of the opposition parties, Weidel was the only one who completely refused the shutdown. He accused Merkel of autocratic methods when he said: “Get out of your intellectual Wandlitz.” In the city north of Berlin, the GDR leadership once lived largely isolated from the rest of the population.
On the other hand, Corona’s policy as a whole was being criticized everywhere, both in terms of decision makers and decision makers. “The half-life of decisions is getting shorter and shorter,” said the leader of the FDP parliamentary group, Christian Lindner. “A sustainable strategy is still missing.” Green leader Annalena Baerbock, who also spoke because parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt tested positive, was on the same page: “With this pandemic, we cannot continue with a two-week monitoring system,” she said. . There will be restrictions until spring, for which you have asked for a step-by-step plan. “Going from one prime minister to another can’t go on like this.” And even the leader of the Union faction, Brinkhaus, admitted: “This little part wears us all down.”
The opposition sees many failures
As much as the opposition, with the exception of the AfD, shares the government’s assessment of the dangerous situation: criticism of the omitted measures to avoid restrictions will be noticeably louder before the year of the super elections. Lindner said that the federal government should be blamed “for not taking advantage of the summer to avoid precisely this situation that we now face.” A national supply of FFP2 masks required by the FDP had been neglected. “The key point of crisis management, to be permanent, is the protection of the population at risk.” The now-available vaccination plan gives the government a “grouping according to different risk profiles,” Lindner said, and could also serve as a model for priority in fighting pandemics.
Baerbock sees mistakes in dealing with families and education; school closings, for example, could have been avoided by installing air filters. “If you ever experience what it does to children’s souls, where things are really difficult at home, and every day at school is a relaxation, then that means: keep going,” Baerbock yelled. He called for a more progressive health policy: “The fact that 120,000 nurses are missing in nursing homes and 50,000 in hospitals was already the case before the Corona crisis.”
Left-wing group leader Amira Mohamed Ali argued similarly: “We know that many nurses have left this profession burned out,” she said, calling for “national collective agreements and bonus payments that really make a difference.” Mohamed Ali painted the picture of an extremely antisocial pandemic politics. People who lose their income should not be fired from their homes or have their electricity cut off. Despite billions in aid from the federal government, Lufthansa is laying off thousands of people. He called for short-time work benefits for mini-workers, as well as “a pandemic surcharge on low pensions and Hartz IV.”
Who should pay for it, who has so much money?
With the federal government taking on 180 billion euros in new debt from the new budget next year, the general debate was actually about the same budget package. The central issue of the upcoming federal election campaign is likely to be who should bear the costs of the pandemic and how. On the one hand, the speakers from the FDP, CDU and CSU campaigned for a return to the debt brake and rapid payment of debts from 2026. Brinkhaus insisted that “the burdens that have been created in our generation will also be supported by our generation. ”
On the other hand, it was the Greens in particular who campaigned for a reform of the debt brake in order to support the transformation to a CO2-free industrial location. “Now we need to invest in Germany as an industrial location,” Baerbock said. The SPD defended its cautious budgetary course of the past and made clear who should raise the debt: “Broad shoulders must make an extraordinary contribution in the future,” Mützenich said of the SPD’s desired wealth tax. “That is fair.” Lindner had warned that the federal government had to be careful that the rich had to pay taxes, what Mützenich called the “joke of the day.”
Yes, it is already an electoral campaign
At the beginning of his speech, as always loosely presented, Brinkhaus accused previous speakers of “genuinely inappropriate” speeches at district party conferences. “That doesn’t do it justice.” Indeed, it was clear across the board how much each of the first speakers from their parliamentary groups took advantage of the opportunity to rub shoulders with their competitors on the big stage. Baerbock’s speech, delivered with enthusiasm, outlined the broad lines of a future-oriented policy that she and her co-chair Robert Habeck, who is not represented in the Bundestag, are promoting. Lindner advocated for a policy that is based more on the freedom and responsibility of each individual.
Mützenich emphasized that the reduced-time work allowance, praised by the Chancellor as an achievement of the entire federal government, was extended primarily at the behest of the SPD. He also took the opportunity to recall the government crisis in Saxony-Anhalt: “Making common cause with a far-right party is a border crossing,” said Mützenich about the CDU’s rejection of the tariff increase for public broadcasters. and the AfD. “We’ve missed the Union’s federal political voices in recent days.”
AfD president Beatrix von Storch also took advantage of the misery in Magdeburg, telling Merkel that after her chancellorship there would be “new political majorities, as now in Saxony-Anhalt.” It was noted how much the AfD speakers once again made their way to Merkel and barely mentioned other government politicians. The party with its obsession with Merkel may be missing something when in fact she is no longer there.
