[ad_1]
SedanThe ruling mayor set the tone. Michael Müller (SPD) spoke of a “hard and bitter day” when he presented the new crown rules at the national level, which should be applied from Monday, together with Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and the Prime Minister of Bavaria. , Markus Söder (CSU), Wednesday: strict contact restrictions, catering restriction to take-out sales, theaters or cinemas closing, sporting ban, unless you’re doing it alone, such as when jogging or cycling. After all, schools and kindergartens must remain open. Private galleries, for example, are also excluded from the closure because they belong to the retail trade, excluded from the market.
On Thursday, the Berlin Senate issued its own ordinance on the crown, largely in agreement, “but not one by one,” as Müller put it after a cabinet meeting that night.
On a page and a half A4, the Berlin state government wrote what should apply until the end of November. In addition to adopting the resolutions of the federal-state meeting, some of the special features of Berlin were also established. For example, children up to 12 years old should be able to play sports in groups of at least ten, institutions like the zoo and zoo should remain open, and loans should be kept in libraries.
Müller and his alternates Klaus Lederer (left) and Ramona Pop (green) repeated on Thursday night how difficult the measures were for them. But in the end there was no way around it in view of the rapidly increasing number of infections. Lederer was the clearest. He spoke of “very general measures that also trigger great uncertainty.” That’s why the Senate must “come up with a plan B. A number like that will never work again,” Lederer said. For the future, it should be a matter of defining “safe places” where no or almost no infection has been detected, and then protecting them from further closures. Once underway, the Senator for Culture also made it very clear that there were points “where I do not agree with the rigor of the agreements between the federal government and the federal states. For example, I think it is crazy that you are not allowed to attend cultural events for four weeks, ”Lederer said.
In this context, the Senator for Economic Affairs Pop appreciated the fact that the federal government wants to issue new bridge aid. In November alone, 10 billion euros will be available to entrepreneurs and small self-employed who need it due to the Lockdown light. This also applies in particular to innkeepers or entrepreneurs in the event industry. These bridging aids are intended to offset a 75 percent loss in sales compared to November 2019. “Payment must be made quickly and without bureaucracy,” he said.
The fact that neither the Senate nor the coalition speak with one voice on Corona was demonstrated once again the day before. It was the leader of the left-wing party Katina Schubert, who leaned particularly out the window. “For me, it is wide open whether a contact restriction can reduce the number of infections,” Schubert told the taz newspaper. They consider it wrong to close restaurants, bars and pubs. In the end, his party colleague Lederer had no choice but to accept.
For the Greens, on the other hand, the fact that there is a general rule for all federal states is “a value in itself,” said parliamentary managing director Daniel Wesener of the Berliner Zeitung. Of course, there are “selectively different assessments,” but the focus is on “breaking the second wave as a whole,” Wesener said. Uniform rules are necessary for this, because only these work and can also find broad consensus.
Like the coalition, the opposition is divided. CDU chief Kai Wegner directs attention to the Senate. “It bothers and worries me that Berlin is now widely regarded as synonymous with a failed fight against Corona.” Unfortunately, the Senate “has repeatedly given a bad figure in the fight against pandemics and the protection of health.” The hiccups, mosaic, special shapes, and internal Senate squabbles must finally come to an end. The red-red-green must now rotate in a clear line from the federal and state governments, ”said Wegner, whose party colleague Merkel was in charge.
Parliament meets on Sunday, in consideration of the SPD
The FDP judges much more fundamentally, which may also be related to the fact that it has no governmental responsibility either in the federal government or in the state of Berlin and therefore does not have to take any consideration. “Four weeks of closure, that would not be a ‘light’ measure, but the death sentence for countless restaurants, neighborhood shops, cinemas, hotels, gyms and many, many more,” says the leader of the Berlin FDP parliamentary group , Sebastian Czaja. After all, Czaja can count as a success that the House of Representatives meets for a special session on Sunday, and Michael Müller will make a government statement there. Czaja had been insisting on such a meeting for weeks.
Hopefully the ruling mayor will say in his government statement what he said one way or another on Wednesday and Thursday: if we look now, we won’t be able to help many people, he said. In Berlin, intensive care beds are already being used at least as much as at the beginning of the pandemic, with an upward trend. “That is no longer abstract.” It is about health and human life. It is important to keep schools and daycare centers open. In the first phase of the pandemic, it became clear that the closure of daycare centers and schools could have dramatic social consequences. It is also important to him that the economy continues to receive support.
According to the Czaja MP’s colleague, Wesener, the unusual appointment on Sunday is due to formalities. Because the formal invitation had to be made 48 hours in advance, on Friday it was canceled. On Saturday, out of solidarity, the SPD comrades who wanted to hold their party’s conference that day were suspended. All that was left was Sunday; after all, they really wanted to meet before Monday, the day from which the new rules should apply.
The fact that the SPD canceled its party convention on Thursday due to the crown is an unexpected ironic twist, and its bluntness somehow fits in with this unusual moment.
