BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The federal states accused the federal government of irresponsibly going it alone in corona policy at the Prime Ministers’ Conference. “Today, two years of common ground will come to an end,” said Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Sder (CSU), according to participants on Thursday at the video switching conference of the federal and state governments. The federal government’s actions hit the countries to the core, “the countries that have been working hard for years to save lives.”
Baden-Wrttemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) emphasized: “There has never been such a way of dealing with the states.” He imagines a good, trusting cooperation differently. He doesn’t understand what the government is doing. “So far we have worked well together for more than two years. There are no rational reasons why the federal government is breaking up like this.”
Accordingly, Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) made a similar statement. His Hessian colleague Volker Bouffier (CDU) said: “There was no cooperation with the federal states.”
Criticism also rained down from the SPD states: “I don’t think that’s justifiable,” participants quoted Lower Saxony’s head of state, Stephan Weil, as saying. He now expects the federal government to take responsibility. “The pandemic isn’t over. It’s not a good path being taken here.” The Rhineland-Palatinate SPD Prime Minister Malu Dreyer said: “I can well understand the frustration of my colleagues.” The procedure is against the recommendations of the expert council and “wrong.” It was also said from the SPD-governed Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania that they had no understanding of the procedure.
Specifically, the federal states are concerned that the federal government wants to abolish the obligation to wear masks in almost all areas of everyday life, and they consider the hurdles for the introduction of the so-called hotspot regulation to be difficult to implement in practice. “Bavaria has 1,400 kilometers of floodplain borders and should involve the state parliament in each individual hotspot district,” said Sder. Weil also complained that the concept of “concrete danger” for stricter infection protection measures was difficult to prove: “I think it’s impossible that we can go into autumn on such a basis.”
According to reports, Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not respond to the massive criticism – including from his party friends. Before the next item on the agenda was announced, he was only quoted by participants as saying: “Thank you for the discussion. We will still have a lot of work to do.”
The new law for corona management is to be passed by the Bundestag this Friday and will then go directly to the Bundesrat – but it is not subject to approval there. A possible application for an appeal to the mediation committee would require a majority of 35 votes in the state chamber. At the same time, there is time pressure for a quick follow-up regulation, otherwise there would no longer be any legal basis for corona measures from Sunday.
The legislative plans only provide a few general requirements for masks and tests in facilities for vulnerable groups. Masks should still be compulsory on buses and trains. However, further restrictions should be possible for regional “hotspots” if the state parliament determines a particularly critical corona situation for them. However, numerous countries still want to use a planned transition period and maintain the currently applicable protection rules until April 2nd./had/DP/ngu