The goal given by Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to introduce a vaccination light by March at the latest can no longer be met. The Tagesspiegel learned this from coalition circles. One reason is the schedule of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, the other is complicated legal issues and the need for advice from the traffic light parties. .
Scholz had said on ZDF at the end of November that a general vaccination should apply “from the beginning of February, beginning of March” for everyone in Germany. Probably on January 26th or 27th, there will initially be a comprehensive orientation debate in the Bundestag.
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Because of Carnival, only one week of meetings is scheduled for February, so that a decision can be made in the week from March 14th at the earliest. Since the Federal Council, which has to approve, will not meet again until April 8, the project can only then be finally approved according to the current schedule.
This means that it could hardly come into force before the beginning of May without special sessions. If a central vaccination register with data on all vaccinated persons is to be set up to enforce the obligation, the obligation to vaccinate could not come into force until June.
Attempts are currently being made with various special campaigns to increase the number of first vaccinations. Scholz had clearly missed the target of 80 percent in Germany having received at least one vaccination by January 7, the rate is almost 75 percent.
SPD: Vaccination is more likely a project for next fall
In an interview with Tagesspiegel, Dirk Wiese, who is responsible for the mandatory vaccination project in the SPD parliamentary group, said: “We should conclude the deliberations in the Bundestag in the first quarter” – the first quarter ends at the end of March. That is a demanding schedule, “since we only have one week of meetings, especially in February”.
With a view to possible delays, Wiese emphasized that the mandatory vaccination does not have a short-term effect anyway, but is “in perspective a provision for the coming autumn and winter”. On Friday after the Bund-Laender round on new corona measures, Scholz avoided all questions about whether he had to cash in on his promise and referred to the German Bundestag regarding the schedule.
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The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) said after the Corona summit with a view to Scholz and the uncertainty about the schedule for introducing mandatory vaccinations: “We need speed and leadership on this question.” However, he did not respond one that the appointments in the Federal Council could delay the project.
FDP slows down – vaccination only for over-50s?
In the Union it is speculated that the FDP in particular, which is increasingly critical of the project, might try to delay compulsory vaccination, if the situation improves and turns into endemic, the pressure to forego compulsory vaccination is likely to grow.
The traffic light coalition will probably not have a majority of its own in favor of an introduction – therefore the decision has been declared to be a decision of conscience; With the help of votes from the Union, among other things, a majority is considered very likely.
Another variant is that there could only be an age-dependent compulsory vaccination and not a general one from the age of 18. This is what FDP health politician Andrew Ullmann suggests and refers to the example of Italy.
There, a mandatory vaccination for over 50-year-olds came into force on Saturday. It is important to him “that as soon as the situation changes and the virus becomes endemic, the debate about compulsory vaccination is superfluous,” he told the dpa. The yardstick for action should not be the number of infections, but the number of illnesses.
Advice on data protection in vaccination registers
SPD parliamentary group vice Wiese emphasized that after the important statement by the German Ethics Council on the introduction of a general vaccination obligation, “we will use January to hold a broad debate in intensive discussions with experts in the parliamentary group, in the constituencies and in an orientation debate in parliament To enable debate ”.
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In the coming week, the SPD parliamentary group will initially seek talks with members of the Ethics Council, the Federal Data Protection Commissioner and lawyers. “We want to have a thorough debate on important detailed questions, such as the necessity or necessity of a vaccination register.”
At least at the federal and state levels, there is agreement that the compulsory vaccination should continue to come. “I think it is right that the Federal Chancellor and the Prime Ministers of the federal states have mutually agreed in favor of a general compulsory vaccination,” said Berlin’s Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) the Tagesspiegel.
The Bundestag had already decided last year that the staff of facilities in which people at risk from Covid-19 are cared for, treated or cared for are compulsory. This obligation, which is essentially limited to healthcare and long-term care, will apply from mid-March.
