When the conflict comes to a head for the first time, cameras are there. Karl Lauterbach is traveling in Saxony and is being accompanied for a WDR documentary. The Federal Minister of Health is tense. The Infection Protection Act has to go through the cabinet the next day, otherwise the Corona rules will expire without replacement.
But the SPD politician Lauterbach is at odds with Justice Minister Marco Buschmann from the FDP: How strict should the rules be? Again and again you see Lauterbach on the phone, looking at the cell phone. In the end he won’t be able to assert himself.
That was in March. Things haven’t gotten any easier between Lauterbach and Buschmann since then. It’s the old conflict between Team Caution and Team Freedom in the pandemic. One fights for fundamental rights, the other against the virus. Now the dispute is entering its final round.
After the virologist Christian Drosten, who is also important for Lauterbach, said in the Tagesspiegel this week that he believed the pandemic was over, Buschmann took up the ball at lightning speed. He called for the immediate end of all nationwide measures. Above all, the obligation to wear a mask in long-distance traffic is a thorn in the side of the FDP. How much longer can Lauterbach resist abolition?
An immediate end to all measures would be reckless and is not demanded by Christian Drosten either.
Karl Lauterbach
Tough wrestling
A look back. When Buschmann and Lauterbach wrestled with each other in the spring, it was about the future of the corona rules from March 20th. After the agreement, the Minister of Justice proudly announced that there would be “virtually no more restrictions” in the everyday lives of citizens. The tools that countries could use to combat the pandemic have been severely limited. Stricter rules were only allowed to apply at corona “hotspots”.
In the summer the tough struggle was repeated. What rules would Germany use to arm itself for autumn and winter? In the end there was a complicated construct. Furthermore, a large part of the responsibility lay with the federal states. The federal government only provided rudimentary rules such as the obligation to wear a mask in long-distance transport and on flights.
The federal states were able to impose further measures such as the obligation to wear masks in public transport, in retail, compulsory tests in schools or restrictions on access in restaurants. The Länder did not make use of most of these options. But the fact that they were given the opportunity at all – that was the success for Lauterbach.
Shortly thereafter, however, the next annoyance: After Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Economics Minister Robert Habeck flew maskless across the Atlantic and were photographed, the FDP parliamentary group overturned the FFP2 mask requirement in airplanes. The other rules should apply until Easter on April 7th.
Well, after the Drosten interview, Buschmann wrote a letter to his colleague, “dear Karl”: The last remaining rules in the federal government should already be overridden by a federal government regulation. The letter caused trouble in the Ministry of Health. Lauterbach considers it “reckless” to abolish measures now.
Scholz supports Lauterbach
On Wednesday, the chancellor also indirectly spoke out against an immediate end to the measures. Lauterbach made it clear that, as things stand at present, no extension of the measures would be necessary beyond April 7, said the deputy government spokeswoman. “In this respect, that is the Chancellor’s position.”
However, Lauterbach himself had left the door a crack on the ZDF “heute journal” the night before. “We’ll see if we stick to it until April,” he said. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Justice are again faced with a tough struggle.
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