Pandemic in Germany
Will the corona vaccination for nursing staff come soon? Olaf Scholz brings movement into the debate
Can certainly imagine compulsory vaccination for certain occupational groups: probably the next Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz
© Kay Nietfeld / / DPA
The discussion about compulsory vaccination for certain occupational groups continues. Probably the next Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, shows sympathy, the Greens are in favor of it anyway – and even the FDP is softening its blockade.
SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz supports a debate about compulsory corona vaccination for certain professional groups such as those working in nursing homes. “I think it is right that we have now started a discussion about whether this should be done,” said the executive vice chancellor on Monday evening at the economic summit of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. Just talking about it is a clear statement – the SPD, Greens and FDP have deliberately opened this debate.
Scholz said at the same time that compulsory vaccination for certain professional groups was only possible if there was a consensus “that many want to participate”. “When that is achieved, I think that’s a good thing,” he said. Such a decision could also be made at short notice.
The Greens had also announced that possible future government partners wanted to talk about compulsory vaccination for employees in nursing homes, for example. The deputy FDP parliamentary group chairman Michael Theurer said on Tuesday in the ZDF “Morgenmagazin” that he personally could “imagine compulsory vaccination for certain professional groups”. “But we are still talking about this point today.”
The Union for Education and Science (GEW) rejects compulsory vaccination for certain professional groups, as the union chairman Maike Finnern in the editorial network Germany (RND / Tuesday) emphasized. The chairwoman of the Rhineland-Palatinate family doctors’ association, Barbara Römer, called for medical staff to be vaccinated. “People think they are protected in the medical field, and then unvaccinated people jump around,” said Römer of the German press agency in support of the reason.
However, the topic is not part of the reform of the Infection Protection Act, which is to be decided this week. The Bundestag is due to vote on the change in the law on Thursday. On the same day, the Executive Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) consulted with the Prime Ministers of the federal states about a uniform approach. A special meeting of the Federal Council on changes to the Infection Protection Act is planned for Friday.
This is what constitutional lawyers say about mandatory vaccinations
Surprisingly, compulsory corona vaccination is less controversial among constitutional lawyers than one might expect. The constitutional lawyer Christian Pestalozza, for example, considers the introduction to be inevitable under certain conditions. If the “small relief measures” are not enough to fight the pandemic, politicians are “even constitutionally obliged to take more stringent measures” such as mandatory vaccination, Pestalozza told the editorial network in Germany. If an occupational group-specific vaccination requirement is not sufficient, a general vaccination requirement is also permissible.
The lawyer Andrea Kießling from the Ruhr University in Bochum has “no constitutional stomach ache”. Hinnerk Wißmann from the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster recommends in a current statement for the legislative procedure in the Bundestag that vaccination should be considered “before general lockdowns for schools or universities come into consideration”. He describes this as a “milder remedy”.
The Bundeswehr is also a candidate for mandatory corona vaccination
The Bundeswehr is where the mandatory corona vaccination could come relatively quickly. There are already many vaccinations “subject to tolerance” for men and women. An initiative by the military leadership to expand this to include corona protection is currently being delayed by the staff representatives. But the traffic light parties put pressure on. “In my opinion, the corona vaccination should be included in the basic immunization for soldiers. We can all expect to have to live with corona pathogens for a long time,” said the SPD defense politician Siemtje Möller.
In response to a request from the DPA, the Greens said that soldiers must already tolerate certain vaccinations and that this has been widely accepted in the Bundeswehr for years. “In this respect, the inclusion of the corona vaccination in this catalog would not be unusual and only logical,” said the Greens defense expert Tobias Lindner. The FDP defense politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann spoke out in favor of introducing the corona vaccination for soldiers and civilian employees. At the same time, she pointed out that the vaccination quota in the armed forces of the Bundeswehr is over 80 percent and thus well above the national average.