In more and more federal states, the mask requirement in local public transport is falling, now the calls are getting louder to soon abolish it in long-distance trains. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has already indicated this, and the new chairman of the conference of state health ministers, Manne Lucha from Baden-Württemberg, is calling for it to end as early as next month. “The aim should be for the rules to be as uniform as possible throughout Germany from February. If the mask requirement in local transport is now removed, it should also be removed in long-distance transport at the same time,” said the Greens politician to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
It was announced on Wednesday that Baden-Württemberg would abolish the obligation to wear masks on buses and trains as of January 31. Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein have already done so; Berlin, Brandenburg, Thuringia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony will follow suit in the coming days. In local transport, this is a matter for the federal states, unlike in long-distance trains and buses: Here the federal government decides. According to the current legal situation, you have to wear an FFP2 mask here – the regulation ends on April 7th. The federal government could change this with a simple ordinance.
“It may well be that we will abolish the obligation to wear masks sooner”, has dem star now said Federal Minister Lauterbach, who has always defended the mask requirement as sensible. But he didn’t want to set a date. It is currently “still too early,” said Lauterbach. “We still have full clinics and staff failures.”
His coalition partner, the FDP, has been calling for this for a long time. You have to end the mask requirement in long-distance traffic “as soon as possible”, said Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) again in the ARD program “Maischberger”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/.” This is also a burden for the staff to control that.” FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr seconded in the Funke newspapers: Measures must be understandable, otherwise they would not be accepted. “But when it comes to the mask requirement, nobody can understand why you have to wear a mask on the ICE to Munich, but not on the local subway.”
Mask requirement only in long-distance traffic is difficult to convey
The FDP argues here in line with the railways and various interest groups. “As in air transport, we should also rely on voluntariness in long-distance transport,” said Deutsche Bahn. “A patchwork quilt with a wide variety of regulations is becoming increasingly difficult to convey to passengers and employees.” The railway and transport union (EVG) warned that bus and train employees should not become the scapegoat and have to pay for the foreseeable chaos of the regulations. “Then it would be better to rely on the voluntariness and reason of the travelers,” said EVG Deputy Chairman Kristian Loroch.
The Pro Bahn passenger association and the managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance, Dirk Flege, made similar statements. “By February 2nd at the latest, when two other federal states, Berlin and Brandenburg, lift the mask requirement in local transport, it should also expire in long-distance transport,” said Flege. It cannot be explained to people why they would have to continue to wear a mask on long-distance trains if the obligation in air transport and in most federal states had been abolished.