Karl Lauterbach was recently asked when he would say “the sentence”. Lauterbach sat there, of course, in Markus Lanz’s television studio, he gave a very long and cumbersome answer, until at some point he said: “If it stays that way, we’ll get through well, then I’ll make a similar sentence too.”
The sentence that Joe Biden said long ago in the USA and that Christian Drosten has said in Germany since then is: The pandemic is over.
The fact that Karl Lauterbach, Federal Minister of Health from the SPD, figurehead of “Team Caution”, Germany’s top admonisher and warner, is even considering saying this sentence as well, not only shows how the virus has changed in recent months. It also proves that the priorities in German politics have shifted. The country now has other problems. Even Karl Lauterbach has other problems.
The large number of crises that broke out not only in Germany in 2022 have long since shifted the attention of the federal government. There is the war in Ukraine, concerns about energy supply and inflation. There are the collapsing children’s hospitals, the nursing shortage, the dispute over climate stickers. If the corona virus in 2023 once again strives for great political or public attention, it should come around the corner with a killer mutant.
It doesn’t look like that at the moment, so one can dare to predict that Corona will take up less and less space in public awareness in the coming year. The traffic light parties will, of course, continue to argue – but about other issues, no longer about Corona policy. Lauterbach’s intimate enemy in the cabinet is Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann from the FDP. In the first year of government, these two spectacular duels fought over various changes to the Infection Protection Act – and public opinion.
That didn’t necessarily make government work any easier, but it was a gem for fans of real-life political satire. In the coming year you will probably see this pairing less often. Instead, Karl Lauterbach’s central opponent will probably become Federal Minister of Finance and FDP leader Christian Lindner. Because Lauterbach now has problems on the table that affect the basic structure of the German health care system. He wants to solve it with money. With a lot of money.
There could be problems with cannabis legalization
Then there is the fuss about cannabis legalization: actually, this is one of the few issues on which the coalition parties agree. However, Lauterbach’s ideas met with little enthusiasm from the EU Commission. If he cannot convince Brussels of his concept, the traffic light is faced with a fundamental decision: cancel the cannabis legalization project completely? Or agree on a compromise? The federal government could once again argue about the question of what should be legal and what shouldn’t. With the Corona rules, on the other hand, this is unlikely, especially since many areas are a matter for the federal states anyway – and they are collectively on a loosening course.
Karl Lauterbach will probably accompany Corona in 2023 above all with recommendations, he will urge caution and now and then point out that overall we have come through this crisis better than other countries. And, of course, he still has to go to Markus Lanz one day. To say the sentence. Or at least: a similar one.