Green Prime Minister
“Simply irresponsible”: Kretschmann attacks FDP because of compulsory vaccination statement
Winfried Kretschmann (Alliance 90 / The Greens), Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg
© Bernd Weißbrod / DPA
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann is an avowed advocate of mandatory vaccination. The Green politician finds it irresponsible that parts of the FDP are resisting this.
With the corona numbers rising again, the debate about a general vaccination requirement is picking up speed. But not all see the measure as the right way out of the pandemic. In the FDP in particular, several MPs are reluctant to take part – much to the annoyance of Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann. “The statement by Wolfgang Kubicki that many advocates of vaccination are concerned with revenge and retaliation is simply irresponsible and completely unsuitable for adequately conducting the debate,” said the Green politician of the German Press Agency in Stuttgart.
Winfried Kretschmann hopes for a majority of vaccinations
Kretschmann said he was glad that the FDP had at least agreed to compulsory vaccination for staff in facilities such as clinics and nursing homes and that FDP boss Christian Lindner had meanwhile spoken out in favor of a general compulsory vaccination. “But now we have to see how that develops with the group proposals,” he said. “Now one can only hope that there is a group that has a majority in favor of compulsory vaccination.” But he does not give up and is checking whether this can also be fed in via the Federal Council.
The deputy FDP chairman Wolfang Kubicki recently sharply criticized proponents of a general compulsory corona vaccination and accused them of revenge on unvaccinated people as a motive. The Bundestag is expected to decide on a general obligation to vaccinate against the coronavirus in the coming year in a free vote without parliamentary group discipline.
Among other things, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had spoken out in favor of a general vaccination requirement, but FDP boss Lindner also says he is going in this direction. The traffic light coalition does not want to submit its own draft law, but relies on cross-factional group proposals in the Bundestag.
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Kubicki and other FDPists against compulsory vaccination
Kubicki and other FDP MPs, on the other hand, had recently spoken out clearly against such an obligation in a draft application. According to Kubicki, there are now more than 30 parliamentarians involved. Parliament has already decided that employees in facilities with particularly vulnerable people such as nursing homes and clinics must prove by mid-March 2022 that they have been vaccinated or have recovered.
Kretschmann considers the FDP, with which his party governs in the federal government, to be the much more difficult coalition partner in the fight against the corona pandemic than the CDU. “One of the reasons why I form a coalition with the Christian Democrats in the country: Because I am on a common denominator with those in the Corona policy on fundamental issues,” he said. “We’re pulling in the same direction from the start.”
FDP parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke, on the other hand, has considered all the state government’s measures against the virus to be excessive and even described instruments such as curfews as nonsense, criticized Kretschmann. “Fortunately, the Federal Constitutional Court saw things very differently.”