© John MacDougall
Chancellor Olaf Scholz on January 7.
A month following announcing that he wanted to force the refractory to be injected, the new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, must face the disunity of his coalition in the face of the difficulties of implementing such a measure.
When he opted for compulsory vaccination, Olaf Scholz had, in a sense, promised to piss off the antivax. But the new social-democratic chancellor (SPD) had not chosen the terms of the French president to launch his crusade once morest the refractories: German society will not be intimidated by a “Tiny minority uninhibited and charged with hatred”, he declared on December 15, during his first general policy speech to the Bundestag, the Federal Assembly. “Our democracy will know how to defend itself”, he added. Faced with a relatively low vaccination rate in Germany (currently less than 72%), the Chancellor had chosen this solution, at the end of 2021, to try to end the health crisis. Nursing staff and employees of hospitals and retirement homes will already be subject to it from March 15.
No voting instructions
The new chancellor reiterated on Friday, following a new crisis meeting at the chancellery, his wish to impose compulsory vaccination. “The debate remains very open”, believes Frank Baasner, director of the Franco-German Institute in Ludwigsburg (dfi), who thinks that this law should be successful. The first parliamentary debate, which was to take place in December, was nevertheless postponed until the end of January. The vote is due to take place at the end of March. Scholz aims for entry into force at the end of the first quarter.
By observing the difficulties encountered by the Austrians in the implementation of the vaccination obligation, the Germans wonder above all whether the “Vaccine for all” will cause the refractory to get stung.
Moreover, legal experts believe that the judges of the Constitutional Court of Karlsruhe have not said their last word. Who will be exempted? Will children be affected? What will the penalties be? So many questions to which Olaf Scholz does not answer. “I would like to hear something from him to know how things will evolve”, criticized Hendrik Wüst, Conservative Minister-President (CDU) of North Rhine-Westphalia, the current spokesperson for the Länder in crisis meetings at the Chancellery. The three parties of the governing coalition, the Social Democratic Party, the environmentalists and the liberals of the FDP, are divided on the issue. So there will be no voting instructions: the deputies will vote “In their soul and conscience”.
“This is not the solution”
The liberals, allies of Olaf Scholz, are largely opposed to the vaccination obligation. Forty of 92 deputies have already announced that they would vote once morest. FDP Secretary General Linda Teuteberg will even present a motion once morest the law for “Fuel the debate” parliamentary. “The more we discuss, the more we finally realize that compulsory vaccination is not the solution”, remarks Michael Theurer, Liberal leader at the Baden-Württemberg regional assembly.
Even the President of the Bundestag, Bärbel Bas, advises once morest any “precipitation”. “We have to give ourselves more time, she believes. And if the vaccination rate soon reached 80-90%, we would no longer need [de l’obligation vaccinale].» All the more so as Germany does not plan to set up a national vaccine registry that will effectively fight once morest falsifications. However, for Bärbel Bas, a vaccination obligation presents no advantage without a register. We have seen it in German primary schools where the measles vaccine has been compulsory since 2021. It is the teachers who must check the vaccination records. “However, the teachers were not hired to do this job for which they were not, moreover, trained”, notes the large teachers’ union (GEW).
Scholz’s decision to piss off the antivaxers radicalized the movements with increasingly violent protests across the country. As everywhere else, the subject deeply divides families, friends and employees in companies. Politicians fear that the divide in society will widen even further. “The tensions are likely to increase”, fears Frank Baasner. And in the regions of eastern Germany, one cannot even speak of a “minority” to piss off. The rate of unvaccinated reaches 40%.
