Government – Erfurt – Ramelow: Do not want a Ballermann on Christmas markets – politics

Erfurt (dpa / th) – Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) wants to enable Christmas markets in Thuringia despite the further ban on major events. “We want to prepare them,” he said on Friday in a summer interview with MDR Thuringia in Erfurt. “What we don’t want is the ball man at the Christmas market.” The organization of the traditional markets in the Advent season must be done in such a way that there are no “intoxicated gatherings” and that the number of people who are there at the same time is regulated, explained Ramelow.

According to the Ministry of Health, there should be no restrictions on the serving of alcohol or alcohol bans according to the current status. However, this is dependent on the further infection process, said a spokeswoman. The organizers are obliged to ensure compliance with the hygiene protection concepts. The ministry is working with the municipal umbrella organizations and the State Chancellery on a uniform regulation for these markets. “It will be a lot different than usual, because here too, special protection concepts have to take effect,” said Minister Heike Werner (Linke) about the spokeswoman.

The federal and state governments agreed on Thursday in a video conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) that major events in Germany would remain prohibited until at least the end of December. This applies to events at which contact tracing and compliance with hygiene regulations are not possible.

Ramelow had already made it clear in the past that the circumstances and dimensions mattered at public festivals. So it is right that the Weimar onion market, which actually includes a dense crowd in the city center, is being organized as a kind of weekly market this year, where the onion farmers from Heldrungen in particular can offer their products.

The head of government again referred to the low number of corona infections in Thuringia, which, in addition to infection protection concepts, are a prerequisite for public festivals in a modified form. Currently, around 120 people in the Free State are demonstrably infected, most of them showing no symptoms of the disease. The probability of meeting an infected person in Thuringia is therefore low.

However, the state and municipalities would act at any time if the number of infections rose, Ramelow assured. As a yardstick, he named 15 infected people per 100,000 inhabitants. He warned to wear masks when there were many people in a confined space.

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