The state government of Baden-Württemberg does not want to resort to the controversial hotspot rule in the Infection Protection Act. This means that rules such as compulsory masks and 3G will fall on April 3rd.
In Baden-Württemberg, almost all corona protection measures will expire on Saturday (April 2nd) after more than two years of the pandemic. The coalition of Greens and CDU agreed on Tuesday not to apply the hotspot rules still provided for in federal law.
Green-Black does not consider the hotspot rule to be legally secure
The background is that green-black doubts that the rules will stand up in court. This means that from Sunday (April 3rd) indoors, masks will no longer have to be worn and access rules will no longer apply. Masks only have to be worn in public transport, in clinics and in medical practices.
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Baden-Württemberg failed on Monday with the attempt to extend the corona protection measures. The alternative is called the hotspot rule. But the BW government does not want to use them.
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Representatives of the green-black coalition said in Stuttgart on Tuesday that they regretted this step, but saw no other legal option. The hurdles for the hotspot rule are so high that they cannot be implemented in Baden-Württemberg, Greens parliamentary group leader Andreas Schwarz told SWR. In Baden-Württemberg, not as many hospital beds are occupied as in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the state government wants to apply the hotspot rule.
Kretschmann: We also adhere to bad federal laws
In the government press conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) once again emphasized his view of things: After the change in the Infection Protection Act, he had no other option but to appeal. Kretschmann expressly did not share the view of Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) that the hotspot rule could also be used preventively if the health system was not yet overloaded.
“The health minister can’t come now to pray his own law healthily. That’s why he’s not called the health minister.”
According to the BW Minister President, the federal government has taken away the instruments from the federal states – despite, according to Kretschmann, sharp cross-party criticism from Prime Ministers. “But it would have been right to give us the tool box so that we could use the tools as things went.” Now you run after the problems that you have created yourself. “We abide by federal laws. And we also abide by bad laws,” says Kretschmann. He can romp as he pleases, but that is no longer of any use, according to the BW head of government. He could not criticize the federal government more explicitly than he already is, said Kretschmann.
BW interior minister and CDU parliamentary group leader also sharply criticize the traffic light coalition
Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) criticized the traffic light coalition in Berlin:
“Unfortunately, the federal government has closed the toolbox with the most effective instruments for fighting the pandemic in front of the states and taken it out of their hands.”
The head of the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament of Baden-Württemberg, Manuel Hagel, was also dissatisfied with the federal government’s pandemic policy. Especially with the changed Infection Protection Act and the hotspot rule. This does not help Baden-Württemberg due to legal inaccuracies, according to Hagel. “She is the fig leaf with which the traffic light government in Berlin wants to conceal its political confusion.”
The opposition views the waiver of the hotspot rule very differently
FDP parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke, on the other hand, was pleased with the pandemic policy from Berlin: “Unsensical overreactions from the past, such as curfews and nationwide lockdowns,” Winfried Kretschmann “thank God permanently took out of his hands”.
According to Rülke, he welcomes the fact that the state government is not trying to “abuse the federal infection protection law to declare the whole country a hotspot”. Because of the “mild virus variant Omicron”, the situation in the health care system and the spring, it is right to “fully give people back their freedom rights,” said Rülke.
SPD state chairman Andreas Stoch, on the other hand, criticized the state government for not wanting to apply the hotspot rule:
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