09. June 2021 – 21:19 Clock
–
RTL Nord summer interview with Peter Tschentscher
On Tuesday, Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) announced further easing steps for the Hanseatic city – among other things, 10 people from any number of households are allowed to meet outside. The incidence value in Hamburg has plummeted in recent weeks: while it was 168 on April 1st and 105.6 a month later, it is now only 16.0. At the same time, the vaccination rate is also increasing in the Hanseatic city. So what does summer look like in Hamburg? The focus is on topics from culture, education and finance.
RTL Nord presenter Linda Mürtz met Hamburg’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher for a big summer interview.
When is normal operation in the restaurant business?
Linda Mürtz: Despite the very low incidence, “only” 5 people are allowed at one table in the interior of the catering trade. When will normal operation be possible again?
Peter Tschentscher: “With a certain distance between the tables, you can run a restaurant in a closed room again. In addition, there is also the outdoor catering, which is now popular when the weather is good. […] We will of course lift the last restrictions when we are sure that we will not get a problem again, because there are still these new mutations where we cannot yet exactly assess whether they can cause another problem – despite the vaccination, which is the most effective against the pandemic in the end. “
“We are leaders in Germany when it comes to digital equipment in schools”
Linda Mürtz and Peter Tschentscher
–
–
Linda Mürtz: Corona has made grievances clear that were already there. In the case of digitization in schools, one could clearly see that there was a lot of catching up to do. Your party, the SPD, has been ruling Hamburg for 10 years. What hasn’t happened in the last 10 years? Peter Tschentscher: “Above all, a lot more has happened than in many other countries. We are the only ones who have all schools connected to a fiber optic network, which is the prerequisite for fast internet. […] We are leaders in Germany when it comes to digital equipment in schools and that has to do with the fact that we had done a lot of preparatory work and now, in these pandemic months, had specifically called up the federal funds and provided additional funds. […]We got 20 to 30 percent technology equipment, got to 60 in a very short time, and of course we have to go to 100 percent. We now want to use this tailwind in digitization and really enable good, digital teaching in all schools. “ Linda Mürtz: Many schools have criticized that it was often very short-term. That they didn’t know exactly: let’s open up now, let’s close, we have to wear a mask. Why did it work so badly in schools? Peter Tschentscher: “If you ask in other federal states how things went in schools there, then I very often hear the assessment that it was still reasonably well organized in Hamburg. […] A pandemic is really very difficult to plan, that has to be said. We always have to make sensible decisions in the situation, because we can’t say in advance, ‘We’ll make a restriction that isn’t actually necessary’. In other words, it is also partly due to the way in which we have to deal with the pandemic. Sometimes you just say that maybe three weeks ago that wasn’t the situation, but now it is necessary, for example, for everyone, including the smaller children, to wear a mask. We then saw relatively soon that it made sense, for example, to start vaccinating teachers and doing rapid tests in schools – we were actually always the first in Germany for all of these things. ““Debts that we have to incur now in the crisis will not overturn us”
Linda Mürtz: The pandemic has cost and it is still costing. 6 billion euros in debts arose in Hamburg. How will we feel that?
Peter Tschentscher: “We are now benefiting greatly from the fact that we got the budget in order by 2019. As the Senator for Finance, I made sure that we put the budget in order structurally for many years, and from 2014 to 2019 we will have surpluses for five years We had a total of several billion surplus – three to four billion if you add all that up. I’m just saying this so you can understand that we have already paid off old debts and offset burdens. That is why we are throwing these debts, we are have to do now, not to. […] We have really strong companies, we had the greatest economic growth of all federal states in 2019 and we have to build on that and not talk ourselves into a depression. We are a strong location, our companies are competitive. “
Port and airport suffer
Linda Mürtz: One billion euros is to be invested in climate protection. One wonders, especially at a time when the economy has to be helped back on its feet – the port has suffered, the airport has suffered a lot. How are they supposed to get back on their feet if you want to take climate protection into account?
Peter Tschentscher: “The airport is a special topic, the entire aviation industry, this is not just the airport, this is Airbus, this is the entire aviation industry. It suffers above all from the fact that we now have fewer business trips. […] But of course that also has its value, you don’t have to jettison unnecessarily across the world. It also always costs kerosene, it leads to CO2 pollution, so a reasonable level is now the goal in aviation as well. But things will get going again, Airbus has already had a lot of orders for this A320 line again and so you shouldn’t bury your head in the sand. “
Linda Mürtz: And ban on short-haul flights, are you going with that?
Peter Tschentscher: “We just don’t have to fly from Hamburg to Berlin anymore because there is a great ICE connection. I do without domestic German flights because I can easily reach most of the distances by train. It is important, also for the aviation industry that we make flying ourselves climate-friendly, that’s why we’re working on green kerosene. “
“I’m counting on us to offer everyone a vaccination at the end of the summer”
Linda Mürtz: You were always considered to be one of the more severe in the corona pandemic. With today’s knowledge, what would you do differently?
Peter Tschentscher: “With today’s knowledge, I would definitely say that it is important to make more consistent decisions. 70 to 80 percent lockdown is much more difficult than saying once: Now there is peace in the box for three weeks. That is just much, much more effective. “
Linda Mürtz: When will we be able to live completely without restrictions again?
Peter Tschentscher: “That now depends on how quickly we can achieve a sufficient vaccination quota in the population.[…] We still have to wear a mask and test it, but we’re not done yet. […] It is good if we get more vaccine to Hamburg and I am betting that if we have made everyone a vaccination offer over the summer, that almost everyone will accept it and we will then have a vaccination quota where we say: That is now a backup. This major pandemic, worldwide, with these severe restrictions, I think and I hope that we have now overcome it. ” (jsc)
– .
