German Chancellor Angela Merkel will attend the weekly cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, on March 31, 2021. REUTERS / Hannibal Hanschke / Pool
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday urged lawmakers to approve new powers that would allow her to enforce coronavirus lockouts and curfew rules in areas with high infection rates, saying a majority of Germans were in favor of stricter measures.
“The third wave of the pandemic has gripped our country,” said Merkel, whose speech in parliament was interrupted by lawmakers from the far-right Alternative for Germany.
“Intensive care workers send one emergency call to another. Who are we to ignore their pleas?” Merkel said.
Her government wants parliament to amend the law on the protection of infections so that federal authorities can impose restrictions, even if regional leaders resist them, hoping to ease the pressure on intensive care units.
The imposition of curfew rules and the granting of powers by the federal government to force them to the 16 states of Germany also drew criticism from Merkel’s conservative bloc, which according to opinion polls will suffer their worst result ever in a national election in September. .
Unlike Britain and France, Germany was reluctant to impose drastic limits in a country heavily protected from democratic freedoms because of its Nazi and Communist past.
Opponents of the closure have held protests across Germany, but especially in the former east, which supports the AfD more. The far-right party says that restrictions could not stop the pandemic and that it does more damage to the economy as well as mental health.
Merkel acknowledged in her speech that the new forces are not a solution to the pandemic, which she says can only be defeated with vaccinations.
Alice Weidel, parliamentary leader of AfD, said the new measures were an unprecedented attack on basic democratic freedoms.
“The proposed amendments to the Infection Control Act are a worrying document of an authoritarian state,” Weidel said. “This relapse into the authoritarian demon comes from the Chancellor and you, Madam Chancellor.”
Merkel looked at her smartphone during most of Weidel’s speech.
Our standards: the principles of the Thomson Reuters Trust.