Germans who live abroad should have easier access to Covid-19 vaccination protection than before.

“The federal government is currently actively examining possibilities to expand the vaccination campaign to Germans abroad in special cases,” writes the Foreign Office in an answer to a written question from the deputy FDP parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Christian Dürr.

The ministry leaves open how, when and for whom the inclusion should take place.

Before that, "numerous complex legal and logistical issues have to be clarified," says the letter from the civil servant State Secretary Antje Leendertse.

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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So far it has been the case that German citizens with a foreign residence often found it difficult to get immunized in the host country.

In some states they are not eligible, in others there are insufficient doses of the vaccine.

In still others there are only vaccines that are not approved in Europe and Germany and are therefore not recognized when they are at home or when they enter the country.

Let down?

This applies, for example, to the Russian preparation Sputnik V or to Sinovac from China.

Leendertse made it clear that legal claims from the Coronavirus Vaccination Ordinance have so far "generally" only been made for people who have health insurance in Germany or who have their place of residence or habitual residence there.

In addition, there are authorizations only for those persons who work abroad on an official German assignment. This includes diplomats who are vaccinated in the embassies or consulates. “The Vaccination Ordinance or the Consular Act do not grant any entitlement to vaccination abroad,” Leendertse specified.

Before the extended foreign vaccinations come, the State Secretary advises other ways. The German nationals could use a stay at home for the injections. However, this requires possible quarantine times after entry, for example from high-risk or virus variant areas, as well as longer stays or two entries; because after the first and second vaccination a few weeks have to pass. “As a rule,” the so-called expats also have the opportunity to use local vaccination offers in their adopted country, according to the Foreign Office. Where this is not the case, the German representations advocate inclusion in the vaccination campaign.

The FDP MP Dürr criticized the sluggish vaccination process for Germans abroad.

"It is difficult to understand that the Foreign Office is leaving these people in the lurch, especially since more and more vaccines are left behind with us," he told the FAZ through the world to take care of citizens living abroad, the federal government is once again bogged down in legal issues and bureaucracy. "

The difference between Paris and Berlin is palpable in Vietnam, for example, says Dürr: “There it is hardly possible for German expats to get a vaccination.

But many German citizens from medium-sized companies work there, which form the backbone of the German export economy. "