Because of the corona pandemic, there is once again a comprehensive sales ban on firecrackers in Germany on New Year's Eve.

According to the regulation that the Federal Council approved on Friday, as in the previous year, no fireworks may go over the shop counters.

The aim is to avoid accidents caused by the improper use of firecrackers and rockets and thus to protect hospitals that are already extremely stressed by Corona.

With the decision of the Federal Council, a federal-state agreement was implemented at the beginning of December.

"The hospitals and medical practices have been under massive pressure from the pandemic for months," Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) said last week.

"We now want to prevent any additional exposure and any avoidable medical emergency." The regulation also states the justification: "A mere ban on burning pyrotechnic objects would not be sufficient." Experience shows that the ban on use before and after New Year's Eve is already regular will be subverted.

While the ordinance approved by the Federal Council only prohibits the sale of fireworks, numerous municipalities have also prohibited the burning of pyrotechnics in central locations.

Such a firecracker ban applies at Berlin's Alexanderplatz and in large parts of downtown Hamburg.

New Year's ball ban in North Rhine-Westphalia

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is even expanding the ban on dancing and banning New Year's Eve balls.

This applies to both catering and “comparable events when dancing is the focus of the event”, as the Ministry of Health announced on Thursday.

Clubs and discos are already prohibited from operating.

Publicly organized fireworks are strictly forbidden, private burning of pyrotechnics is prohibited in popular places and streets.

However, critics fear that illegal firecrackers will increasingly be smuggled in from neighboring countries such as Poland.

The main customs office in Frankfurt (Oder) expects 2.5 to 3 tons of illegal fireworks by the end of the year - the so-called Polish fireworks are particularly dangerous.

On Wednesday, for example, the federal police reported large finds in Saxony and Bavaria: A total of around 140 kilograms of illegal New Year's Eve fireworks from the Czech Republic were confiscated there. On Tuesday, customs reported the discovery of dozen packages with a total of 600 kilograms of fireworks in a package center in the Saale-Holzland district. The almost 50 parcels from Poland had already been found in the course of the past week, it said.

Experience has shown that the number of cases increases in the weeks before Christmas, said customs inspector Siegmund Poloczek at the Frankfurt main customs office. This year, the fireworks sale ban announced for Germany will attract even more buyers to the neighboring country to the east, where pyrotechnics are offered all year round, he estimated. "People accept journeys of several hundred kilometers." According to him, there had been a break in the findings last year because the German-Polish border was closed for weeks due to the corona restrictions.

The importation of firecrackers bought in Poland is not generally prohibited, Poloczek clarified.

The CE mark and a registration number must be clearly visible on the fireworks, as an indication that the fireworks in question have been checked for safety.

In addition, only pyrotechnics of hazard classes F1 and F2 may be sold to laypeople.

Anything about it they only allowed trained fireworkers, said the customs officer.

Pyro industry speaks of a "death knell"

The loss for the manufacturers of fireworks due to the sales ban is estimated in the regulation at 122 million euros.

The Association of the Pyrotechnic Industry (VPI) had already spoken of a “death blow” for the entire industry in the run-up to the Federal Council's decision.

The 3,000 employees in Germany are threatened with unemployment.

For the time being, the sales ban only applies to the turn of the year, although environmental and animal welfare associations have been calling for a general ban on fireworks for years.

In addition to the risk of injury, they argue, among other things, with the fine dust pollution, the fire hazard and the stress for animals.

Amsterdam, for example, is a role model, where bangs are now banned.