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No, of course there was no call to the Chancellery or even a request from government headquarters, says Norbert Röttgen (CDU).

“We haven't discussed our initiative with anyone.

After the failure of the last Prime Minister's Conference, I sat down with colleagues to exercise our responsibility as parliamentarians. "

On March 28, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) brought an amendment to the Infection Protection Act into play after an excessively long but ultimately fruitless meeting with the Prime Ministers of the federal states in order to give the federal government more powers in coping with pandemics.

In this way, more consistency in the application of the corona measures should be achieved across Germany.

Since then, however, the Chancellery has remained silent.

The initiative now comes from the group around Röttgen.

It can be assumed that the Chancellor has a positive attitude towards her.

Merkel's ultimatum and the consequences

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The plan of the Union MPs Röttgen, Johann Wadephul and Yvonne Magwas (all CDU) envisages "giving the federal government (in addition) the same options for action as the federal states, namely to ensure the implementation of the national goals of the Infection Protection Act by means of statutory instruments".

According to Röttgen, 52 Union parliamentarians announced their support by Thursday noon.

Then a letter with the signatures was sent to parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt.

Norbert Röttgen (CDU): "Time to return to the political decision-making as provided for in the Basic Law"

Source: Martin UK Lengemann / WELT

In total, the trio had approached around 100 MPs.

The group has 244 members.

48 MPs have not reported back.

A decided rejection of the proposal came from a member of parliament, another was "rather negative".

Arbitrary selection of those who were written to

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The selection of the addressees was rather arbitrary and has no objective connection with the Corona policy.

They wrote to those who some time ago put their signature on a letter from the foreign politician Röttgen protesting against Chinese sanctions against MEPs.

“At the beginning of the crisis, the decision-making in the Prime Minister's Conference was okay.

But it has become dysfunctional in the meantime, ”says Röttgen WELT about the motives for the initiative.

"It is time to return to the political decision-making as provided for in the Basic Law."

The supporters include ex-parliamentary group leader Volker Kauder, the defense politician Roderich Kiesewetter, the chairman of the Europe committee Gunther Krichbaum and the chairman of the petitions committee, Marian Wendt (all CDU).

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The legal policy spokesman for the CSU regional group, Volker Ullrich, also a signatory, explains: "This means that we can act more nationally and, as a result, more emphatically, if there is a need for a nationwide regulation."

The legal policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Jan-Marco Luczak (CDU), says: "The Bundestag has recently changed the Infection Protection Act several times in order to enable the federal states to combat Corona effectively and precisely." that some countries were either unwilling or did not have the political strength to actually use their wide room for maneuver for the measures necessary to contain the virus.

"We need acceptance for the measures"

The Union parliamentary group is striving for an initiative to amend the Infection Protection Act in order to prevent the current patchwork of measures in the future.

The legal policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, Jan-Marco Luczak, explains why a nationwide approach is so important.

Source: WORLD

The initiators expect the parliamentary group leadership to take action now.

“In the best case scenario, we could initiate a coalition parliamentary group initiative as early as next week.

The coalition factions now have to show their colors, ”says Röttgen.

How quickly a law could then be passed also depends on whether the Federal Council has to approve a change or not.

"I am sure that this can be designed as an objection law that does not require approval," said Röttgen.

If so, the federal government could not continue to instruct health authorities to work on weekends in the future.

Such a far-reaching encroachment on the administrative sovereignty of the federal states would in any case have to be supported by the federal states.

There are also other views on the need to participate in the Federal Council.

"Such a statutory ordinance of the federal government generally requires the approval of the Federal Council," said constitutional lawyer Anna Leisner-Egensperger from the University of Jena last week.

“However, this approval requirement could be expressly excluded in the Infection Protection Act.

Whether it would in turn require the approval of the Federal Council is a matter of dispute among constitutional lawyers. "

The constitutional lawyer Thorsten Kingreen from the University of Regensburg says that the federal government can stipulate that changes to the regulations can be made without the consent of the Federal Council.

“However, the Federal Council would also have to agree to this transfer of power once.

That he does this seems to me politically impossible. "

In terms of timing, such a change would hardly be possible before summer.

The next regular Federal Council meeting is only at the beginning of May.

A mediation process between the Bundestag and Bundesrat could take months.

The heads of government from Lower Saxony and Thuringia have already rejected the plan.

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But the countries are currently not in the focus of the Union politicians.

Much more pressing is the question of how the SPD behaves, the coalition partner, without whom nothing works.

SPD: "Union thwarted all constructive proposals"

In the SPD parliamentary group, one observes the Röttgen advance with a mixture of amazement, annoyance and mild interest, without adopting a fundamental blockade attitude.

“The CDU and CSU are unsettling the citizens with their polyphony.

Armin Laschet thinks out loud, Markus Söder seems haphazard, and now Röttgen is also confusing his own ranks, ”says the deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, Dirk Wiese, from WELT.

“In the meantime, the Chancellor discovered Anne Will's Infection Protection Act, which she never wanted to change in the negotiations with us.

Rather, the Union thwarted all constructive proposals, especially the Chancellery. "

The SPD had campaigned for changes to the Infection Protection Act several times and achieved some minor corrections.

The parliamentary group had already formulated a position paper in November in which it called for more uniform measures.

The prerequisites for protective measures should be made clearer and the federal government should be given the opportunity to ensure more uniformity with its own statutory instruments.

Participants in corresponding rounds remember night sessions in which heated discussions were held.

In the end, nothing came out.

The Union parliamentary group, especially the representatives of the Chancellery, would have strictly blocked any further changes to the Infection Protection Act of the extent that is now planned.

The text of the law guarantees the flexibility that is needed to fight a pandemic of the current magnitude, said the CDU and CSU at the time.

In addition, the scope of the federal states should not be restricted more than necessary.

For the SPD, it's also about saving face.

It cannot simply let the Union get away with playing it off on the subject.

“The uncoordinated confusion of votes among the coalition partners is causing me great concern in the run-up to the Prime Minister's Conference.

Rather, the citizens expect clear and comprehensible rules, more pragmatism and a clear perspective for the coming weeks, ”criticizes Wiese.

The legal policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, on the other hand, is making specific changes to the Infection Protection Act.

"We can imagine a clear step-by-step plan in the Infection Protection Act, which specifies more specifically when which measures take effect," says Fechner WELT.

"In the case of simple infection protection events, for example, a mask requirement could be ordered, in the case of very serious infection events also daycare and school closings."

A federal ordinance would therefore regulate the degree of infection that has been reached in each case.

"Criteria such as the incidence value, the R-value, the utilization of the intensive care units or the mortality rate could be taken into account," says Fechner.

"However, such a regulation should only be issued with the consent of the Bundestag."

How the faction leaders of the Union, Brinkhaus and Dobrindt, relate to the plan of their MPs around Röttgen is still open.

Brinkhaus, however, has already called for more federal competencies and a structural reform of federal-state relations.

He would make himself untrustworthy with his own MPs if he now let the initiative fizzle out.