The municipalities reacted disappointedly to the fact that the Prime Minister's Conference could not agree on uniform corona rules for major events.
If the infection rate and the vaccination campaign continue to develop so positively, clear opening perspectives must also be shown at the events as quickly as possible, taking clear hygiene concepts into account, said the chief executive of the German Association of Cities and Towns, Gerd Landsberg, the newspaper Rheinische Post.
The federal states should soon come to the most uniform possible line.
"Otherwise there will be a patchwork quilt that can no longer be explained to the local people in the municipalities," warned Landsberg.
The prime ministers had transferred the topic to a working group at the level of the state chancellery on Thursday.
It was too early for major events with thousands of people, said Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) and Berlin's Governing Mayor Michael Müller (SPD), who is also chairman of the Prime Minister's Conference.
But it is the right time to develop a concept for this, said Müller.
"Brake block on the way to normality"
The President of the German District Assembly, Reinhard Sager, also dampened expectations of major events in the near future.
To enable music festivals such as Rock am Ring, Southside or Rock im Park, each with over 60,000 visitors, “we cannot imagine in the near future,” Sager told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch rated the Prime Minister's round as a "brake block on the way to normality".
For the event industry it is a "big disappointment".
People need a timetable and perspectives beyond the summer.
At the end of the vaccination campaign, the basic rights would have to be "completely" restored, demanded Bartsch in the Funke newspapers.