Karl Lauterbach apparently likes to end debates.

Even during the first major orientation debate on compulsory vaccination against the corona virus in the Bundestag at the end of January, the Federal Minister of Health had waited until the end with his speech.

He did the same thing on Thursday.

As the last speaker, Lauterbach, after more than an hour and a half of debates on the five proposals to date on the subject of compulsory vaccination, campaigned for the introduction of a general obligation from the age of 18.

The Social Democrat spoke of a “unique opportunity” to end the pandemic with compulsory vaccination and not be faced with a difficult situation again in the fall.

If you don't act, the chance that you won't have any difficulties in the fall is about "zero percent".

Eckhart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

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As expected, Lauterbach campaigned for the application, behind which most MPs have so far gathered.

SPD MP Heike Baehrens said at the beginning of the debate that there were 236 parliamentarians from four parliamentary groups.

She is one of the coordinators of the group application for universal vaccination for all adults.

Just behind is the number of supporters for the proposal of the Union faction, which provides for a “precautionary mechanism” instead of a vaccination requirement, with which a requirement could only be introduced in an emergency.

Approximately 200 MEPs support it.

The AfD rejects compulsory vaccination, as does a group around the FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki.

His party colleague Andrew Ullmann is promoting advice on vaccination and a duty of 50 years.

SPD and Greens hope for movement in the Union

Even before the five proposals were introduced into the legislative process, the SPD parliamentary group said it would only try to find a compromise afterwards.

And so on Thursday there were few signs of a rapprochement.

SPD and Greens, who mainly rely on the application for compulsory vaccination from 18, hope that the Union faction will move.

This in turn called in the debate in the direction of the traffic light coalition that one should approach them.

The chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalian state group in the CDU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Günter Krings, said towards the end of the debate that this had not brought any closer to a decision on whether and how vaccination should be compulsory.

A mandatory solution would come too late.

It is also not suitable because it is not clear how the current vaccine will affect future variants of the virus.

Krings combined this, as the Union has been doing for a long time, with a call for the coalition to finally present its own bill instead of relying on the group motion process.

Lauterbach, who spoke of a good debate, replied that Krings was right in pointing out that the vaccination requirement for the omicron wave would come too late.

But the union proposal would have an even later effect.

The Minister of Health countered the argument that it was not known how the current vaccines affected new variants of the virus by pointing out that the previous variants were genetically more than 90 percent identical, which meant that the vaccines were effective, at least to prevent serious illnesses and death to prevent.

He asked the Union to break away from group discipline on the issue and to allow all MPs to make a conscientious decision so that next autumn they would not be in the same position as they are now.

However, there were subtle signals of convergence between the Union application and that for compulsory vaccination from the age of 18.

The CDU MP Sepp Müller initially continued the dispute that preceded the mandatory vaccination debate as to whether the speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should not have been discussed first instead of the fight against the pandemic.

The Union had demanded this, but rejected the traffic light.

Then Müller came to the obligation to vaccinate and, among other things, reiterated the demand from the CDU and CSU to introduce a vaccination register.

At least that was not brusquely rejected by the traffic light.

Recently there had been clear signals in the leadership of the SPD parliamentary group that the opposition could be approached on this point.

AfD speaks of a "product of obstinate obsession"

It became very clear that the lines in the controversial discussion about compulsory vaccination do not run along the boundaries of the factions.

The Green MP Tabea Rößner spoke out against compulsory vaccination in principle.

The situation has changed fundamentally with the omicron variant of the virus.

"Sterile immunity cannot be achieved with mandatory vaccination," she said.

Her party friend Paula Piechotta, on the other hand, joined the proposal by the FDP politician Ullmann to introduce an obligation only from the age of 50.

As usual, the AfD tried to find particularly drastic formulations.

The parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel called the advocacy of a general obligation to vaccinate a "product of obstinate obsession".

There has never been an overload of the hospitals.

MP Martin Sichert reported on his little daughter, who, after contact with an infected person, should no longer eat with her parents on the instructions of the health department.

This is a "state request for child abuse".