The draft by deputies of the traffic light parties for the introduction of compulsory vaccination from the age of 60 failed in the Bundestag.

On Thursday afternoon, 296 MPs voted in favor of the draft law, 378 voted against, as Bundestag Vice President Aydan Özoguz (SPD) announced.

Nine deputies abstained.

The project, which had been the subject of heated debates in the past few days, failed.

Kim Bjorn Becker

Editor in Politics.

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Previously, the traffic light had not been able to assert its desire in which order the applications for compulsory vaccination should be voted on.

She would have preferred it if the Union's proposal to introduce a so-called Vaccination Prevention Act was first voted on.

The Union insisted that the bill should first be voted on by MPs from the SPD, Greens and FDP.

In the vote, which was about the order, the Union then prevailed.

In the more than three-hour debate, supporters and opponents of compulsory corona vaccination faced each other irreconcilably.

Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD), who advocated compulsory vaccination from 60 years, warned of the consequences if vaccination was not compulsory.

If the omicron variant remains dominant, between 200 and 300 people will continue to die per day.

"Do we want to accept that as a society?" Lauterbach asked.

"It can't be a humane society for us." Lauterbach appealed to the Union not to prevent the compromise.

The obligation to vaccinate from the age of 60 represents 90 percent of the avoidable deaths that could be prevented with an obligation to vaccinate from the age of 18.

"Time is running out"

The health politician of the Greens, Paula Piechotta, also campaigned for compulsory vaccination.

Society had already entered the Corona autumn unprepared in the past two years, and that should not happen again, she said.

The differences between the traffic light bill and the Union's proposal are marginal.

"Time is running out," warned Piechotta.

This is not the time to “give something to the traffic light”;

the whole country is affected.

"In winter, no one can claim that you didn't see it coming, this year," said FDP politician Katrin Helling-Plahr.

She also supports the application for the introduction of compulsory vaccination.

The CDU MP Tino Sorge addressed the unclear majority in the Bundestag on Thursday morning.

"We should have found a majority from the middle of the house," he said, and at the same time promoted the Union model.

One cannot make a general decision when it comes to the question of whether vaccination should be compulsory.

“Fortunately, we have declining incidence figures.

Let's create a reliable data basis," said Sorge with regard to the demand to introduce a nationwide vaccination register.

He contradicted the criticism that his group was not behaving constructively.

The Union had presented a compromise that everyone could agree to.

The speakers from AfD and FDP, who each made their own applications, argued clearly against the introduction of compulsory vaccination.

AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel called compulsory corona vaccination “radically unconstitutional”.

The government is concerned with the “desire for unrestricted power of disposal”.

Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) said he could well understand that "emotions run high" in the debate.

It is important not to rely on false justifications when making a decision.

“Herd immunity is not achieved through vaccination.

It is not the fault of the unvaccinated that other people become infected. ”There will probably not be an overload of the health system either.

"Vaccinations serve to protect oneself and not to protect others," said Kubicki.

"It is not the job of the state to force adults to protect themselves against their will."

Left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht has criticized paternalism.

How well the vaccination protects against future virus mutants is not known, she said.

"And yet you are undeterred in forcing compulsory vaccinations on people - because the chancellor has to demonstrate assertiveness?"

Parallel to the debate, several hundred opponents of vaccination demonstrated at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

According to the police, around eleven o'clock there were about 350 people.

500 participants were registered.