Merkel in stand-off with German states over Covid restrictions

Germany is facing a Covid-19 stand-off between regional leaders and chancellor Angela Merkel, who is demanding a complete lockdown to break a third wave of the pandemic.

After two key aides warned that Germany is slipping into a dangerous phase of the pandemic, the chancellor has threatened to overrule regional leaders who refuse to tighten restrictions as agreed last week.

“I will not look on passively for another 14 days... we need to break the third wave,” Dr Merkel said in an hour-long television interview with the ARD broadcaster on Sunday evening. “We need action in the federal states... some states are doing this, others not yet.”

Her remarks were an unprecedented broadside against Germany’s decentralised, federal system, where the 16 states or Länder have the lead competence on health, education, trading laws and other areas affected by the pandemic.

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A cacophony of voices and differing approaches to lockdowns and vaccinations has resulted, flagged as one factor in Germany losing its early pandemic lead.

At their most recent meeting with Dr Merkel, state leaders agreed to an “emergency brake” measure, to roll back looser lockdown measures in regions with more than 100 new infections per 100,000 people over seven days.

Rising steadily

Germany’s Covid-19 numbers are rising steadily, with an average incidence rate of 134 cases per 100,000 people over the last seven days.

Rather than impose curfews and roll back reopenings as agreed, however, states such as Berlin and the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) have chosen more differentiated approaches.

Both are encouraging widespread, free testing to keep open retail but, on Sunday, Dr Merkel expressed doubts over “whether testing and shopping is the right answer” as numbers rise.

Hours earlier her health minister, Jens Spahn, said Germany needed “10, 14 days of real shutdown” while the chancellor’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, warned that mutations resistant to the vaccine could spread quickly in the next weeks and undo the last months of restrictions.

“Then we would need new vaccines, then we would have to start vaccinating all over again,” added Mr Braun, a medical doctor by training.

Complicating Germany’s pandemic stand-off is the looming federal election. Six months before Germany elects a new Bundestag, Dr Merkel’s demands for a more rigorous lockdown have brought her into open conflict with Armin Laschet, her successor as leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). On Sunday she even named Mr Laschet as one of the regional leaders defying the emergency brake rule.

As NRW state premier, Mr Laschet opposes Dr Merkel’s demand for a total lockdown to break the third wave and on Monday defended the right of Länder leaders such as himself to adopt a more differentiated approach.

In a dig at the chancellor, he said on Monday it was crucial that Germany move beyond the “lockdown logic” of the last months.

“The 16 minister presidents are equally responsible... it doesn’t help if Länder and federal government shift the blame to each other and pass judgment on each other,” he said.

Open conflict

Wearing his other hat as CDU leader, however, Mr Laschet knows he cannot afford politically to be in open conflict with the still-popular chancellor.

He is already struggling, after just 10 weeks as leader, with a Covid-related graft scandal inside his party that has seen support slump to just 25 per cent in some opinion polls – two points ahead of the Green Party.

Some time after Easter, Mr Laschet is hoping his CDU will nominate him to run as its election lead candidate in a centre-right bloc with its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU).

But a growing number of Mr Laschet’s own backbenchers have called into question in public his competence to run for chancellor. That has given a last-minute boost to his main rival, CSU leader Markus Söder, the Bavarian minister president.

Minutes after Dr Merkel’s warning on Sunday evening, Mr Söder said he shared her wish for a “unifying spirit” and a simplified, countrywide approach to pandemic rules. He told German television: “There’s no point in... everyone just doing what they think is right.”