For a Green, this is a surprising suggestion: Winfried Kretschmann wants to crack down on the fight against pandemics. The Baden-Württemberg resident reaps a storm of protest – and collapses.
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann has rowed back after severe criticism of his push for a tougher regime in the event of pandemics.
The CDU, SPD, FDP and AfD in the Bundestag had called the Green’s proposal to restrict citizens’ freedoms in the fight against pandemics even more drastically as illegal and unacceptable. Kretschmann announced that he regretted that his statements in an interview had led to misunderstandings. “In the rule of law, the principle of proportionality always applies – always and without restriction.” He would never question this central principle of the constitution. “It annoys me all the more that what I said apparently gave me this impression.”
In an interview with “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and “Stuttgarter Nachrichten”, Kretschmann suggested that tough interventions in civil liberties be made possible in order to get pandemics under control more quickly. “My thesis is: If we can take early measures against the pandemic, which are very harsh and possibly not proportionate to the citizens at this point in time, then we could quickly bring a pandemic to its knees,” said the Prime Minister. You may have to change the Basic Law for this.
The interview sparked a cross-party protest storm. “Interventions in fundamental rights must be proportionate,” wrote FDP leader Christian Lindner on Twitter. “If Mr. Kretschmann questions this principle, he can be confused with authoritarian politics.” CDU presidium member Norbert Röttgen wrote on Twitter that he considered the prime minister’s statement to be “a lot of nonsense”. “The principle of proportionality belongs to the unchangeable core of the rule of law.”
Kretschmann later made it clear: “The reason for my remarks was the demand for a study commission in the Bundestag, which should deal with how we can contain possible pandemics more quickly in the future.” For him, it is about keeping the consequential damage as low as possible and avoiding long-lasting, profound cuts in fundamental rights. “So it’s not about less freedom for the citizens, but more freedom.” He has already called for a commission of inquiry several times.
After the interview, social democrats and liberals asked the green candidate for chancellor Annalena Baerbock to distance herself from Kretschmann. SPD parliamentary group deputy Dirk Wiese said: “I sharply criticize the fact that a Green seems to dream of a permanent emergency of the executive branch.” Baerbock must clarify that. The FDP was in the same direction. “Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock must decisively and publicly counter these temptations of the authoritarian in her own party,” said FDP parliamentary deputy Michael Theurer. Kretschmann’s statements showed that the Greens are not a “civil rights party”.
FDP parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke said: “Kretschmann is developing more and more into an autocrat.” The General Secretary of the Southwest SPD, Sascha Binder, tweeted: “There is probably a rapt Sun King speaking who has lost his grip on the ground.”
There was also criticism from the Southwest CDU, which governs with the Greens. “The statements of Winfried Kretschmann are a scandal,” said Simon Gollasch for the Young Union in the country. “Demanding disproportionate measures is clearly unconstitutional.” The country chief of the CDU social wing, Christian Bäumler, told the dpa: “Such statements destroy trust in the pandemic policy.”
The AfD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Alice Weidel, called on Kretschmann to resign immediately. “A prime minister with a high level of responsibility who wants to abolish our democracy is completely unsuitable for this office.”
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