He was more thoughtful than many other prime ministers during the pandemic and warned against putting pressure on the unvaccinated and was widely scolded for his moderate course.
Armin Laschet (62, CDU) is now calling for a critical corona review.
The former Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and current member of the Bundestag told ZDF that one should have spoken openly and clearly about the risks of vaccination. Referring to Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (60, SPD), who had repeatedly described the vaccination as “free of side effects” in the past, Laschet said: “In any case, it was never the position of the Prime Ministers’ Conference to completely deny side effects. But it wasn’t said. It wasn’t communicated.”
That gave space to deniers and conspiracy theorists, because everyone knows that there can be side effects with every vaccination. The criticism of the “communication management” of the time was justified.
And: Lauterbach refers to the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut for figures on vaccination damage, but Laschet criticizes that they don’t measure that at all. “None of this is anything that creates trust.” You have to learn from that.
With a commission of inquiry in the Bundestag, “which would examine all the mistakes, all the damage caused by this pandemic policy in order to do it better next time so that we don’t fall back into such a black and white republic: either you are for it or you are a corona denier. There were scientific voices that were not heard that warned against individual measures. And our culture of discussion must improve in the future.”
Laschet also criticized the political pressure on people who did not want to be vaccinated. A small dig at his competitor at the time in the race for the Union’s top candidate for the 2021 federal election, Markus Söder (56, CSU): He, Laschet, was sometimes described as “a looser”, “while others wanted to ban everything as possible and took very tough measures wanted to. We wrestled with the prime ministers.” He doesn’t have to tremble before a work-up…
The FDP parliamentary group has already spoken out in favor of an inquiry commission on dealing with the corona virus. Individual MPs in the Union faction are also campaigning for it. CSU MP Emmi Zeulner (35) to BILD: “We need a commission of inquiry. Not to assign blame, but to know what worked and how. It must not come to light in drops and then seep away again. We lack the big picture of the situation.” But the SPD and the Greens are still hesitating.
Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki (71, FDP) on BILD: “I am very happy that the Union is now joining our call to set up a commission of inquiry to deal with the corona virus. It’s true, Armin Laschet was a lone voice in the ranks of the CDU, who tried in vain to ensure that the restrictions on fundamental rights were not implemented carelessly. “In the end, however, he was unable to assert himself against Angela Merkel and Markus Söder, who would have opposed any form of consideration.
