FDP boss Christian Lindner has called for an “exit strategy” for the German measures against the corona pandemic. Although his party shares many of the measures, he also asks himself every day “how long these are still necessary and what will be done to make them unnecessary,” said Lindner to the “Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger” on Wednesday.
The FDP leader warned that the corona crisis should not “lead to a change in all the coordinates in our coexistence.” “We do not want an authoritarian state in which a government can issue restrictions on freedom without parliamentary control.” Nor should there be any major dependency of the economy on the state, which in turn only operates by taking on debts.
Linnemann: Limit has already been reached for some companies
Union fraction vice Carsten Linnemann (CDU) called for an end to the economic break after Easter. “For the entire economy and our state, the damage will be sustainable and cannot be compensated for decades if we do not gradually start up the economy again after Easter at the latest,” Linnemann told the “Bild” newspaper on Wednesday. For some companies, the limit has already been reached. The time until then must be used to contain the virus and prepare the health system for the epidemic, said the head of the middle class and economic union.
Lindner said that the state must withdraw as soon as possible and as far as possible from the areas in which it has now intervened and restore the old level of personal responsibility. Lindner also criticized the protective measures for the economy that the Bundestag is to pass this Wednesday as not quick and accurate enough. There is no immediately effective liquidity aid for the self-employed, freelancers, craftsmen and medium-sized family businesses.
The Bundestag plans to put an exemption for the debt brake into effect on Wednesday and to adopt several aid programs. The federal government is supposed to be able to take out loans in the amount of around 156 billion euros in order to finance the support services in the Corona crisis.
