German president calls for debate over COVID vaccine mandate

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's president called Wednesday for a thorough debate over plans for compulsory coronavirus vaccinations in the country, saying such a drastic measure needs to be comprehensively justified.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has backed calls for a vaccine mandate and lawmakers are expected to begin debating a bill later this month. Polls show a majority of people in Germany back compulsory vaccination against COVID-19, but a vocal minority opposes the idea.

“The exceptional situation of a pandemic increases the pressure for the state to act, but it doesn't replace the requirement to weigh up arguments and balance interests,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at the beginning of a roundtable debate with citizens on the issue.

“A vaccine mandate means a debate mandate,” he added.

Steinmeier, whose role is largely ceremonial, said he wouldn't take sides in the debate but urged those involved to have “respect for other positions, but also respect for facts and reason that must be and remain our common currency.”

He dismissed as “complete nonsense claims that the coronavirus pandemic has turned Germany into a dictatorship,” saying such allegations betray contempt for our democratic institutions and the rule of law.

“Among friends, at work, in schools, in daycare centers, in clinics and nursing homes, in city halls, health offices and parliaments, people everywhere are trying to figure out together what needs to be done” to fight the pandemic, Steinmeier said. “And that’s exactly what this democratic struggle is about, also for us here today in this debate.”

Among the people debating was a nurse from Cologne and the head of a nursing home in Berlin who both stressed how essential it is to be vaccinated so that especially the most vulnerable of society —...