Small shops to reopen as Germany eases lockdown

Restrictions to be lifted gradually, with schools to resume on May 4 and public asked to wear masks

GERMANY is to ease its lockdown measures by allowing small, non-essential shops to reopen next week, Angela Merkel announced yesterday.

But social distancing measures will remain in force until May 3 and all large public events have been banned until the end of August.

“We have achieved something. Our health system was kept running,” Mrs Merkel told a press conference in Berlin at which she thanked those who have “changed their lives”.

But she added: “What we have achieved is an interim success. No more and no less. And I emphasise: it is a fragile interim success.”

Under the measures announced yesterday, all shops of up to 800 square metres (8,600 square feet) in floor area will be allowed to open from Monday, provided they put in place hygiene measures. Schools will reopen gradually from May 4, with priority given to classes facing imminent exams. Kindergartens and primary school classes for younger children will remain closed as they cannot observe social distancing rules.

Germany has not implemented the sort of total lockdown seen in other European countries, but instead banned public gatherings of more than two and ordered people to observe social distancing of 1.5 metres.

Those regulations will remain in force until May 3, as will a ban on nonessential private travel and day trips.

“There is little room for manoeuvre and we will have to live with the virus until we can find treatment or a vaccine for it,” Mrs Merkel said. “It must be our goal to track every chain of infection.”

She “requested” and “strongly recommended” people wear face masks on public transport and while shopping. The measures were agreed after four hours of talks between Mrs Merkel and the leaders of Germany’s 16 regional governments, which have the final say over measures in their states.

But the talks were reportedly fraught and in a sign her attempt at compromise may have failed the regional government of Rhineland-palatinate said yesterday that it would start to reopen schools on April 27, ahead of the planned national date of May 4. Bavaria, meanwhile, said its schools would not reopen until May 11.

“All the states agree on one strategy, and that strategy is caution,” said Markus Söder, the Bavarian regional prime minister.

The talks pitted Mr Söder against Armin Laschet, the regional prime minister of North Rhine-westphalia, in what is increasingly seen as an audition to succeed Mrs Merkel when she steps down as chancellor next year.

Mr Laschet has emerged as the leader of those calling for restrictions to be lifted, while Mr Söder has carved out a role for himself as “Mr Lockdown”,

imposing tougher restrictions than anywhere else in Germany.

Mr Laschet is the front-runner to become the next leader of Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrat party (CDU), and with the leadership contest postponed, his rivals have faded from public view.

Mr Söder’s route is tougher. As leader of the CDU’S Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, he has no national power base, but if Mr Laschet slips up he could be parachuted in as an emergency candidate.

Mrs Merkel, as so often in her career, has played the men off against each other, and the measures agreed yesterday were a careful compromise.