Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) rejects a general firework ban despite the current petitions with 1.9 million signatories.
“The majority of the population wants to celebrate New Year’s Eve peacefully and behaves carefully and responsibly” he told the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”. “I therefore consider a ban policy that puts everyone under general suspicion to be disproportionate.”
Moreover, a general firework ban or sales prohibitions for pyrotechnics would not solve the actual problem. This would be the increasing coarsening of hooligans and the dwindling respect of some rioters for the forces of law and order, who would be pelted with firework shells, stones, or bottles. Herrmann also referred to the possibility of municipalities issuing bans on firework use at specific locations, such as for the prevention of fires in old town centers. The biggest problems on New Year’s Eve always arise with firework shells that are banned in Germany anyway.
The CSU politician added, however, “We must consistently prosecute legal violations and criminal behavior and take a hard stance against it.” And because the number of injuries caused by non-certified or self-assembled firework rockets is rising, “we will therefore further intensify the controls by the Bavarian border police, including in the context of the Schleierfahndung, with a view to the import of illegal fireworks into the weeks before the turn of the year.