After a crisis meeting of the coalition partners in the Chancellery, the decision on the planned pension package is to be postponed. The draft will not be approved by the cabinet on Wednesday, government circles said. However, it was agreed that this should happen in May.
Before that, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) have blocked the federal government’s planned pension package. To report of ZDFthe Reuters news agency and the Picture-Newspaper According to Lindner, all legislative proposals that required additional costs were blocked.
Lindner criticized spending plans from five ministries
The pension reform, which, among other things, sets a constant pension level of 48 percent of the average wage until 2039, was actually supposed to be passed by the federal cabinet on Wednesday.
Lindner had presented the pension package at the beginning of March with Federal Social Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD). However, the Finance Minister had already expressed clear criticism of the budget plans of several federal ministries on Monday. It involves five ministries, said Lindner, without providing any further information.
They had submitted “exorbitant wish lists,” said the FDP leader, “Christmas, Easter and birthdays together, so to speak.” That is “unacceptable”. However, he spoke primarily of departments that use money from the federal budget abroad. The ministries submitted their spending plans for 2025 to Lindner’s department last week.
The Reuters news agency reports, with reference to government circles, that the Ministry of Finance explicitly justified the surprising blockage of the actually completed pension package with the budget. In a meeting with other state secretaries, Lindner’s State Secretary Steffen Saebisch explicitly named the Ministry of Labor as one of the departments that had reported excessive spending for 2025.
Pension reform with share pensions and higher contribution rates
The report of the PictureAccording to the newspaper, the appointment at the Chancellery was planned for this afternoon anyway. However, this was originally supposed to be the first top round of the traffic light for the budget negotiations. Now the meeting is primarily aimed at Lindner’s resistance to the pension reform.
In addition to securing the pension level until 2039, the reform also provides for the introduction of a share pension, as the FDP had called for. This is intended to relieve the burden on pension insurance from the middle of the next decade. The income from a fund that is primarily financed by loans and amounts to 200 billion euros will be used for this purpose. Nevertheless, the pension insurance needs more money to maintain the pension level. The contribution rate for pension insurance is therefore expected to increase by 1.1 percentage points more by 2035 than originally assumed.
After a crisis meeting of the coalition partners in the Chancellery, the decision on the planned pension package is to be postponed. The draft will not be approved by the cabinet on Wednesday, government circles said. However, it was agreed that this should happen in May.
Before that, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) have blocked the federal government’s planned pension package. To report of ZDFthe Reuters news agency and the Picture-Newspaper According to Lindner, all legislative proposals that required additional costs were blocked.