The pension package II is one of the central projects of the SPD and the Greens in the traffic light coalition. Now the FDP is threatening a blockade, and there is also resistance from the CDU. The Social Democrats are nevertheless optimistic.
The pension package II is intended to secure the level of retirement benefits in the long term – and is actually a joint project of all three parties in the traffic light coalition. However, the FDP expressed doubts about its feasibility early on. The Liberals in the Bundestag have now announced that they will not agree to Pension Package II in its current form and are demanding significant improvements from the SPD and the Greens.
“I currently don’t see that the pension package will be passed in this form in the Bundestag,” said the Parliamentary Managing Director of the FDP parliamentary group, Torsten Herbst, to the “Bild” newspaper. Specifically, he called for a smaller increase in pension contributions from 2028 and an expansion of the so-called stock pension.
FDP apparently demands extensive changes
“The gap between gross and net salary must not widen any further,” said Herbst. “Furthermore, equity pensions must be given much more weight.” According to the FDP politician, it could significantly relieve the burden on the system in the long term and at the same time ensure a secure pension system.
According to the report, the FDP parliamentary group is also discussing an end to pensions at 63 and a voluntary increase in the retirement age. Both could also be negotiated into the pension package, it was said.
Intergenerational justice demanded
The deputy FDP chairman Johannes Vogel told the newspaper that pensions must be secured for all generations. “If pension contributions in the pay-as-you-go system for the working middle class simply continue to rise, there will be less and less net of the gross and higher ancillary wage costs.” The coalition partners should have no interest in this either.
The FDP financial expert Maximilian Mordhorst told “Bild”: “We cannot compensate for our demographic problem with ever increasing burdens on the working population.” Addressing Minister Hubertus Heil, he added: “This is nothing scientifically complex, these are the basic arithmetic that a Federal Minister of Social Affairs should also be able to master.”
The chairman of the CDU social wing, Karl-Josef Laumann, told the RND newspapers: “I think the pension reform is wrong.” He called for us to “consider calmly how we can open up a sensible, long-term and medium-term perspective for pension insurance.” He is particularly skeptical about the “generational capital” pushed by the FDP.
SPD continues to believe in success
The pension policy spokeswoman for the SPD parliamentary group, Tanja Machalet, is nevertheless optimistic that pension package II will be launched quickly. The project should be decided by the Federal Cabinet in May and discussed in the Bundestag before the parliamentary summer break, Machalet said on Deutschlandfunk. She emphasized that there was “no need for change” for the Social Democrats. The government is now implementing what was agreed in the 2021 coalition agreement.
The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Finance led by Christian Lindner agreed in March to partially fund the statutory pension insurance. The pension level is to be set at 48 percent for the period after 2025 to 2029. The contributions are expected to increase in the medium term, to 22.3 percent by 2035.
Federal Finance Minister and FDP leader Lindner prevented the pension package from being approved by the cabinet last Wednesday. According to consistent media reports, the reason for this was that savings targets for the 2025 budget were not met by several federal ministries.