The debate over the future of the deduction-free pension after 45 years of contributions is intensifying. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Manuela Schwesig (SPD) said on Monday on ZDF’s “Morgenmagazin” that the East would be “very strongly” affected by an abolition given the typical employment biographies there. She is “clearly” of the opinion that this pension must be preserved.
The pension commission had “not specifically looked at the special East German biography,” Schwesig criticized. Women and men there had started working at 16 and reached 45 contribution years by the age of 61. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania would not approve a pension package in the Bundesrat that abolishes this rule.
The protest by several East German CDU minister-presidents over the weekend triggered a controversial debate within the coalition. Federal Labor Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) called on the Union to clarify its position, but also stressed that the pension commission’s recommendation is not a desired project for her either. The parliamentary managing director of the SPD parliamentary group, Dirk Wiese, demanded improvements to WELT, such as a “clear and distinct hardship regulation” for long-serving shift workers.
CDU member of the Bundestag Pascal Reddig warned against pulling individual components out of the reform package. “If we pull one component out now, then the entire reform house will collapse,” he said on Deutschlandfunk. The deduction-free pension costs around 13 billion euros annually. Reddig called for decisions for a “pension peace,” otherwise old-age security would become more expensive and worse for everyone.
Source: www.welt.de
