German pension row: conservatives reject SPD call for new round of talks
SPD parliamentary leader Miersch wants lawmakers and possibly state premiers involved before a cabinet decision. Conservative deputy Winkel: "It is time to keep our word."
Archive image · Photo: JohannesDueselder / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
A new dispute over pension reform has broken out in Germany's governing coalition. Social Democrat parliamentary leader Matthias Miersch told Die Zeit that the parliamentary groups, and possibly the state premiers, should be involved before the cabinet decides. "The exact format would have to be discussed, but in any case the parliamentary groups would have to be included," Miersch said.
Johannes Winkel, a deputy leader of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary group and head of the Young Union, rejected the idea in comments to dpa. He said it made no sense to set up a new pension commission with new players after the work of the pension commission and the political agreement. "This is about reliability and the ability to make decisions," Winkel said. "It is time to keep our word."
Before the summer break, the government and coalition committee agreed to implement the pension commission's compromise proposals as a package. Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, a Social Democrat, is drafting a bill. The compromise has been criticized by Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's premier Manuela Schwesig and by eastern German CDU state premiers.