New labor minister Schweitzer sees open questions on pension reform
Alexander Schweitzer of the SPD wants to tackle pension reform 'swiftly but thoroughly.' Merz is pushing for a cabinet decision by year-end, and conservatives insist all commission proposals be adopted.
Archive image · Photo: Olaf Kosinsky / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de (cropped and resized)
Germany's new labor minister, Alexander Schweitzer of the Social Democrats, said the planned pension reform still has open substantive questions that the conservatives and the SPD need to resolve. The bills will be introduced "swiftly but thoroughly," he said in Berlin on Tuesday, shortly before President Frank-Walter Steinmeier appointed him to succeed Bärbel Bas. According to Merz, he is to attend Wednesday's cabinet meeting. He said he had already spoken one-on-one with Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Merz has set the timetable: the draft should reach cabinet by the end of the year, coordinated with the states and parliamentary groups, and be passed in the first quarter of 2027. CDU General Secretary Franziska Hoppermann expects all proposals of the pension commission to be implemented. CSU leader Markus Söder, however, still opposes the proposed abolition of so-called mini-jobs.
In early September Schweitzer told Deutschlandfunk that implementing a commission's proposals one-to-one would be "disrespectful to lawmakers." He also opposed scrapping penalty-free retirement after 45 years of contributions. Pascal Reddig of the CDU, head of the conservative parliamentary group's young lawmakers, recalled that it had been "firmly agreed before the summer break" to implement the pension commission's findings one-to-one by year-end.