Berlin (AFP) – Germany will raise its retirement age gradually beyond 67, abolish early retirement, and expand compulsory pension contributions under a set of new recommendations backed by Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday. Germany, like many industrialised economies, is struggling with an ageing population and last year appointed an expert commission to come up with suggested reforms to its pension system.
Presenting its findings on Tuesday, the commission said the retirement age should be linked to life expectancy and gradually raised beyond 67 now. It recommended abolishing a scheme that allows people to retire early at 63, and expanding compulsory pension contributions to include civil servants and self-employed workers. “All elements of this reform package…must now be implemented swiftly,” Merz told a press conference, adding that “we cannot afford to remove or reject individual measures”.
Merz added that the proposals aim to meet “two goals: pensions remain secure, and the burdens are distributed fairly across all segments of society and across all generations”. Opposition parties and unions have voiced criticism of some of the proposals, which had previously been published in German media. The left-wing party Die Linke said that under the changes, people would be “working even longer, working even more”. The trade union Verdi said the proposal to scrap the early retirement scheme showed “a total disregard for the lifetime achievements of the people concerned”.
The proposals must still be debated and voted on in parliament before becoming law. In office for just over a year, Merz has struggled to deliver on his promises of sweeping reforms and a revival of Germany’s stagnant economy. Tensions have brewed between Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which has pushed for tougher welfare cuts, and their junior coalition partners, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
However, the SPD on Tuesday also said it supported the pension recommendations, with Labour Minister Baerbel Bas declaring that she was “very confident” the reforms will be supported in parliament. Around 19 million people in Germany were aged 65 or older — about 23 percent of the total population — in 2024, the latest year for which statistics are available. In 1991, only 15 percent of the population was aged over 65.
© 2024 AFP
