German coalition parties reach pensions deal to avert crisis
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Germany’s CDU conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) on Sunday broke a deadlock over a higher basic pension that had threatened the future of their governing coalition.
Senior coalition members, including CDU Merkel and SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, sealed a deal during talks in the chancellery that lasted more than six hours, officials said.
DW reports in the future, people who receive small pensions despite paying into the system for decades should expect to receive more money.
Pensioners will have to undergo an income review in order to qualify for the extra payments, CDU leader and Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told a press conference in Berlin.
“It is a good, reasonable result,” she said. The CDU previously pushed for a “means test” where applicants and their partners would have to disclose their complete finances, arguing that only those who were really in need should receive support.
The impasse led some SPD members, worried by the party’s falling ratings, to threaten to quit the coalition. If the partners had failed to reach a pension deal, SPD members might have decided to vote against staying in the coalition at a party congress on Dec. 6-8.
