Erfurt (dpa/th) – Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow wants to talk to his East German counterparts on the sidelines of the Prime Ministers’ Conference (MPK) about the planned hardship fund for certain pensioners with claims from GDR times. One wants to ensure that certain groups are not excluded, said a spokesman for the Thuringian State Chancellery on Monday. Thuringia, as the current chair of the East MPK, asked Saxony to organize a meeting on the subject. The federal cabinet launched the foundation intended for the fund in mid-November.
According to the federal government, around 180,000 to 190,000 needy pensioners can expect help of at least 2,500 euros from the planned fund. These include East Germans with claims from GDR times as well as Jewish quota refugees and late resettlers on the poverty line. The background is above all a decades-long dispute over certain pension entitlements from the GDR era, which were not transferred to the federal German system in 1991.
According to the spokesman, some groups remain unconsidered in the previously planned construct of a hardship fund – for example private craftsmen and women, the self-employed, helping family members and freelance artists. Also voluntarily insured, farmers and foresters and people who strive for a pension law recognition of year-end premiums are not taken into account.
The federal states should have the opportunity to participate financially in the fund until March 31, 2023. The planned one-off payment could thus be doubled. So far, only Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has announced this step. On the other hand, a decision by the East Prime Ministers’ Conference in 2019 called for the federal government to finance the hardship fund alone.
