If Chancellor Scholz has his way, retirement at 63 could become obsolete. The Union is also working on a reform model. Group Vice Spahn explains how the entry age should increase: For every year of higher life expectancy, retirement should begin one month later.
In the debate about raising the retirement age, the Union is specifying its proposals. “We’re getting older. The retirement age should be linked to life expectancy in the future. Live longer for each year, retire a month later,” said Jens Spahn, Union faction leader, to the “Tagesspiegel”. Retirement at 63 was a big mistake by the grand coalition. “Many hundreds of thousands of skilled workers are missing for this reason alone,” criticized the CDU politician, according to the report.
Union faction manager Thorsten Frei and CDU Vice Carsten Linnemann had previously spoken out in favor of linking working life to average life expectancy. What is new, however, is that Spahn specifies what the mechanism could look like: For each year of longer life expectancy, the retirement age would be pushed back by one month.
The pension debate flared up again after Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke out in an interview in favor of more people actually working until the applicable retirement age. The standard retirement age in Germany is gradually being raised from 65 to 67. However, more and more people are making use of the deduction-free pension at 63.
At the CSU, the debate initially triggered resistance. The SPD is starting to complete its prestige pension project at the age of 63, said the parliamentary director of the CSU in the German Bundestag, Stefan Müller, of the “Bild” newspaper at the beginning of last week. But CDU leader Friedrich Merz offered the traffic light talks about a major reform of pension insurance for the coming year.
The CDU is currently working on a new basic program under the leadership of Carsten Linnemann. The 45-year-old told the “Tagesspiegel”: A nurse or a roofer could not work until 67. You need support. “But if you’re still fit and still able, you’ll have to work longer in the future.” He added: “Retirement at 63 was wrong. The SPD should admit that.” It is not only the physically working people who now stop earlier, but also many from the administration. “The wrong people benefit from retirement at 63.”
For the SPD, however, this could still be a long way off. Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil rejected a further increase in the entry age to over 67 on Thursday. “Increasing the retirement age to 69, 70 or 75 is wrong and unfair,” said the SPD politician to the “Rheinische Post”. Such a move “would mean a real cut in pensions for many people who just can’t work that long.” In addition, a further increase in the entry age “would be at the expense of the younger generation, who will retire after the baby boomers,” Heil continued. The traffic light government ruled this out in the coalition agreement. “In an international comparison, the statutory retirement age is already very high at 67 from 2031,” Heil told the newspaper.
