The deputy SPD chairman Alexander Schweitzer is calling for changes to the reform course of Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU). “For Friedrich Merz, reforms mean that growth can only come about through cuts in the welfare state,” Schweitzer told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. But reforms must be fair and everyone must make their contribution. "Instead, the Chancellor breathes the cold neoliberal spirit of the 1990s."
Merz was also elected by people who did not necessarily value him personally, but who attributed him economic competence. "And now they notice: He doesn't deliver," said the former Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate. The Chancellor is telling people that they don't work enough.
Schweitzer: “He should talk to people on an equal level”
"And then these pension policy proposals come, and everyone's voice rings in their ears: We can't afford you anymore, and no matter how much you've worked, you have to get less of what you're entitled to." No one is rallying behind this "negative message." “He should talk to people on an equal level, that’s what you can expect from him.”
The portrayal of the pension reform as an “overall package” and as a house of cards that will collapse if the pension without deductions remains is “nonsense,” said Schweitzer. "If you look at it soberly, this is about a commission that made suggestions and which now need to be discussed - not about Moses, who came down from the mountain with two stone tablets."
Schweitzer also sees reasons for the CDU's crisis in the years of Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). "Mrs. Merkel consciously refrained from political debates and invited whole sections of society out of the political dialogue, which became a non-voter reservoir." They would come back. "But not with the SPD, CDU, the Greens or FDP, but with the AfD."
At the beginning of July, the black-red coalition decided on an extensive reform package that is intended to advance the economy and relieve the burden on low earners. The “Program for Recovery and Employment” provides for over 30 measures, ranging from a moderate tax reform, easing of labor law, a reduction in bureaucracy to a ban on the nationalization of private rental housing stock at the state level.
Read: “We’re not a football club”
Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Olaf Lies (SPD) is also calling for corrections to the federal government's reform package. This must be socially cushioned. »The vast majority of the reform package remains in place. But you can't just push your head against the wall and implement reforms for which there is no acceptance," he told the Handelsblatt. Lies spoke out against abolishing pensions at 63. “Anyone who currently has 45 years of contributions should be able to retire earlier than someone without these years,” he said. »It annoys me when I get the impression that it doesn't matter how long someone has been depositing. That’s indecent towards people who go to work despite having less money.”
Lies is also pushing for corrections to the labor market reforms. »I'm thinking of the block model of partial retirement as a transition to retirement. We urgently need that if the transformation in our companies is to succeed. The SPD politician also criticized the fact that the reform package did not stimulate growth enough. »Here I am primarily thinking about our high energy prices, which we have to reduce. I think the network fees must be removed as completely as possible from the electricity price and financed through the federal budget.
However, Lies doesn't believe in a possible change of chancellor. "We're not a football club where you change the coach and then play the Champions League." The challenges haven't disappeared just because the top team has been replaced. »These personnel debates only distract from the actual problems. I really recommend verbal disarmament.”
