The Union and SPD want to clarify pension reform in the next few days

Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) has announced that the Union and the SPD want to clarify controversial issues regarding pension reform “in the next few days”. There is no debate about the pension commission's proposal, but rather a discussion about how it should be implemented, said Dobrindt on the ZDF program Maybrit Illner. There are no longer many open points.

One aspect that the two parties are still discussing is the implementation of the pension without deductions after 45 years of contributions - the so-called pension at 63 years. The CDU wants to go back to the original idea and enable people who do hard physical work to retire after 45 years of contributions, said Dobrindt. The SPD, on the other hand, does not want to “narrow down” the regulations to individual professional groups because this would be difficult to implement, said SPD General Secretary Tim Klüssendorf.

For the SPD it is important "that it must make a difference whether I have really paid in for 45 years or whether I have not completed this period," said Klüssendorf. It is possible that at the end of the discussion there will be "a different number" than 45 years - the Bild newspaper recently reported that early retirement after 46 or 47 years of contributions was under discussion.

Wüst calls for the text of the law to be published soon

The early pension makes it possible to take early retirement two years before the standard retirement age without any deductions if you have at least 45 years of contributions. Abolishing it is part of the pension commission's reform recommendations, which the two parties had already agreed on in July. The Pension Commission came up with 33 proposals. However, abolishing early retirement is unpopular. The SPD distanced itself from it, and there is also criticism in the CDU.