2024-09-12 03:49:29
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised today that his government will aim to ensure that young people can count on a stable income after retirement. He made these words during the presentation of Germany’s draft budget for 2025, DPA reported.
“The fact that we want to guarantee a stable level of pensions in Germany is one of the main plans of this government,” Scholz said during the debate on the proposed budget of his coalition in parliament.
However, opposition politician Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), criticized the budget and accused Scholz’s government of damaging the free market.
“The budget for social services is growing seriously,” Merz warned during the debate in Berlin. He argued that the Scholz-led coalition had broken any consensus between older and younger generations and was shifting social policy unilaterally onto the backs of younger citizens who would have to pay the price.
Only the strict limits on the budget deficit, supported by the CDU, have prevented “the growth of the national debt” under the Scholz government, Mertz claims.
“You worsen the competitive conditions for the German economy with every decision you make in your coalition. We are moving more and more in the direction of a planned economy,” said Merz, quoted by BTA.
But the chancellor backed the pension commitments set out in the draft budget, saying the country’s 17-year-olds, who are now leaving school and will be paying pension contributions for five decades, need to know what they can count on in the future.
“The most important asset that many in our country have is their right to a pension, their pension provision,” he added.
Scholz also pledged to do everything in his power to support families and move forward with an increase in full-day child care and daycare centers. The government is spending billions of euros on these efforts, he said.
The chancellor also stressed that he wants to offer senior citizens more flexibility by allowing them to work until an older age if they so wish.
Johan Vadeful of the CDU, for his part, sharply criticized the modest increase in the army budget, which is still far from what was requested by the country’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius.
Wadeful added that the budget is far short of what is needed to rebuild Germany’s defense capabilities and to fulfill Scholz’s promise in 2022 of a turning point in German defense policy after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Scholz’s words turn out to be a “cheap cliché,” Vadefull said.
High inflation means that a modest increase in the defense budget is actually a cut, Vadeful said, adding: “You are taking money away from the Bundeswehr instead of giving it the resources it needs to rebuild.”