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FDP deputy Vogel in the Bundestag: parliamentary group manager insists on changes to the pension package
Photo: Serhat Kocak / dpa
The pension level is permanently guaranteed at the current level, in return a capital stock for financing - the FDP parliamentary group manager Johannes Vogel does not consider this planned reform package from the federal government to be approved in the form currently available. “As it stands at the moment, in my opinion, the pension package does not yet meet the requirements of the coalition agreement with regard to generation-appropriate security,” said the First Parliamentary Managing Director of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. “That’s not enough yet.”
Vogel, who is also deputy FDP party leader, referred to the coalition agreement as justification. It is stipulated there that the minimum level of 48 percent should be set permanently. However, there is also a condition for this: this guarantee must be “secured across generations”. Now it is important to “improve the overall package in this sense,” said Vogel.
Vogel therefore suggests a number of additions as options, including entry into a “real stock pension” and an exit from the so-called pension at 63, which is now a pension at 64 due to the increase in the retirement age. A “real stock pension” could happen, for example, through the accelerated expansion of a funded component in the pension insurance. As with the so-called Swedish model, part of the compulsory contributions - for example two percent of gross earnings - would flow into an individual funded investment, such as a sovereign wealth fund. The capital created in this way would then be the property of the insured person and not, as with the planned generational capital, a financing pot for the entire statutory pension.
But he was also “happy to talk about whether we can leave retirement behind at 63,” said Vogel. This is now also classified by the head of the Federal Employment Agency, Andrea Nahles, as being rather harmful to meeting the need for skilled workers, who introduced the regulation as Federal Labor Minister.
At the beginning of March, Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) jointly presented their proposals for the two-part legislative package: The annual pension increases should not be less than the increase in wages, even if increasing numbers of pensioners place a burden on those paying contributions. At the same time, “generational capital” should be built up and contribute to financing the additional expenses through share investments in a public fund. According to the federal government's calculations, this capital stock will only cover around a quarter of the additional expenditure on the pension guarantee of 30 to 40 billion euros annually from the mid-1930s onwards. The pension contribution rate would then rise from today's 18.6 to 22.3 percent.
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