SPD Secretary‑General Tim Klüssendorf said on Monday’s “Frühstart” programme on RTL and ntv that politicians feel it is unfair that, within a few years, they cannot secure a decent pension simply by serving in the Bundestag. He called for extending mandatory pension contributions to civil servants, self‑employed people, and politicians alike. “If we can make politicians pay into the pension scheme immediately, that isn’t a huge cost burden overall, but it has a strong symbolic value” he explained. “In a solidarity system, everyone should contribute and we should not have different groups with separate pension funds”.
Klüssendorf also noted that civil servants already receive a higher pension, financed in a different way, but the system includes provisions that help smooth the transition. “Gradually shifting newly appointed civil servants into the same scheme would be a major contribution to fairness, because ultimately everyone ends up in the same system and the overall stability improves” he said.
On the retirement issue, Klüssendorf sees room for compromise with the Union. He referred to the pension commission that the SPD has set up, which, he said, meets regularly, works hard, and is developing proposals that will, in the end, satisfy both sides of the coalition. The CDU is also debating how to treat civil servants. CDU Secretary‑General Carsten Linnemann, for example, has demanded that only the “absolute core” be civil servants. Klüssendorf stressed that this is not a fight, but an exchange of positions, and that far fewer divisions remain on certain points than the parties usually acknowledge.