Extraordinary Retirement Benefits: The lingering financial burden
The Government ought to fund exceptional retirement benefits for ex-GDR officials.
You know what, let's get real here. Back in the days of old East Germany—the DDR—there were no less than 27 special pension schemes for various professions. You got officers and policemen, teachers, engineers, scientists, and doctors raking in those extra retirement bucks.
In 2023, those eastern states had to cough up a whopping 2.68 billion euros to keep these DDR additional and special pension schemes afloat, as per stats from Saxony-Anhalt.
Time for the Feds to Step Up: A Prerequisite for Relief
Initially, the eastern states bore a staggering 60% of the additional pension costs, with the feds taking care of the remaining 40%. In early 2021, the federal government roughed up its share to a slightly fairer 50%.
Not content with this, the Union and SPD at the federal level agreed, as part of their official coalition agreement, to ease the burden on the eastern states by shouldering an extra 10 percentage points. Last year, Saxony-Anhalt's state leader, Reiner Haseloff from the CDU, was demanding even more relief for those eastern states.
Dietmar Woidke, Minister-President of Brandenburg (SPD), feels it's high time the feds took full control of the payment for these DDR special and additional pensions. He's been hollering that the eastern states have forked over billions for these pension systems over the past few decades, and it's clearly the federal government's responsibility to shoulder the financial weight now.
Now, it seems Woidke and Haseloff want to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement, pushing for the federal government to take on an even larger share. Let's see what happens next in this ongoing dance of federal dollars and state responsibilities.
- The ongoing financial burden of the DDR special and additional pensions is a hot topic in policy-and-legislation and politics, with the Union and SPD agreeing to ease the burden on the eastern states by taking on an extra 10 percentage points.
- General-news outlets report that Dietmar Woidke, Minister-President of Brandenburg (SPD), and Reiner Haseloff, the state leader of Saxony-Anhalt (CDU), are pushing for the federal government to take on an even larger share of the DDR special and additional pensions payment, arguing that the eastern states have spent billions on these pension systems over the years.
