Overview
- Coalition leaders met at the Kanzleramt on Wednesday to push a multi-sector reform package that covers taxes, pensions, health, care, labour rules and bureaucracy reduction.
- Party chiefs have largely accepted the Rentenkommission recommendations and are setting a concrete timetable to turn the pension blueprint into law.
- The health 'Spargesetz' is the most advanced item and the government aims to pass the savings law in the Bundestag before the parliamentary summer break.
- Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil presented two income-tax models with very different costs, and the coalition has not agreed how to finance relief for small and middle incomes because proposals such as higher top rates, inheritance changes and spending cuts face Union resistance.
- Proposals to loosen the eight-hour daily limit and to stabilise long-term care funding remain disputed, while left-wing SPD MPs press for wealth levies, all of which could reshape who pays and how public services are funded.