Overview

• SPD General Secretary Tim Klüssendorf said the party will stick to Labor Minister Bärbel Bas’s package and pressed CDU/CSU leader Jens Spahn to secure his caucus’s support.
• Bas’s draft would keep the statutory pension level at 48 percent beyond 2031, a move the Union’s Junge Gruppe says was not agreed within the coalition.
• The 18-member Junge Gruppe is threatening to vote down the bill and argues it would add roughly €115 billion in costs by 2040.
• Chancellor Friedrich Merz backed MPs’ right to raise concerns and noted the coalition deal fixed the 48 percent level only until 2031, which the Junge Gruppe says bolsters its stance.
• The SPD floated expanding the pool of contributors—such as self-employed people, lawmakers and possibly new civil servants—while separate reporting says the European Commission is considering tying parts of the next EU budget to pension reforms from 2028, a step not yet adopted.