The chairwoman of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), Yasmin Fahimi, has strongly criticized several core recommendations presented in the government commission’s report on pension security, which was released over the weekend.
Speaking to the newspaper “Bild”, Fahimi voiced her anger, specifically targeting the proposals to abolish the “early retirement at 63” option and to raise the general retirement age. She argued that it is a significant error if the pension commission’s report suggests that the length of one’s contribution years holds no weight regarding benefit claims. She emphasized this point by stating that it is fundamentally unjust, noting that current beneficiaries of early retirement often contribute not just 45 years, but, on average, 47 years. Those who benefited today, in her view, contributed an average of ten years longer but were allowed to retire two years sooner, a balance she considers fair and thus should not be eliminated.
Fahimi also dismissed the idea of linking the retirement age to life expectancy-the so-called “retirement at 70”-as an unproductive discussion. She believes that increasing the retirement age will only create a larger group of people who cannot work. According to her, the focus should be placed on addressing the needs of those with medical restrictions. This group is not strictly defined as fully unable to work, nor are they fully able to work, but fall into the middle category. Instead of simply asserting that people must work longer because the state pension cannot be sustained, Fahimi characterized such statements as a tactic designed to frighten citizens and force them into accepting harsh cuts.
In addition to her policy criticism, Fahimi also took aim at Chancellor Friedrich Merz. She defended the delegates who had jeered at him during the DGB Congress in May. Regarding Merz’s public comments, she called his approach of dictating to citizens that there would be less available in the future and that this was a “law of nature” that people failed to understand, a “quite brazen statement” that would naturally provoke a reaction from the audience.
