The CDU member of the Bundestag Christoph Ploss was one of the few who openly criticized the basic pension compromise last Tuesday in the session of the Union faction. Consequently, Ploss has now submitted an application for the CDU Federal Party Conference at the end of this week in Leipzig, in which he insists on several conditions of his party for the implementation.
Even if Ploss says he wanted to "do not question" the laboriously found agreement with the SPD - a new debate would bring it to the Christian Democrats in any case.
For the chairman Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, which is already ailing in the party congress, that would be as bad news as Chancellor Angela Merkel. She had been instrumental in the coalition's commitment to compromise with the SPD.
The one-and-half-page Ploß paper (it is the SPIEGEL) does not yet have the required 30 signatures to be submitted as an own motion at the congress - the deadline for regular applications has expired. But given the dissatisfaction in the CDU with the ground rent compromise, there is no doubt that this hurdle is being taken.
Ploß, vice-chairman of the Hamburg CDU, has according to own data already a lot of positive feedback from delegates, including several members of parliament and with Thorsten Frei a parliamentary vice. Frei confirmed to the SPIEGEL that he supports the application. The Hamburg CDU is behind the request.
SME Association and Young Union are considering approval
And the member of parliament can hope for even more solid backing: According to SPIEGEL information, there are both in the SME association of CDU and CSU (MIT) and in the youth organization Junge Union (JU) far advanced considerations to support the Grundrenten application or possibly one to bring in common paper. MIT and JU have a great deal of weight at the party congress because of their delegates - and could thus bring about a majority.
Interesting in this context is the role of Friedrich Merz, who has many fans at MIT and JU. The CDU politician, who is said to have ambitions for the next Union Chancellor candidate, had welcomed the agreement on the basic pension.
Union and SPD had long argued over the issue of means testing. In the end, people agreed on a broad income test, but the assets should be left out. A failure of the negotiations would have strengthened on both sides those who want to end the coalition, correspondingly large was the relief of the tips of the Union and the SPD on the compromise.
The Ploss proposal would re-open the debate at the CDU party congress. "For the CDU, therefore, the following conditions for the introduction of the basic pension remain essential," writes the member of the Bundestag in his application. In it he demands:
- The automatic data exchange between tax authorities and the German pension insurance must "work flawlessly". He must be so automated, "that no case by case review by the pension insurance and thus no comprehensive staffing are required." The pension insurance had warned immediately after the agreement that it might have to hire thousands of new employees.
- It should be ensured that all capital gains are taken into account in the income test. This in turn would bring you back to an examination of your total assets.
- In the case of foreign pensions, the income should be taken into account analogously to domestic pensions.
- The financing must be guaranteed by the agreed financial transaction tax - but "in a European context".
The last point is particularly tricky, because SPD Vice-Chancellor and Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had last in an interview, a rapid national solution to the financial transaction tax in prospect. "The Minister of Finance must abide by the agreements," says Ploss.
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