The social association VdK supports the initiative of the new Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Bärbel Bas, to include civil servants in the statutory pension insurance system.

VdK President Verena Bentele congratulated the SPD politician on her "courageous start to her ministerial office" and on "not being afraid to question traditional privileges."

Bas had told the Funke Media Group newspapers that the revenues of the statutory pension insurance system needed to be improved. "Civil servants, members of parliament, and the self-employed should also contribute to the pension insurance system."

"Completely out of date"

Bentele agreed: "It's completely out of date for civil servants and politicians to evade the solidarity-based pension system," she told the German Press Agency in Berlin. "Germany must move away from the threat of cuts and the constant uncertainty of the people when it comes to pensions. Instead, we must focus on stable and higher sources of contribution income." Furthermore, high-income earners must be more involved in financing pensions.

The German Civil Service Federation (dbb) immediately rejected the BAS proposal. "We clearly reject compulsory, uniform insurance," said dbb Federal Chairman Ulrich Silberbach.

Bentele, on the other hand, emphasized that an employment insurance scheme into which everyone contributes would not only close a major equity gap, "but also a financing gap in the statutory pension system until the 2070s."