German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called on members of the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, to support his government's planned pension reform, saying it would lead to "a lasting stabilization of retirement incomes" with a new overall provision level.
Speaking in the Bundestag one day after receiving pension proposals from a government commission, Merz said: "This is a major step, if we can agree and pass it together here in the Bundestag by the end of the year."
Before a scheduled question-and-answer session with members of parliament on Wednesday, Merz issued an explicit appeal to lawmakers "to now engage constructively in the deliberations."
Joint success and the lasting stabilization of retirement provision in Germany were achievable, he said.
The chancellor said he was confident the planned reforms would have an impact and described the pension reform as a central building block of a wide-ranging reform agenda.
"We will make very concrete further proposals on how to improve the labour market in Germany and how to improve the competitiveness of our economy," he said.
"If we manage this in the coalition this year as I have outlined, with the further steps we still need to take, then we will have made a truly fundamental new decision for prosperity, for the labour market and for retirement provision in Germany," Merz said.
