The German government said on Tuesday June 23 that it supported the work of a commission advocating a gradual increase in the legal retirement age beyond 67, indexed to life expectancy, in a country facing demographic aging.
According to this commission, whose report was eagerly awaited, the legal retirement age, currently set at 66 years and already promised at 67 years in 2031, must then be “moderately” indexed to changes in life expectancy. According to current demographic projections, it would thus be raised by around six months between 2031 and 2041, a threshold which would be pushed back further in the following decades.
The commission, made up in particular of professors of economics, law and deputies, also recommended the abolition of early retirement without reduction after 45 years of contributions, now possible from the age of 64. It recommends a balance between a system which no longer relies “solely on years of contributions”, but allows people who, after a medical examination, are no longer able to work to “benefit from simplified access to a pension”.
The introduction of a capitalization component is necessary for a viable system, says the commission, which recommends the establishment of an additional contribution rate of 2% of income, financed half by employers and half by employees.
Request for “rapid implementation”
This set of measures fulfills “two objectives: pensions will continue to be assured and the burdens are distributed fairly between all groups in society, between all generations”, declared Chancellor Friedrich Merz at a press conference on the occasion of the presentation of the report.
At his lowest in the polls, the man who had promised to reform the country and revive an economy that had been stalled for years called for the “rapid implementation” of the proposals.
Social Democratic Labor Minister Bärbel Bas said she was “very confident” that the project would result in adoption in parliament, where the coalition only has a small absolute majority. Opposition parties and unions have criticized the commission’s ideas, already mentioned in the media.
“The higher the retirement age, the more the number of those who will not reach it will increase,” reacted Yasmin Fahimi, president of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), in the Ronzheimer podcast.
Faced with demographic aging for half a century, Germany, the oldest country in the EU, recorded in 2025 a drop in its population unprecedented since the end of the Second World War.
