Erfurt/Berlin (dpa/th) - Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) has criticized planned changes in citizen income under pressure from the Union before the meeting of the mediation committee. "I will not give my consent to the drastic deterioration of the Union," Ramelow told the German Press Agency in Erfurt on Wednesday. However, he hopes that there will still be changes to the results of the negotiations between the Union and the traffic light coalition at the meeting of the mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat on Wednesday evening.
Ramelow accused the CDU/CSU of sparking a jealousy debate aimed at the weakest in society. With the planned changes in housing rights and sanctions, the "citizen's income will be destroyed in its core", improvements are hardly recognizable. The sanctions, which are now to become possible again, are based on a negative image of man. "I don't share that."
The left-wing politician said that people who needed help should not be frightened and panicked by the threat of a change of residence after a year and other regulations.
Ramelow left open whether Thuringia will ultimately agree to the mediation result this Friday in the Bundesrat. "We continue to fight for a citizen's income that deserves its name." Thuringia had still supported the draft of the traffic light government on citizen income in the state chamber.
The citizens' allowance planned by the federal government is intended to replace the current Hartz IV system. In the past few weeks, the Union had opposed central points of the project. Federal states with government participation from the CDU and CSU blocked the reform on November 14 in the Bundesrat and thus ensured that a mediation committee had to be called.
