Thuringia's state government has been campaigning for years to end the discrimination against certain groups of pensioners in East Germany. Now a federal proposal is on the table. Thuringia sees further need for negotiations.
Erfurt/Berlin (dpa/th) - Thuringia's federal plans for a hardship fund for certain groups of pensioners in eastern Germany do not go far enough. When asked in Erfurt, government spokesman Falk Neubert said that it is good that the federal government - even if it does not adapt the pension law - at least wants to alleviate great hardship. A fund of around 500 million euros is under discussion. "However, it is very critical that only some of the affected groups should be taken into account."
According to Neubert, this applies, among other things, to wives who helped out in the GDR era - there was no such status in West Germany before reunification.
Thuringia and the other East German federal states have been campaigning for years to end the discrimination against certain groups of pensioners in East Germany. These included divorced women or helping wives in small GDR businesses or handicraft businesses. There are more than a dozen such groups that were not given sufficient consideration at reunification, said Neubert. "Thuringia will continue to look for regulations alongside the other federal states."
The financial participation of the federal states is also being debated. Neubert confirms that the federal government alone is actually responsible for pension matters. Whether and to what extent the countries may still participate has been discussed for a long time.
The budget committee in the Bundestag released the 500 million euros for the fund last week after years of back and forth between the federal and state governments. It should be possible to make one-off payments to pensioners on the poverty line who lost their entitlements when the GDR pensions were transferred to the German system three decades ago.
The fund is to be located at the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs. The federal states should have the option of paying in. How much each applicant gets depends on the total. The fund is also intended for cases of hardship among Jewish immigrants and late resettlers. Money could flow in 2024, it said in Berlin.
