Chancellor candidates have argued over the future of the German pension system, offering opposite views to the public in the second televised debate which took place yesterday, as the general election on 26 September approaches.

Olaf Scholz, chancellor candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), now leading in the polls, said his party would “guarantee that the retirement age will not increase and that the level of pension remains stable,” also with an eye to the younger generation.

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The SPD has promised in its electoral programme to keep the level of pensions at least at 48% of the average wage.

Scholz attacked experts that in the 1990s said that “it all didn’t work anymore with the pension,” predicting that contributions would increase and the number of employees would decrease, while the opposite has happened.

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“We pay a lower contribution today than we did at the time of (chancellor) Helmut Kohl. We have now six million more employees paying for pensions, and we have to make sure in the future that many have a good job,” Scholz said.

In its electoral programme, the SPD made clear that the supplementary, private old-age provision isn’t a substitute for the statutory pension.

The party supports expanding the statutory pension to self-employed, civil servants and freelance professions and promises to protect long-term insured people who want to retire before reaching the retirement age from pension cuts.

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