Germany news: Fraught pension package passes CDU test vote

A charter flight brought 192 Afghans formerly promised refuge in Germany from Islamabad in Pakistan to Erfurt Airport on Tuesday, an Interior Minstry spokeswoman said.

It's the first flight chartered flight of its kind since Chancellor Friedrich Merz's coalition took office in May. It brought in people promised protection after the sudden NATO exit from Afghanistan and the Taliban reclaiming power in 2021.

However, several have come to Germany from Pakistan on commercial flights in recent months. The Interior Ministry also says 62 people have taken a cash payment in exchange for giving up their right to reside.

The people in question include those who worked with German organizations or the military and their families, and others deemed particularly at risk of Taliban reprisals because of their work in support of secular rights, for instance as lawyers, judges or teachers.

Merz's government sought to delay the process, after the previous German government had approved their entry, in the first months after coming to power. It said it wanted to repeat vetting processes. But it struggled with domestic backlash and legal challenges to the delays. 

Pakistan, which borders Afghanistan and where the people had fled temporarily, had given Berlin until the end of the year to complete the admissions process, having previously threatened to deport them.

Police in Germany made three arrests after raiding eight apartments and brothels in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg on Tuesday.

The raids targeted Chinese gangs illegally smuggling women into German to work as prostitutes.

Two Chinese nationals (aged 32 and 41) and a German (aged 59) were arrested, though police say two more individuals are also being sought. 

The Chinese suspects are accused of having set up their business with Chinese prostitutes and operated it in Germany since at least August 2024. The ring operates at 75 sites in 14 states say authorities.

Using more than 160 cellphone numbers, the Chinese gang set up over 1,100 ads on online erotic platforms to drum up business at rented vacation homes and construction containers. 

The German is accused of being a driver for the gang and for occasionally renting apartments for it.

Some 280 officers took part in Tuesday's raids. These turned up numerous electronic devices and passports.

Authorities say the women involved did not have proper working papers. They are thought to have willingly entered into prostitution in order to split profits with the gang say federal police.

It is unclear how many women may be involved. 

The five individuals under investigation are accused of running an illegal smuggling operation, welfare fraud and tax evasion. 

AFP and dpa news agencies are reporting that a majority of CDU/CSU parliamentarians voted in favor of a proposed pension package that several young conservatives threatened to torpedo.

Citing participants in a closed-door practice vote, the package is said to have garnered overwhelming support.

The exact number of no votes and abstentions is not known, though media reported perhaps 15 no votes and a number of abstentions. 

A final vote will be held on Friday. Anyone intending to vote against the package has been told by party whips to notify leadership by noon Thursday. 

In an effort to avoid a situation like this July's judicial appointment debacle, the vote will not be anonymous.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz faces potential rebellion from within.

The leader of his conservative CDU party's youth organization, Johannes Winkel, heads a group of 18 young MPs unwilling to sign off on a pension reform that would shift an additional more than €100 billion ($116 billion) in pension costs onto the shoulders of the young.

So far there are mixed signals. Both sides know this is now more of a vote about the stability of Merz' coalition with the center-left SPD than anything else. Still, the rebels insist this is about whether Germany is capable of meaningful reform rather than continuing to throw money at a political problem that has been talked about for decades.

The stakes are high. Too high to fail the chancellor over this. But the political price will be high for Merz. The chancellor may find himself having to make promises to his young MPs with growing doubt over whether he will be able to keep them.

The coalition with the SPD was always going to be tough. The concepts over what the welfare state should deliver to whom are miles apart. 

But there simply is no political alternative in the center. A failure to bridge that gap would amount to helping the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) get a major step ahead in their growing determination to hold power. 

The leader of the CDU parliamentary party, Jens Spahn, has called on a group of young conservative lawmakers who oppose the government's proposed pensions package to drop their objections and vote "yes" at a parliamentary vote on Friday.

Spahn said that the leadership of the conservative CDU/CSU parliamentary bloc expected that the package would receive a clear majority at a test vote among the parliamentary group held on Tuesday.

"And if that is the case, there is a clear expectation that those who see the matter differently vote together with the bloc," he said.

He said he respected the youth group for voicing their criticism.

"The message that reforms are necessary has been put across," he said.

But he warned that the stability of the coalition government would be put in jeopardy if the pensions package were not approved.

"Germany needs a stable coalition," he said.

The youth group has claimed that the pensions package as it stands, which would lock in pensions at 48% of the average income until 2031, would overburden future generations.

The western city of Cologne, Germany's third-largest in terms of population, will play the leading role in the Rhine-Ruhr region's bid to host the Olympics in 2036, 2040 or 2044, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state premier Hendrik Wüst said on Tuesday.

Wüst made his remarks after meeting with representatives of the municipalities involved in the bid in Düsseldorf, the state capital.

"We are offering Germany and the world the most compact, sustainable and spectacular Olympic Games. The strongest bid for the Olympic Games comes from us," he said.

"At the moment, we assume that we will be able to offer around 14 million tickets. An absolute record," Wüst said.

Among other things, the athletics stadium would be built in Cologne as a temporary facility, parts of which will later be used for other purposes. 

Wüst said the Olympic Village — which would offer accommodation for around 95% of athletes — would also be located in Cologne. 

Other sports venues would be spread across other municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia.  

The German Olympics body, DOSB, plans to decide in the third quarter of 2026 which city or region will bid and for which Summer Games, with Berlin, Hamburg and Munich also in the running.

North Rhine-Westphalia is to hold a referendum on April 19 on whether its Rhine-Ruhr region should move forward with the bid, after Munich residents recently voted in favor.

Germany on Tuesday unveiled a new drone defense unit of the federal police, a move that comes after the country, along with other European states, recently experienced a spate of drone incursions widely blamed on Russia.

The federal police unit will have "a clear mandate to detect, defend, intercept and, if necessary, shoot down drones," Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said at a ceremony near Berlin.

"We cannot accept that hybrid threats using drones remain a danger to our security," he added.

Dobrindt said that the new unit would ultimately be staffed by more than 130 officers and that Germany would be investing more than €100 million ($116 million) in anti-drone technology over the coming year.

He said a new joint drone defense center, which will coordinate responses between federal police, local authorities and the military, is also likely to be announced this week.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecast on Tuesday that the German economy will experience slight growth in 2025 before growing by 1% next year.

The OECD said it predicts that gross domestic product (GDP) will inch up by 0.3% this year, rising to 1% in 2026 and 1.5% in 2027.

The 2026 figure represents a 0.1 percentage point downward revision of the OECD's forecast in September.

"Private consumption will increase due to low inflation, rising nominal wages and decreasing domestic policy uncertainty," the OECD said.

In comparison, GDP across the OECD countries as a whole is expected to grow by 3.2% this year, slowing to 2.9% in 2026 before climbing back up to 3.1% in 2027. 

The picture presented by the OECD is rosier than that put forward earlier in the day by the Federation of German Industries (BDI), whose president, Peter Leibinger, spoke of Germany's industrial sector being in "free fall," as noted in a previous entry.

 

A delivery truck carrying ammunition for a Bundeswehr barracks in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt was robbed last week, German media has reported.

Almost 2,000 rounds were missing when the delivery arrived.

The Defense Ministry has confirmed the theft and said the delivery driver is to blame for taking an unplanned stop.

A spokesperson for the ministry confirmed that ammunition had been "lost" and spoke of a "very serious incident" that was "exceptional in its scope." The ammunition had been transported in a civilian vehicle.

The German Armed Forces have 1,500 properties, and a large amount of freight has to be transported every day. The Bundeswehr cannot handle all of this themselves, and use of civilian transport vehicles is "quite common," the ministry added.

The contracted companies need to be qualified and must meet certain requirements. Which requirements were apparently not met in this case is now part of the investigation being conducted by Jerichoer Land police and the public prosecutor's office.

The Bundeswehr is however partially involved in the investigation — including the military intelligence service MAD, as well as the security officer on site, and military police for the forensic investigation.

The spokesperson did not comment on where the truck with the ammunition came from — directly from a private company or another location. However, the destination was the logistics site in the town of Burg.

For the full story, read DW's report on the Bundeswehr ammunition theft.

Media outlet RTL Deutschland is to make large job cuts as it carries out a restructuring program to adapt to a challenging economic environment, its CEO, Stephan Schmitter, told the DPA news agency on Tuesday.

He said around 600 positions would disappear, including both full-time and part-time roles.

Schmitter said the broadcaster needed to restructure to adapt both to profound changes in the media market and the difficult economic situation but insisted that the restructuring would be "as socially responsible, respectful and transparent as possible."

Among other things, a special severance program has been developed to support employees who lose their jobs, he said.

"The social plan we negotiated with the works council is intended to avoid redundancies as much as possible," he said, saying that mitigation measures included phased retirement and severance payments.

Both the ongoing recession and weak TV advertising markets have put pressure on private broadcasters in Germany, with linear TV advertising revenues in Germany falling by more than 20% since 2019.

RTL Deutschland is part of the international RTL Group, Europe's largest commercial broadcasting group. In Germany, the company operates the RTL, ntv and Vox channels as well as streaming service RTL+.

Germany's economy, Europe's biggest, is undergoing the "deepest crisis" in postwar history, an industry group has warned, while calling for urgent action from the conservative-led coalition government.

The president of the Federation of German Industries, Peter Leibinger, said the economy was "in free fall, but the federal government is not responding decisively enough."

"Germany now needs an economic policy turnaround with clear priorities for competitiveness and growth," he said.

The BDI warned that the situation was "not a temporary economic dip, but a structural decline" and predicted a fall in industrial production for a fourth consecutive year in 2025.

The German economy has faced a slew of major challenges in recent years, ranging from high energy costs and reduced demand for its exports to growing economic rivalry with China and the unpredictable tariffs coming from Washington.

These have led to two years of recession, with meager growth predicted in 2025 as well.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the right-wing Christian Democrats (CDU) has vowed to revive the economy but has faced increasing criticism that his government has undertaken too little in this regard in the six months since taking office.

German chocolate production reached 12.8 kilos per person in 2024, according to the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis).

That's equivalent to two and a half 100g bars of chocolate per person every week.

However, this did not mean that Germans were feasting on all this chocolate. Some 981,400 tonnes were exported, with only 525,400 being imported.

This left consumption at around 614,000 tons.

Of the imported chocolate, Belgian was the favorite, accounting for around a quarter of imports.

A large share of exports were also destined for neighboring countries, with France (12.3%), Poland (9.9%) and the UK (9.4%) being the biggest consumers of German chocolate.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has removed a council member from its faction in the west German town of Herford after he gave a speech at the AfD youth organization's founding congress on Saturday that was reminiscent of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The party was trying to set up a new youth organization, Generation Germany, after the previous one was labelled as confirmed extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

The event was also met with thousands of protesters.

Alexander Eichwald, an unknown newcomer to the party, took to the stage calling to his "party comrades," saying: "We share our love and loyalty to Germany here together."

Emphasizing the trilled R pronunciation that conjures images of Hitler, the 30-year-old continued, "it is and remains our national duty to protect German culture from foreign influences," sparking boos from the crowd.

His local branch of the party is now looking to expel him.

The BfV for the state of Thuringia has reportedly already started looking into the new youth organization as potentially right-wing extremist.

Stephen Kramer, president of the local BfV office, said that it was not just a single speech that was driving the investigation, but rather all the speeches and contributions.

"Ethnic nationalism and allusions and parallels to the guiding principles of the Hitler Youth are some of the points of reference here," Kramer told RND newspaper network.

Like many Western European countries, Germany has an aging population that needs to be cared for in retirement, but who also make up a key voting bloc, especially for the two main coalition parties — SPD and CDU.

The parties had agreed to a pension reform in their coalition agreement that would lock in pensions at 48% of the average income until 2031.

Another key aspect is the introduction of the "active pension" that aims to encourage pensioners to keep working voluntarily.

But it is the cost of the pensions that has created a fracture within the coalition government, with the 18 members of CDU/CSU youth group in the Bundestag threatening to vote against the reform. The government only has a 12-seat majority.

The plan to keep pensions in line with incomes is expected to cost the state €11 billion ($12.77 billion) by 2031 and up to €15 billion a year after that if the pinned rate increases, which is what the SPD wants.

The coalition has refused to make changes to the reform to appease the rebellious lawmakers, but Merz has offered a discussion on even deeper reforms for the pension system after 2031.

On Monday, the CDU/CSU youth group continued to say it could not vote in favor of the bill, but stopped short of a full rebellion, saying that each member could vote independently.

On Tuesday, the conservative parliamentary group is set to discuss the legislation and hold a test vote to see if they have the numbers ahead of Friday's real vote.

SPD's co-leader Bärbel Bas has said that a failed vote then could stall all further legislation and threaten Merz's government.

Good morning from rainy Bonn!

Tuesday looks set to be a deciding day for the future of Germany's coalition government with the CDU/CSU holding a test vote on a pension reform package. 

A lack of necessary votes could undermine the government and further fracture the coalition.

The Bundestag will also hold a memorial hour for the victims of the Paris attacks ten years ago.